17 replies to this topic

[hairyhammie]

The Van

I bought my 1979 Austin Mini van a couple of years ago and built a miniature ‘campervan’ interior. I then went travelling around Europe for two months covering over 5000 miles, visiting 12 countries. Then last year driving up to Stockholm over a few weeks during the summer.

 DSC_0733.jpg   60.61K   16 downloads
 DSC_0468.jpg   44.17K   22 downloads
 DSC_0081.jpg   54.88K   28 downloads

Apart from the following standard Mini mechanical issues, everything went smoothly…

• Overheating and the heater matrix spouting a leak on my passenger's foot
• Sorting out the bodged wiring
• Upgrading to disc brakes
• Clutch release bearing disintegrating in the Netherlands
• Exhaust constantly working loose and then one of the LCB manifold branches shearing off in Germany. I 'repaired' it with a coke can and some jubilee clips!
• The bonnet opening at 90kph in the rain on an autobahn
• Leaking sliding windows
• Oil leaking from a perished gear linkage seal
• Massive backfiring after the battery cable sheath perished and arced to the underside of the floor
• Electronic distributor and alternator getting soaked in storms in Slovenia and misfiring
• This list is longer than I imagined when I started writing it!
• Wipers failing on the autobahn and having to move them again with my hand out the window
• The floor filling with water regularly and only realising a few weeks ago there's a grommet I could have removed to drain it!

 DSC_0027.jpg   88.13K   29 downloads

The Project

After doing a bit of research on the water-in-car issues, I realised my van has had the notorious wide sills fitted. I decided that I would replace these with the originals before the rust sets in….on removing the RHS outer sill, it turns out they can hide a fair bit of corrosion before it shows externally!

After some prodding, I now know that the following areas need attention (RHS assessed only, so far!):

• Underside of box-section under front seats
• Front of sill adjacent to front wing
• Various points along inner sill (sloping part of the floor pan)
• Corner and underside where rear floor pan meets heel board underneath load bed
• Large hole (with bodged metal plates from previous owner) on panel to the side of the heel board (which is a nightmare to access!).

i'll post some photos of the problem areas below, and would really appreciate any advice you can give as this is the first bit of bodywork and welding i'll have undertaken! I’ll try to update the project blog as I progress!

I’m not interested in having a concourse quality car, I’d be scared of using it! But a neat looking structurally sound van that I know is going last for a few more years and many more adventures.

Wish me luck getting this done ready for the Spring!

Jamie

[hairyhammie]

The Bad Bits!

The whole floorpan seems to be painted blue, but with a silver layer over the top which scraped away.

Interior removed, viewed through driver's door
 DSC_0797.jpg   62.16K   20 downloads

Looking from passenger seat position back to RHS door frame and front of load bed
 DSC_0804.jpg   49.08K   7 downloads

From passenger's side looking at the back of box section, the underside of the box section holed when prodded!
 DSC_0805.jpg   51.16K   4 downloads

Looking back at the front of the RHS of the box section, lots of corrosion on the inner sill part of the floorpan
 DSC_0806.jpg   49.66K   3 downloads

Driver's footwell, generally feels solid but covered in surface rust due to the pooling water
 DSC_0807.jpg   62.27K   3 downloads

View from outside of the RHS door frame, this is generally in good condition
 DSC_0808.jpg   31.55K   4 downloads

[hairyhammie]

...More!

The dreaded wide-sill towards the front!
 DSC_0809.jpg   39.21K   8 downloads

Viewed looking back at the front RHS wheel arch, the leading edge of the sill is starting to flake off paint
 DSC_0810.jpg   40.59K   2 downloads

The outer sill, further back
 DSC_0812.jpg   33.15K   2 downloads

Looking forwards from RHS rear wheel, some flaking here too
 DSC_0816.jpg   39.69K   3 downloads

Looking from below towards the RHS sill to heel board corner, this holed fairly easily
 DSC_0817.jpg   28.95K   1 downloads

[hairyhammie]

And More...

View from the driver's side to under the load bed overhang looking at the inner-sill to heel board corner. Lots of corrosion here. It looks like the previous owner attempted to weld in some sort of plate very badly into here on the side!
 DSC_0823.jpg   61.49K   10 downloads

View from driver's side, under load bed looking at the heel board and centre tunnel. This looks in better condition, but i'm a little worried about the hole higher up?!
 DSC_0828.jpg   49.48K   6 downloads

Looking from the same place, but across to the passenger side, heel board to LHS inner sill corner
 DSC_0832.jpg   40.2K   4 downloads

The same corner
 DSC_0833.jpg   58.47K   3 downloads

The rear subframe viewed from behind, this looks in pretty good condition
 DSC_0839.jpg   43.28K   7 downloads

Surface rust on the load bed
 DSC_0842.jpg   38.42K   6 downloads

The RHS wheel arch looking back from the passenger seat position, some corrosion between it and the side panel
 DSC_0843.jpg   39.63K   5 downloads

[hairyhammie]

Starting to cut off the outer sill to see what's underneath!

Not happy with what I found
 DSC_0851.jpg   49.96K   9 downloads

Tempted to brush down to the metal to see how bad the rust goes
 DSC_0853.jpg   54.57K   5 downloads

The hole is pretty large on the joint between inner sill and heel board
 DSC_0854.jpg   54.16K   11 downloads

Should this patch be here? not sure what it's covering

 DSC_0860.jpg   58.37K   7 downloads

Seatbelt mounting plate

 DSC_0861.jpg   57.32K   3 downloads

Looking towards the front of the sill. It looks like there may be two layers of floor here, is that normal?!

 DSC_0862.jpg   59.16K   5 downloads

 DSC_0864.jpg   49.3K   4 downloads

I think i'll have to cut the corner section off too

 DSC_0866.jpg   48.9K   3 downloads

From the look of it, which panels do you think i'll need to replace? I'm new to this!

[richw911]

Love your van - pageant blue

[Daviewonder]

Wow awesome! Wish I'd done a bit of road tripping before I became a family man. Any other pics of the set up in the back?

[YoungUn]

Nice van... glad to see another one

[ryan22_lgm]

:) nice van! have a look at mine and you will feel better about the rust on yours! haha XD

[hairyhammie]

Thanks Rich, can't think why you like the colour ;) Useful to know the name though, I'm sure i'll be needing some paint sometime!

[hairyhammie]

Trips were great fun Dave, I'd recommend taking a well prepared Mini abroad to anyone :) although I wish I knew the sliding windows leaked before I was in a storm in Turin!

The back is now on mkII, for the first trip I built cupboards up the sides to store things and an extension board to go down onto the front seats when they were folded forwards so I could sleep flat out :) Unfortunately i struggled to fit everything in, and the cupboards were opening when I cornered hard on the Alpine roads :)

This is how it looked last trip, I decided it would be more practical to have a flexible setup. So the whole back is now storage, but the centre 3 sections can be removed when I'm not travelling. I have the whole width of the van to sleep in and I insulated the sides and roof panels which quietened things a bit....apart from the excessively loud exhaust, which i'll be addressing!

 DSC_0063.jpg   66.74K   16 downloads

 DSC_0065.jpg   57.19K   19 downloads

 DSC_0077.jpg   77.15K   19 downloads

 DSC_0078.jpg   61.49K   22 downloads

 DSC_0086.jpg   61.76K   16 downloads

[hairyhammie]

Can anyone help with tips for sorting my floor out please? I've started a thread in the Problems area here:

1979 Van - Patch Or Replace Whole Floor / Worth Using A Rollover Jig?

Thanks

[WolfsMinis]

Looks fantastic.

I've got a 1976 van, and I only recently found out what "the sub frame" was
So I'll be keeping a keen eye on yours!

Best of luck.

[adamjohnson1990]

Love what you have done to the back of your van

How did you fix the side panels in as I'm thinking of doing that on my van?
I'm looking to tour Europe one day but looking a towing a teardrop caravan, any suggestions of must see places?

[Mad Max]

Your van is not as bad as mine was. My suggestion would be to do it properly. Strip most of the suff of the van so there is less tendancy to bend the shell while your replacing the sills. I patched my floors and in hind sight should have just cut the whole lot out. Just remember that the van is a few inches longer than a saloon so the floor is longer. m-machine are good for panels.