[beardedgeek]

Hi all!

I've been a reader for a while, but finally bought my first t4 last weekend. My fathers half way through a project of his own too, so he's inspired me to sell the daily driver mini cooper and get this. Plus we found out in March that we're expecting our first baby so the mini had to go anyway!

8 hours travelling last Saturday and I returned home in our 2000 1.9 TD SWB white panel van. It's got 117k on the clock, so a little less than the average one of this age on ebay etc. It pulled home nicely, but the water light started flashing as I pulled away from the Severn toll 0 - 60 drag strip. We've had a closer look and it seems as if it's leaking from the hose coming out of the bottom. I did stress it was head gasket or head cracked but having filled it up it's taken ages to start flashing again and the pipe looks a little wet so I'll take a look at it this weekend.

The plan is to convert it as cheaply as possible, seeing as we have a baby on the way, and make the most of cheap weekends away. The other half is keen to help too and get it done so I shouldn't get it in the neck for spending so much time out working on it!

Tonights job was removing the plywood that it came with:

Clean out the years of behind it all

Nice and clean!

Flashband on to deaden the panels a little. Surprised at the difference with this stuff on

One side done. I've left the top pannel on the front because I plan on fitting windows here and in the sliding door

Fiddly and messy jobs those back doors!

And to finish it all off, some birthday wine

 

[dAAn]

Good work so far, looks a clean example!

 

[beardedgeek]

Yeah overall I'm very happy with it. The diesel flap is very rusty, and there's some rust on the sills under the front doors but other than a few dings the panel work is rust free. I'll get some decent pictures of the bodywork it needs this weekend but it's definitely a nice base to work with.

My fathers one spent a couple of weeks in the body shop. I think he removed about 20 dings / bumps / dents, and ended up respraying it all but it looks like new now so was definitely worth it. I've been telling him to get his pictures uploaded and to start a build thread.

 

[beardedgeek]

I've spent the last week or two ebaying the various bits I'll need to sort out the 12v electrics and 240v. All that's left to buy is an inverter for when we're on battery, and a decent 10a battery charger for when we're on hookup to keep the battery topped up and run the 12v stuff.

I also sold the mini today, so that's freed up a little funds to get the MVM carpet ordered. It should be here Monday, which means this weekend is wiring time.

The plan is to have the battery in the engine bay, so I can use my 180a split charge relay and run decent 16mm2 cable between the two batteries. That way even if I run the leisure flat, if I start the engine it won't pop a measly 30a fuse if the battery was in the back hooked up using 30a cable. Plus it frees up a little room so I can use under the seats for storage or for hiding some goodies like the Rasb Pi or some amps.

I've noticed it's pulling to the right quite a bit when driving, and the left front tyre has a lot of wear on the outside so I think either the tracking is really out, or the toe rod needs replacing. Either way I'll be ordering some rear springs, drop it all, replace the rods then get the tracking aligned all in one go. I've had a full of scraping the top of the van on the exit sign in the works car park so it's a perfect excuse to get it decked. I'll black hammerite the steelies until I can afford some nice dished 17s.

No update post is interesting without pictures, so I have this for now... I'll put some decent pictures up of all the new electric bits on the weekend.