Thread: The resurrection of 'pat'

Originally Posted by manic

Nice find!

I restored a 90 panel van of similar vintage a few years back. I cheated a little and had it done in the UK before shipping it over.

I had rust in the bulkhead and steel body cappings. Stripping down the body is simple bolts and rivets. If you are looking for a good result without spending a fortune or time is limited I would take all the body panels/doors off and leave just the tub, bulkhead and seatbox in place.

The panels that come off, you strip, clean up, send out for paint. The bulkhead, seatbox, tub is cleaned up in situ. Rust removed, patches welded. The inside of the tub and seatbox you can paint yourself or leave as is. You don't see the paint inside when its covered in mats, and your wife will only see the underside if she is doing the servicing.

I recommend getting the exmoor/wright moulded rubber mat. This covers all the visible interior paint on the bulkhead/seatbox. Rubber mats in the back will also hide any effort you put in painting the interior.

Mudstuff do some plastic interior panels for van sides and the rear door which tidy up the interior nicely.

When you have re-assembled the body work drive it to the body shop and have them spray the outer visible sections of the bulkhead and rear tub. This will also cover the new rivets, tub cappings.

When you lift the bonnet you will see the old red on the bulkhead behind the engine but how often will your wife look in there?

For the cappings, you can buy new from UK. Or if your cappings are not too bad you can blast, galvanise and paint. All my steel cappings were galvanised, painted and riveted back on. My bulkhead was removed and galvanised but there was no time to paint before re-assembly so just the outer visible sections were painted to finish.

Your doors look good, mine were bubbling so I got hold of some Puma doors which are all steel and do not suffer from this reaction. That's an option, but if they are good just strip them, clear out the rust , paint and fill the tube sections with rust prevention wax of choice.



Motor: 200tdi is the go - but if hard to source or not ideal position for the autobox you will need to weld new mounts to your chassis for the 300tdi. The 200tdi drops straight in and sits further back over the axle which is a bonus, but the cylinder heads cannot be replaced with a new one if you overheat and warp/crack one.

Looking forward to see how you get on.

Here's mine on Morton island last week - just clocked 30,000 tough Australian kilometres . Well worth the effort

Impressive work 👍.
I'm heading over to Morton before Xmas, how are the beach roads? Any tips?

Cheers,

every landy owner is a friend!!! lol

i did give first option to a mate though. if he falls through ill give you a yell