Phunkie Project Portafold

[phunkie hiboy]

Sorry, forgot to put in a couple of pictures, then it wouldn't let me. Anyway here they are, after sanding the seal guides ready for primer.

And a picture of how the unfinished "U" section mouldings are supplied.

Thank you.

[Reggie]

Simply stunning work you are doing .

[Ambubird]

Fantastic work, I only hope mine is half as good. Keep the pictures coming & the good work up. I'm very jealous!

[phunkie hiboy]

Thank you for the kind words, guys. It's not that difficult to do this stuff, you've just got to keep focused. A deadline also certainly adds to the pressure!!

[phunkie hiboy]

Well, we are still here and moving forward with this rebuild. Managed to get some more done before Christmas and after, although during the Christmas/new year recess I was working on another restoration project, on this little baby ..........

PICTURE OF OTHER PROJECT

Anyway onwards and upwards.
So, we’ve replaced our cardboard battery with a state of the art carbon fibre 100amp leisure battery. A securing needed to be fabricated for it, together with a mount for the 240volt breaker and the solid state charger connected into the hook up circuit and the stand alone 12v circuit.
Firstly the battery and breaker.

Then the charger.

And finally all in position.

Just got to hook up all the wiring now!!
Managed to get a final coat of boat varnish on the table frame edges, just need to get the glass cut and tempered now.

I think that the quote “no wood to rot and no metal to rust” describing the construction of these ‘vans is a little bit of an under statement. Our ‘van suffers from both, rot in the wood and rust in the metal strengthening plates.
Starting with the rear wall, the plates to strengthen the hinge mounts were rusted and had split the fibreglass laminates.

This lead to a large distortion of the fibreglass along those lower edges. Another connected reason for the distortion could also be the seized hinges.
The laminates were clamped together using “G” clamps and a long straight piece of wood running under both sides of the hinge mounting panels.

I’ll explain the drill holes later. A piece of plywood was cut to match the profile of the mount.

After a layer of resin and cut strand mat was added.

The ply was added and laminated in.

These parts were then sanded and filled and resanded.

Now the reason for the holes, we need to put in a lighting system. This will be 12volts and we need to get those 12volts from the main body (where they end now) to the walls (where the wires will terminate in some 12volt halogen 2” house lights).
The easiest way to do this, without having loose wires with plug in connectors draped all over, is to use some of these little devices.

These particular ones can be found on the tailgates of Fait Chinquichento’s, other makes are available.
They are spring loaded contacts and this will give you some idea of how they work.

The brass plate side will be fixed to the main body, whilst the spring loaded pins will be fixed to the end bases. When the ends are raised into position, the contacts will make the circuit to the lights.
Holes were made, to take the plates, in three places, two at the rear and one at the front.

And the plates inserted into them.

The holes for the spring loaded portion are cut into the added ply strengthening in the ends.

It was decided to just glass in the wires up the end pieces, so they were masking taped to the inner wall.

And then glassed in.

At this point we needed to get rid of the flaking inner surface. We did this using rotary wire brushes on a cordless drill.

Then finally to coat the inside with some “Topcoat” fibreglass resin, this time in white.

So next time we’ll be starting on the front wall ………………………….

[phunkie hiboy]

OK, now to deal with the front wall.

Remove the window and inner covering (pretty bad condition and has been painted over, and not very well)

Remove sealing foam and fittings.

Check to see what holes require filling.

Sand off all the glue from the inner covering and the badly crazed over painting on the lower section. A rotary wire brush on a drill seems to do the job pretty well.

The fibreglass around the window area is so thin that over the years it has distorted quite a lot. This could result in water ingress even when the window is closed and locked.

This remedied by cutting, from a piece of thick wood (read old acoustic parcel shelf), a shape to fit exactly where the window mounts and fix it to the frame.

Fibreglass laminate is then laid around the sides, up to about 2.5 inches round the “frame”. this will make it stronger in that area and straight.

The same treatment carried out on the rear wall on the bottom rail/hinge mounting area has also been applied here, including adding mount for the contact set for lighting.

The lighting cables have then been glassed in……..

……..before sanding and covering with a coat of bright white topcoat.

That’s it, for the moment, on the front wall.
Now to start on the side walls, first the left side.

First, as with the front wall, remove trim and window.

Then remove all the trim glue, with a rotary wire brush and electric drill. This came off quite easily.

Then to look at the hinge panel at the bottom. Due to a couple of reasons the two skins of this assembly had parted company.

Also at the end lower corners the fibreglass was breaking up.

The reasons for all this, a combination of partially seized hinges, not very good bonding along the edge and laminate being laid on gel coat finish with out keying first.
The end parts were cut away to uncover good fibreglass.

The top and bottom skins of the lower assembly were held apart and a generous amount of Sikaflex was injected in between, then the two skins taped together to “go off”.

After keying with a course sandpaper the end corners were laminated.

Then trimmed and sanded ready for a coat of “top coat”. The tape was removed from the Sikaflexed joint and also sanded.

The window received the same treatment as the front window opening.

Things are moving ahead quite well now, so next time the right side ………………

[Isaacsman]

It's wonderful that you provide so much detail. It would be good to have the complete work published as a book!

Mike

[vauxhallbitz]

Fantastic restoration well done so far!!

[phunkie hiboy]

It's wonderful that you provide so much detail. It would be good to have the complete work published as a book!

Mike

Thanks for that, but I don't think there would be that bigger a market for a book. The reason for the detail, is to help anyone else that has the same repairs to do (can't imagine that ours is the only one in this condition)and can do them themselves with a bit of insight/guidance.

Fantastic restoration well done so far!!

Thanks, the more we move forward the easier it gets

[phunkie hiboy]

Following on, the window edge is laminated and trimmed. The same method is carried out on the other side. This side was in a less damaged condition, but the same areas required attention.

Now that both sides are repaired on the inside, it’s time to paint them over with topcoat.

Left side…………………….

Right side…………………….

I managed to get hold of some pre used battery terminals.

Which were cleaned up and soldered onto the necessary wires and finised off with shrink insulation.

Next piece to get attention has to be the roof. The coating on the inside was cracking and falling off.

So armed with a gasket scraper and rotary wire brush on a drill we turned this …………

Into this ………….

With the resulting roof interior looking like this …………

There are some repairs to be made ……….

The worst of which is a “sag” in the fibre glass on the right side at the rear. Not that obvious in this picture

But we need to sus out what will have to be done to make it stable before we go any further.
I’m off to work on a plan, so see you next time.