alixcompo

I donated a fiver the other day. Did you get it, as your thingy at the top of the screen hasn't updated.? Or is it a cunning ploy to make us think "ah that's a shame they only have a few pounds; I'll send them some.."

Just read the thread from start to finish. Fantastic to see it from hedgerow to War & Peace. Well done. Number two now then.....?

I only went from Essex but that can be a bit like driving through three or four countries..!!!!!!!!!

In 2012 two remarkable things happened despite the nay sayers. The Olympics were better than Sydney and created an overwhelming surge of national pride And War and Peace went ahead despite all those claiming H & E and apathy would prevent it. I celerbrate being British

As ever I am in awe. Humbled in your combined presence. Many thanks

Further to my electrolysis experiments.............................. I am only using a 4 amp battery charger and am beginning to suspect that large items may need more power. This isn't an alternitive to bead/grit blasting. It is very slow gentle and only removes corroded material. However; it definately works. Though the parts come out of the tank looking pretty sad, a good wire brushing leaves them rustless and back to sound metal. It is much more effective than even rotary brushing alone. So I will continue to de-rust using this method. It just puts my schedule back even further.

Well that is a coincidence because as I've got older I too must have had an upgrade because I am much quicker that I used to be.....

Well this is a first time for me, and at 57 there aint too many of those these days. In fact I can barely walk into any room and be the youngest

So I lied about the next job being the exhaust. In a whole week I had about 3 hours to do something on the van tonight so.... I took the fuel tank out. It had to happen sometime so I went for it. Though the van is very simple to work on, it's hard to be patient when clouds of cr*p are dropping in your mouth and eyes, and you are laying on the tools you need to use. So it wasn't a lot of fun yet it was very rewarding. The tank is in fantastic condition and even still had a gallon of fuel in it. Stinking, stale and contaminated fuel but liquid none the less. Suitable to slosh around the tank and flush out the inevitable detrious. So I went for broke and managed to get the screws holding the fuel gauge sender out. Now I have owned a fews vehicles over the years and you could count on one hand the number of them that I didn't have to bits.... Yet I have never seen a cork sender float before. Look closely it really is made of cork. So from experience I know not to let it dry out. What a lucky boy I am eh...?

Anyone off to this annual shindig.? I'm not exhibiting, just chilling out for a week

I miss that too. Topped it up a couple of times when it seemed short.

great shots. Thanks

The original plan was to just get it on the road with the minimum of work and continue a rolling restoration but I pretty quickly fell into the trap of, pulling off a few big bits, deciding it would't take long to cut some rust out and reality.

Hurrah: I seem to be getting back on track with the van. I only had about 4 hours on it today but tweaked the timing an carburation a little and had it running very cleanly with a lot less smoke than previously. Guess the engine is starting to 'cook out' a bit. I made up some temporary cooling top and bottom hoses and fitted the rad properly. Ran it for half an hour without any overheating. It came up to temperature nicely. My only concern is that each time I run the engine and then drain the coolant, I would expect to see a lot more crap 'n' rubbish coming rather out than the pretty clean water I'm getting. I may have to chuck in something a bit caustic to get theing moving. Dish washer powder is top of my list right now.... More importantly; while the engine was purring over (it's running on just the exhaust dowpipe just now and sounds rather agricultural) I tried the clutch and gears. All gears selected and it actually moved a foot forward and back under it's own steam. I was soooo excited.... Next job is to fit up some kind of better exhaust with a silencer....

Yeah we were there in Medway. Ist time I've done an MV show of any kind and it's hard to describe how much I enjoyed it. The previous 3 weeks were pretty much a disaster regarding preparing the van but it was well worth the effort. Many thanks for your comments; it's what keeps the enthusiasm rolling.

Right took photo's You can see how heavily this dash was rusted. Quite useable now. Not that easy to see but this is bare metal now. Where you can see black is where the electrolisis process is complete The trim is perfect now. Where does the rust go....? It travels in a straight line onto the sacrificial anode

I've been tinkering. First off I fixed the broken gear lever which seems to have been made of cheese and repaired once before in the past. Then I had a play at removing rust by electrolisis. A plastic bucket, a 12v battery charger, sode washing soda and a sacrificial annode (lump of scrap iron) and we're in business. The pic show my 1st effort on 2 CA dash's after they had been bubbling for about 2 hours. The positive lead goes to the lump of old iron and the negative to what you want to de-rust. Fill your non conductive container with water and add a tablespoon of soda per gallon.Mix well. connect up your leads, don't let the diode directly touch your work piece, plug in, and Bob's yer Auntie (as they say in the gender re-asignment trade) After a mere 24 hours or more, the rust will magically detach itself from the job and travel in a straight line to your sacrificial doobrie and stick to that. After a day or so (remembering not to switch off the power to the shed when you turn the lights out) this is what it all looks like (after I've tripped over the blasted thing a couple of times) a messy rusty soup. Remove your item, wash it in mums sink and if I had remembered to take the pic you could have seen an unrusted dash. I'll post that one tomorrow. I found this a very slow yet satifying method of removing corrosion with minimal damage to the item. Very successful in all. An amusing trade off is that if you then tip the water onto your lawn, worms will appear like small rockets bursting out of the ground. I don't know if there is some residual electricity, or the soda or what, but boy does it get them to appear. I mention this only so that we can all win that annual worm charming competition where people normally sing, chant and dance to attract the slithery little blighters. (I kid you not; this is England after all) Aside from that; just tonight I refitted the electronic ignition more carefully, screwed in a new set of plugs and had the old beast running nicely. So well in fact that I rigged a temporary cooling system and ran it up again for about 30 mins. Very pleased and the smoke is already clearing as we speak. I don't think that motor has run for any length of time for very many years, so it's good to get some heat into it and hopefully unstick the rings etc. More news and pics tomorrow..

Excellent pics, well done. This was my first year at W&P (the first of many I suspect) Consequently I was wandering aimlessly about grinning and missed anything organised or planned. You have filled in most of the gaps. Thanks again

Can anyone explain to an MV novice what the thing is about light blue paint and MV's. I have seen engines that colour but my ex Navy 1958 Bedford CA van seems to have the engine bay and interior footwells that colour. Would it be an original feature because someone has gone to quite a lot of trouble to badly spray green over the top of it. My engine however doesn't ever seem to have been painted.

Although I am far from needing to know, can anyone explain to an MV novice what the thing is about light blue paint and MV's. I have seen engines that colour but my van seems to have the engine bay and interior footwells that colour. Would it be an original feature because someone has gone to quite a lot of trouble to badly spray green over the top of it. My engine however doesn't ever seem to have been painted.

Not very hard to capture; just follow it until the rear cylinders overheated and seized.!!!!

Fantastic news. It always greives me when you hear people who think this type of thing is a victimless crime "It's insured ain't it" That is as maybe but the owner doesn't want the money (which they would have saved anyway if they hadn't tackled the restoration) they want the vehicle. This is a brilliant result; hopefully something to do with the outrage and far reaching tentacles of the community

Well we made it to the War & Peace show The show was a huge success, we loved it to bits and hopefully I will have the van driving at next years event. It was a manic couple of weeks to even get the van to the show in it's 'undressed' state. Restorers will understand that everything I did to the CA in order to progress resulted in 4 other jobs which involved removing major items. The windows wouldn't fit with the modern rubbers I had (2nd lot as well), the engine wouldn't run with the new electronic ignition I fitted and I had to revert to 20yr old points and condenser then once I had it running again I managed to stick my hand into the engine fan and then the gear lever broke. It was some couple of weeks and I'm a lucky boy to still have fingers on my left hand. They are hard to spot when they are spinning, those single blade fans. Luckily the belt wasn't properly tensioned and I just had a lot of ugly cuts. The trailer that the van winched onto on tuesday afternoon still had the caravan floor on it on Monday lunchtime; and it was four feet longer. I nipped two feet off the back end then cut 'n' shut another 12" out of the 'A' frame and yet another foot out of the front chassis. After which it was a simple case of welding cross bearers and fitting scaffold board runners, and brackets and tie down points and etc etc. It was all very worth it. Everyone at the event was very nice, friendly and remarkably understanding. I learn new stuff, made new contacts and had a very nice time too. So I'm having a couple of weeks off before I launch back into the fray. Enthusiasm boosted...... Watch this space (How much would I like one of these.)

Truly inspirational stuff. Fantastic.