Phunkie Project Portafold

[phunkie hiboy]

Well, as promised, the Phunkie Project Portafold thread.
Collected the Portafold from Kidderminster on a Friday in late July. This is it as it arrived.

The following day it was inspected, to see what was required to get back to a good working caravan. Unfortunately, due to repairs to be done, it will require a full restoration!!
So now we need to strip it down. First to remove the roof. The outside has many spiders in the fibreglass, there is a huge sag in the rear of the roof and inside it has some coating that has started to peal off.

[phunkie hiboy]

Now the roof is off, the ends are removed by drilling out the rivets from the hinges.

The same with the sides, after removing the strip of sealing tape.

We’re leaving all the parts on the ends and sides until they are stripped to repair.
As far as we are aware the wall coverings and cushions are the originals, however the wall coverings have been painted with something and as a result will be replaced at a later date

All the lights and fittings era removed from the main body.

[phunkie hiboy]

Now what is left is wheeled outside and raised using the jacks, all the chassis mounting bolts are cut/ground (far too rusted using spanners/sockets) and the chassis removed.

At this point the main body was turned on it’s side and the jacks removed, using the same method as the chassis bolts.

OK, the Portafold is now just a selection of parts as it would have been back in 1970, when it was assembled by, possibly a guy called S.Challoner, at the factory. On a lot of the construction of this type back then, the builder used to sign their names somewhere.

It’s now close of play on Saturday, a good days work. Oh, I’d better put the hinges in a bucket of penetrating oil to soak.

Next time, it’ll be time to work on the chassis and jacks.

[phunkie hiboy]

OK, so before I start on the metal bits, I cleaned and pressure washed off the underside of the main body to see what repairs are to be done on the underside.
Before clean,

After clean.

Now the thing is clean it’s apparent that there a large number (23) of “drainage” holes, that have been drilled in the main body floor, to be filled/repaired.
Also there’s damage on the front on the nearside from a reversing “jack-knife”.

Along the top side edges of the main body, where in production extra gelcoat was painted over the original due to the mould in that area being damaged and worn. This now peeling off.

There is an inherent fault in the shape of the storage bin holes, in that the holes are cut square which results in cracks radiating from these corners. Whenever square openings are cut, in just about any material, the corners need to be radiused. This spreads the load all round the corner, is general engineering practice and would have alleviated the problem we have here. Every single opening in this Portafold is the same and all require attention.

Some of the strengthening under the seating areas has deteriorated badly resulting in large cracks and sagging of the seats.

[phunkie hiboy]

All the holes in the main body floor are sanded on the inside and fibreglass mat and resin are laid on to seal the holes from the inside. The split at the front is sanded on the inside and glassed over.

The front mount to the chassis strengthening panel (wood) has collapsed on one side and the layers of mat are secured to nothing.

This is cleaned up and mat and resin layered up over the wood an finally over the whole area making sure that it extends at least a couple of inches out side of the wood.

In between repairing the body items, due to the drying times of the fibreglass, I will be looking at the chassis and jacks.
First the chassis and brakes. With the brake drums removed, the shoes are checked for wear and cleaned with emery paper. The drums are also cleaned, on the braking surface with emery.

As every thing in here is serviceable the drums are refitted.
The chassis is in good condition

and just requires a sanding down and a repaint with chassis paint.

[phunkie hiboy]

So onto the jacks. This shows two jacks, but the same process is carried out on the other two.

Strip these completely, removing the fixings.

To make it easier to refit the units, the fixing holes are countersunk

and fitted with countersunk bolts, tack welding to secure and grinding clean.

All parts are then cleaned, sanded and painted with chassis paint.

And assembled.

Whilst waiting for fibreglass to ”go off” I put the handles on the polishing mop and also the front roof positioning brackets.

[phunkie hiboy]

So now, back to the main body and strengthening the seating areas and radiusing the corners of the storage bins.
The strengthening of the seating areas is achieved by glassing “D” shaped “rope” within the layup.

Unfortunately the resin has deteriorated to such an extent that there is no support at all. Added to this is the fact that the strengthening is not long enough, stopping level with the edge of the storage bin holes. This results in more strain in the badly engineered corners.

The seating is pushed back into position using a scissor jack. The missing “rope” is replaced and laminated in. At the same time fibreglass is layered under the corners of the bin holes.

After the laminate is set, the corners and splits in the seating areas are ground out. These areas are laminated to the required height.

After drying the corners are cut out using a hole saw, and using an airsaw the bits between are cut out. All the repaired areas are sanded flat and then skim filled and finished for priming.

This operation is pretty time consuming, so it’ll be a while before all the storage holes are repaired.

[53catalina]

Really nice to see the detailed photos and great progress you are making in this.
Keep the pictures coming ....

[phunkie hiboy]

Thanks for that Dan.
Just a quick update, nothing much to show as the repairs to the openings for the storage areas are still ongoing (real work seems to be getting in the way!!).
In between laying up fibreglass, I’ve been able to spend some time on the hinges. There was probably a 50/50 split on seized and partially seized and one completely broken.
Last time they were mentioned, I had put all of them in a bucket of penetrating oil. They soaked for about two weeks.
It was then just a matter of “working” them, untill they were free. After which they were cleaned to get all the verdigris off.

Attention is now turned to the broken hinge. The actual fault is that the pin, through the middle is broken. The original pins are steel and 1/8” in diameter. So after sourcing a piece of steel rod that size, it is cut to length (a little more than the length of the hinge). The parts of the broken pin are carefully drifted out with a compatible parallel punch. Care must be taken to support each part of the hinge whilst this operation is carried out. I fabricated a small fixture, held in a vice, to do this.

The hinge is now assembled with the new pin and the pin carefully peaned over at both ends, hence the slight extra length of the pin, and cleaned.

As we are likely to tow the Portafold with our Peugeot 306, as well as the roadster, the law states that trailers being towed by post 1972 vehicles require the fitment of at least one rear fog lamp.
So rather than just bolting on some non descript bulky lamp that looks like it was just screwed there, it was decided to install some neat lamps that pretty much fit in with the general look of the rear.
The lamps being used are some I found a while ago, when sourcing fog lamps to fit to import cars (part of my day job). They are a readily available Hella lamp that measure about 2” across

First, some mountings needed to be fabricated. So I found a piece of tube the right diameter and made a collar to fit to produce a top hat shape. This was used to laminate around.

The end result was then put in the lathe and turned down to end up with the required depth and diameter mounting.

A decision was then made where to place them, to not look out of place and the holes drilled for the mounts.

The mounts were then fitted and orientated to the correct angles, the lamp has to be fitted vertically.

It was then just a job of laminating the inside.

And then on the outside.

Finally, the outside was filled and shaped and covered in some hand painted two pack primer (this protects the “repair” from moisture).
This will be sanded down again when the final priming, to paint, takes place.

[Phil+Maria]

The quality and standard of your restoration work is truly inspirational.

I will be following the rest of your thread with great interest.

Keep it coming