Thread: Rebuilding Sid

And here’s Arthur



I hope you all guessed correctly and weren’t thinking S2 SWB.

Arthur is a 1959 Thames Freighter who is now destined to be a camper van after a lot of work. And I mean a lot.

The primary panel beating tool so far is a broom.

But he is 100% complete, was parked up in the mid 1970’s and has not moved since.

A shortie is still on the radar, but wife gave an ultimatum, it was this or a caravan or a kombi ....... and this was scrap value.

I was looking up sports cars but they all came up just under & over the 90" wheel base. I remember when I first went to look at my 80" & we drove down the road , the wife said let's not stop, my reply was it is better than i expected . When I started stripping her down she was what I expected , had to remake half the chassis.

I’m not going to turn this into a Thames restoration thread, Arthur is going into storage until Sid is done.

It has been interesting looking him over last night. Chassis, running gear, etc are perfect.... immaculate, change the rubbers and good to go.

He is #15 in the production run, numbers matching with the original zephyr in line 4 and 3 speed box.

Body is shot.... I’m in for a lot of fabrication.

There is so much on this van that is shared with landrover, hydraulics, etc came from the same parts book.

The real challenge I am beginning to see is that these things are rare. Unlike Sid, I don’t have a choice of 20 suppliers and heaps of pattern parts. There were only 183,000 made over 10 years, and given they were steel and vans, very few are left. The global owners Facebook site has 900 members.

There is one manufacturer of body panels, hand made to order and priced to match.

He will be a great project and by the end I reckon he will cost about the same as you’d pay for a rough kombi.

Back to Sid.

I do hope when you do start on Arthur that you find somewhere on the forum to record your progress may be in Non Land Rover Vehicles , Trucks , Bus & Camper Conversions. I do look forward to reading about the amazing job you are doing on Sid I love reading anyone's rebuild on any type of old vehicle.

Originally Posted by Cadas

All the galv is back.



Absolutely everything has been done and looks amazing. The rubbing strips are like new.

This has been a great outcome and really not expensive. All up, the galvanising was $210 and that included the windscreen and bumper plus everything else.

A fair bit has to be sandblasted, the galv process will clean a lot but it’s better if paint and rust are cleaned off properly.

If you are in Adelaide, Adelaide Galv did a great job and would highly recommend.

Hell's horses, that looks good! Only $210??

Originally Posted by Cadas

And here’s Arthur

Perfectly named.

Originally Posted by Johnno1969

Hell's horses, that looks good! Only $210??

Yes I was very surprised, took it in two batches first was all the long stuff and windscreen and second the bits and pieces.

I think they have done a few land rovers, they recognised the parts straight off.

Originally Posted by Cadas

Yes I was very surprised, took it in two batches first was all the long stuff and windscreen and second the bits and pieces.

I think they have done a few land rovers, they recognised the parts straight off.

That's really impressive. Certainly food for thought. I did a bit of work on my vehicle a while back, considered getting some galvanising done and then discounted the idea without really looking into it. Maybe next time.

Thanks.

John