Manky's Pop.

[poprodder]

nice one, onwards and upwards(or should that be outwards!?!)

[Manky Monkey]

Inwards & outwards!
Once we've got the hinges sorted, we need to fit new "bear claw" latches, which I've already got. The back edge of the doors have already been cut about where we lashed together the old style slam locks, just to get the doors closing for the SVA test. Fortunately I've got some spare doors, so we can cut repair sections out of those.
We chopped the roof by 3", but the doors I bought from Ebay are chopped by 4", so there's a 1" strip above them that needs filling, (already half done on this side). The extra inch makes the door glass look much more in proportion to the screen size though.

[spanners]

andy,, do youre tail lights have stop/tail combined ?
i bought some new model A type lamps at the swap meet and they only have single contact bulbs..dont know if to modify them or get something differant   they cost me £26 each  
also i,ve got to find something to use for front indicators.

[Manky Monkey]

Yup, combined stop/tail lights.
My front flashers are on top of the mudguards, they look like vintage side lights but have orange bulbs behind frosted glass lenses.
There was a bit of a trend last year for amber lensed driving lamps, (spotlights mounted on the bumper or grille bar). You could fit a pair of those & use them as indicators -instead of hiding them away, make a feature of them.

[Manky Monkey]

So cold in the shop today. Winter's definitely arrived this week.
The "little bit of tweaking" of the door hinge ended up taking all day, with the door being removed & the hinges cut several times. Unfortunately a previous owner's welded up the hinge mounts on the body, so there's no adjustment on the hinges. Eventually we decided the inner edge of the window frame was fouling on the roll cage tubing we welded down the inside of the windscreen pillar as it shut. Some adjustment with the angle grinder & it finally opens & closes reasonably well.
Next job is to cut repair sections from a spare door I have & add the new latch. Looks messy, but we can tidy it later. The doors came from Ebay & looked great when I collected them. They turned out to be loaded with almost half an inch of filler in places. They're not rusty, just skimmed with filler across the whole door, American style. It may be easier to re-fill them than remove it all.

[Manky Monkey]

A little job, just to keep myself moving in the freezing cold while Loony was welding. I found an offcut of half round steel bar, the same profile as the swage line around the back of the cab, & cut the pieces to form the letter M, about 70mm high, as suggested by Chewie. Ready for Loony to weld together. We'll add it into the swage line under the rear window & hopefully it'll look like an original factory pressed design. Just a nice little detail.

[Manky Monkey]

"M" welded up, ready for filing. Loony tries it in place.

[Manky Monkey]

The night before the first SVA test we still didn't have any door latches, so very quickly bodged the old ones in place. Now they need to come out to be replaced by modern latches.

[Manky Monkey]

With the glass & winder mechanism out of the way, I marked a section out that can be safely removed without affecting the structural strength of the door. Then I cut the same piece from a spare door. Rather than trying to be clever by welding the new lock into the panel before we fit it, we'll weld the repair piece in place first, then decide where & how to mount the new latch.

[The North]

You are getting on with this nicely now its realy coming together. 

[Manky Monkey]

Thank you. I'm hoping it'll suddenly look a lot tidier once we get to the paint stage.
We've got just over 3 months now to get it MOT'd, insured, inspected by the DVLA & taxed, (the SVA pass certificate's only valid for a year, so we need to get all the paperwork completed by then).
It's been a long, laborious build -more a feat of endurance than a labour of love at times. But I'm still day dreaming about cruising around in it when it's finished, so I guess the enthusiasm's still there.
By the time I finish work each afternoon, I only get an hour or 2 before it's time to pack up & go home. So a job like sorting a door out could take a week or more, which gets very frustrating. The trouble is, it's not just a matter of bolting things together -90% of this truck's been made from scratch. So every panel & every mountng tab has to be measured up, made by hand, tried in place, adjusted etc. It's never ending!

[Tony oily bike]

You and the team are making good progress there Mr Mankey Sir................. 

As the sticker used to say back in the '70s

"Keep on Truckin'.............."

[Manky Monkey]

Ahh, them were the days!  That was the sort of unofficial logo of the van crowd back in the decade that taste forgot.
When I was a school kid I used to dream of owning a custom van -all wood panelled interior, sidepipes & porthole windows. Steve Stringer was the man for custom vans & he built one called In Transit, (green with a cartoon vulture on the side). I loved that van.
No progress to report today I'm afraid. I spent 4 hours trudging the streets, delivering the Mail in torrential rain today -couldn't have got any wetter if I'd jumped in a bath with my uniform on. So by the time I finished at 3.30, (damn you Ebay Christmas present buyers), all I wanted to do was go home & dry out & warm up.
Back to the grindstone tomorrow.

[Manky Monkey]

Another busy work day but at least the rain didn't arrive until I'd finished.
Over at the workshop, I trimmed the repair piece to fit, cleaned the old paint off the edges to be welded & taped it in place, ready for Mr Loon to do his thing.

[Manky Monkey]

When I offered the "M" up against the back of the cab I found the half round bar I made it from's actually slightly bigger than the pieces that will form the rest of the swage line. So I trimmed the ends off & will run the smaller swage bits into the sides of the letter, where the size difference shouldn't show. This will be filled & painted in body colour so no need to go too mad with the hand files, but I've rounded it off a bit. Any small holes in the weld will be sorted with a dab of body filler later.