Manky's Pop.

[Archie]

You can keep your seats here in the flat when they're done

[Manky Monkey]

Much appreciated Archie. I'll give you a shout when I run out of room in the Fiesta!

[kapri]

Nice job on all the trim

[morrag]

You are no doubt right regarding the price Mr. M, but to an old geezer like me, living more than a little in the past! still makes my eyes water when I see current prices of bits and services, ho hum ..Morrag

[Manky Monkey]

You & me both mate. I still think every job should cost a fiver, but unfortunately, those doing the work usually disagree.
I take home 330 quid a week. 70 for my rent, 250 for Phil, a tenner for some petrol to go & collect the parts from him & ....oh, that's my wages gone for the week. 

[Brushwarrior]

noice one, no doubt breathing fire at a later stage :-)

Steve aka stevo

[Manky Monkey]

Hiya. Well, breathing heavily anyway.
In case you haven't read the full thread, Mr Loon & I covered 4 1/2 thousand miles in the truck last year, including a 5 day jaunt to Holland & back a couple of months ago, (check the events section for a full report). It's run pretty well, but lots of bits were left half done & a few things needed fine tuning. So I've taken it off the road for a couple of months to try & get them sorted. I've just booked the Eurotunnel tickets for another trip though, this time to Belgium in April. So I've got 8 or 9 weeks to pull it apart, fix the faults & get it up & running again!

[Manky Monkey]

Oh joy!! Loony's finally fixed the heating in his workshop!
After 8 years of renting a building on a farm, (I've been a fixture there for the last 5 or 6 of those), he's eventually figured out how to mend the diesel powered hot air heater. It's suddenly gone from trying to work in as many layers of clothing as you can wear & still manage to stand up, to sub tropical temperatures & having to work in T shirts. Pure bliss. Just makes the whole experience enjoyable again, instead of being an ordeal. So, fired up with new found enthusiasm, he began tackling the list of welding jobs I've been compiling over the last week.
I've made a pair of covers for the inertia seatbelt reels. Not just to hide them, but also to box in the junction of a body mount & several floor/cab panels. When everything's eventually painted, I'll seal the joints with mastic then fit the covers over the top. The black panels form the bottom corners of the cab interior & were fitted last year. The bare metal bit is the new cover.

[Manky Monkey]

I'm trying to make the cab as water/wind proof as I can while the seats are out. We originally fitted a 1960s heater between the seats, but changed our minds & took it back out. We've been driving about with a fist sized hole in the gearbox tunnel, where the water pipes used to be, ever since. Now sealed up with fresh steel.

[Manky Monkey]

The interior light housing welded in place. No need to risk warping the sheet steel of the roof by fully seam welding it, so it's held in place with half a dozen tack welds -I plan to fit an upholstered headlining panel, which will fit snugly around the housing, hiding the welds. Just hope I can fit the switch up inside it now. There'll be a sun visor either side of it eventually.

[morrag]

Tidy Mr M, and distort it undoubtedly would have, had you attempted fully welding, and it doesn't require same any way , so all in all, with such progress being made,......when are you goin' to paint the bl.....dy thing???   Morrag

[Olds]

Oh joy!! Loony's finally fixed the heating in his workshop!

Heating! He has heating! Is there a spare corner. I wouldn't take up much room. Honest 

Nice progress being made. All these little jobs take forever.

[Manky Monkey]

They do indeed. The local cat's already made itself at home. Paint Morrag?! Paint's for wusses! Actually, I'm hoping we can get a couple of panels in Fiat 500 green before it hits the roads again.

[Manky Monkey]

Torrential rain & flooded roads here today, but my day off, so at least I wasn't trudging the streets in it, delivering the Mail. Mr Loon & I took a trip to Alton in Hampshire to collect my plating. I had a couple of dozen Pop parts nickel plated, plus 3 pieces chromed. I went for unpolished nickel plate, because I didn't want the hard, mirror finish of chrome on the outside of the truck. That made it cheaper & quicker. This lot cost 145 quid & took 3 weeks, but I was also lucky that they just happened to have a spare slot in their schedule for parts that didn't need polishing. Normal turn around time is about 10 weeks.
I've got new switchgear to go in the cab, which is chromed. So I had the speedo surround & choke & vent knobs chromed to match. The only glitch is that they've chromed the choke cable itself as well as the knob. Just hope it still fits the outer sleeve & works.
Amazing how different things look plated. Most of this lot's made from scrap metal in Loon's workshop.

[Manky Monkey]

Battery clamp wingnuts. I remember welding these together in Taz's shed. Now they look like shop bought fittings.