The start of my van's body build

[Howard Wright]

Hi Stephen

It’s on this thread, page 3 fourth photo in the post!

Cheers

Howard

[Steve Bryant]

Howard I must apologize as I thought it was a separate thread. I also didn't realize that NickA was Nick Anderson. Must be old age creeping up on me. Sorry about that,
Stephen

[Howard Wright]

Howard I must apologize as I thought it was a separate thread. I also didn't realize that NickA was Nick Anderson. Must be old age creeping up on me. Sorry about that,
Stephen

Hi Stephen

No worries, old age gets us all in the end.  My old mum used to say she couldn’t remember signing up for it (old age) but she sure wished she hadn’t!

Cheers

Howard

[Steve Bryant]

THIS WEEKS UPDATE  DEC. 12 '22

I needed to paint the body pan underside before I got into the body build proper as once things are done I don't want to be pulling the body off to do this. I went in to the shop on Saturday and set it up on saw horses.

   
   

I thought I was done until I read Reckless Rat's comment "I note that there are no access holes in the floor for the rear spring retaining nuts or the 'U' bolts.". I realized that this made perfect sense to add these while I had the body pan off and accessible. So today I modified the floor pan to include these:

I made a card pattern taken from the frame:

   

I transferred the holes I cut in the card pattern that matched the frame to the masking tape placed on the body:

   
   

After careful marking out I carefully drilled and cut the slots and used a hole saw to  finish the job:

   

Success ! Things lined up quite nicely. Thank you Reckless for the suggestion - it will make the job of removing a rear spring so much easier when the time comes.

   

The rest of today was spent putting the body back on the chassis and getting back to the point where I took the body off to paint. One step forward etc. !

Proper body building to start next week.
Cheers.
Stephen

[Ivor Hawkins]

This is a smashing thread Stephen, crack on!

[Steve Bryant]

Thank you Ivor. I will.  
Stephen

[Reckless Rat]

Obviously depends on what you intend to do with the van when its finished, but if it was me, I would seal all those rivetted joints on the floor pan with some body mastic. Belt and braces never hurts and there's no point spoiling the ship for a ha'porth of tar.

[David.H]

I totally agree with the use of body mastic unless you are a purist and making the car just as they did”in the day” with no protection apart from a bit of chassis black paint! I have to admit when rebuilding Chitti that I used my experience from the fastener industry and used what are known as “structural blind closed end rivets”. They are put in from one side and are sealed on the other side. Ok there is witness of the central pin(which breaks flush) but even that can be hidden with a spot of filler so if smoothed looks like a solid rivet head, the other (blind)side is clenched and sealed and does not look unlike a solid rivet, the only downside is that you need to use a proper riveting tool to do it, and the hand operated ones are quite cumbersome. The rivets are even available in stainless steel (very hard work and expensive unless you have friends in the trade!)
David

[Steve Bryant]

Reckless, I intend to seal everything once the body is finished. There are lots of wee holes in corners etc that need to be sealed up along with the edges of the flanges etc.
Stephen

[Ruairidh Dunford]

Very neat work, this is one modification that you won't regret doing, if you ever have to remove the springs or the u-bolts.