Its been quite a while since I updated this thread to say the least. Its not that I have forgotten about it, its not that I don't want to. Its just that I keep hoping I am going to post on here one day celebrating the fact that my van is back and running fine..but for now... its not.
So, after my last post. I got in touch with the mechanic and kept getting excuses, and excuses and... more excuses. So I got to a point where I had enough. I told him I would be up on a particular date and that one way or the other it was leaving with me. I was either going to drive it away or drag it.
I have a good friend who runs a warehousing and distribution company (along with a fleet of awesome LT35's!). So I arranged for him to get a trailer and his favourite van and to meet me there. All geared up and ready for the day I was getting ready, until he told me the day before his driver had just written off the trailer. So, being a man of my word I drove down there on the day and found my van. The mechanic sent me a text message about 15 minutes before I arrived saying he had to go out and do a few bits so wouldn't be there. I was slightly disappointed as I expected to have a bit of a showdown with him over what had gone on. Anyway, I found the van parked up outside.. It looked vaguely like my van but there was as much in the back as there was in the engine bay. Being the determined sort, I rang around and found a towing company that would move my van within a radius for £50. So half an hour later, they had it on the back of their lorry and I sent it to my Grandma's house to put on her driveway.
Then a couple of weeks my friend had got hold of a shiny new trailer. He moved it back to near my house so that I could work out what to do with it.
So.... I'm now left with half a van, in an uncertain state of repair or disrepair, I was starting to think about selling it and going over to the dark side. For the money that I had lost I didn't want to throw good money after bad. I also have a good friend who loves to play around with cars. He had just rebuilt his mini and was familiar with my van after having spent lots of time with me working on it. He loves my van.... so he nagged me.... and nagged me...and kept on nagging me about letting him rebuild it until eventually despite my fears I agreed.
His wife was overjoyed ( I: ) when it arrived on their driveway! We started going through what it had and didn't have. I discovered all the paperwork for the engine proving history/servicing, the clocks and numerous other things missing. My friend (who I am sure will post on here soon, and will ask at some point to post a detailed write up of what he has done) took it apart. It turns out that the work done by the previous guy appears to be ok. He has had attention to detail in certain places, but got lost in the wiring and stuff from what we can see.
So Jon (im not referring to myself in the third person, he is called Jon to) has been hard at work fabricating some custom parts, tinkering and most importantly.... spending
LOTS of my money. The mad monkey is hoping for some serious horsepower out of the engine.
I help out as much as I can, but the level of work involved is beyond my skill (none)..So when this van hits the road.... I'm going to owe Jon more than just mere beer tokens. So far, he has fallen in love with my van so much he has bought one of his own (except his runs!). So I have donated my banded steels to him....
As for the original mechanic, I am currently chasing him through the small claims court for my money back and damages. I will let you know how it all goes.
