Phunkie Project Portafold

[phunkie hiboy]

Right, didn’t take too long to work out what was happening and put a plan into action, but first, on taking off the fittings and drilling out the pop rivets, the left rear supporting steel for the roof lifting handle exploded. It had rotted out on the upper edge, and is no good anymore.

So the old one was cut out.

And a new one fabricated from aluminium.

Then, after cleaning the old mounting surface, this was installed using Sikaflex to bond it to the roof.

Then a couple of layers of laminate to clean up the inside.

There was a small repair to do at the front edge where he roof pivots on the little aluminium sliders.

Just set up a straight support outside, ground away part of the edge and laminated the repair from the inside. The outside will be addressed when we do the repairs on the outside.

Now, on to the “sagging” right side of the roof. The problem seems to have been caused by a weakness on the inside edge of the right hand “fin” allowing the roof to “flatten” out.
With the roof turned upside down on the base, this allows the roof to take its proper shape, weight was added to the “sag” area, expanded aluminium was cut to shape as a support to aid laminating.

Both inner portions of the “fins” were laminated over and the front portion as well. This gives us a Portafold roof on the outside and an Ansfold roof on the inside, but it has worked to give a non saggy roof.

To help to make this modification stronger but still light, holes were drilled into the fins from inside and the void filled with expanding foam.

Now to make a smoother/good looking roof surface, in side, it was sanded off and a complete one piece sheet of fibreglass cloth was bonded to it. This hasn’t added too much weight to the roof, as cloth is quite light compared to chopped strand mat.

As today has been very warm, the glass has been “going off” pretty quickly , so by the time I’m back on it again it’ll be fully hard and will only require a light sanding before painting it with the white top coat.

[vauxhallbitz]

Great minds think alike! I did exactly the same to my roof it was so much easier filling in the fins when I applied the foam headlining, never thought about the expanding foam though! You can see it on "first outing after rebuild thread" in the owners gallery.

[70sfreak]

Superb , keep the pictures coming Chris !

[phunkie hiboy]

Superb , keep the pictures coming Chris !

Thanks for that, Steve. Probably going to do a big push over easter, the dagster's at Allards now having some pipes made.

[Ambubird]

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.

Does anyone know what type of seals go in these guides? Mine are missing.
(Sorry to hijack your thread Phunkie, keep the pics coming, we've started on ours at long last )

[phunkie hiboy]

Hey Debbie,
Don't worry about hijacking the thread for information. Whether it's "right" or not, we have found (and are using) a rubber cord. It's black closed cell rubber, 16mm in diameter. it will need to be glued into the guide somehow, obviously it's easy for us 'cos it can be fitted before the side walls are installed. We got it from a company in Reading called Halls Rubber company, don't think they've got a web site but they do have a phone (0118 958 0535) and they are really helpful.

[phunkie hiboy]

So, yes, the cloth laminate has now hardened and the edge has been trimmed and sanded. The inside has now been lightly sanded and painted over with white top coat.

Whilst that was drying, I made the trim panel for the lower rear door, from a piece of 3mm exterior ply. It was marked out for the trim clip positions and drilled through into the door. A trial fit was made using “clico’s”, now ready to drill holes full size in readiness for the clips.

Back to the main body, after removing the chassis, the body was turned over and the final external repairs carried out. The whole of the underside, up to the join, was then sanded. We’re doing in sections because it’s easier for us, to do it that way.

It was then sprayed with primer. Firstly with a Max Mayer epoxy 2 pack primer. This adheres to the fibreglass and makes a good base for the Max Mayer 2 pack primer/filler, which covers all the pinholes in the surface of the fibreglass. This is not going to be a “perfect” job, the preparation for that would take hundreds of hours, but it will be to a presentable standard.

I’ll leave that for a few days, or so, to harden, then next week end we’ll turn it back over and finish the top area, above the join line.
Be back soon

[Ambubird]

Thanks for that info.

(When will the spending end?! )

[phunkie hiboy]

Now the primer has hardened, the body has been turned over.
Before we go any further, the two front support/roof axis bracket fixing area needs to be addressed. Problem is that, the wooden block that the brackets are screwed into are not touching the fibreglass inside the body, hence all the cracks around the mount.

As soon as the screws are tightened, the glass is pulled in cracking the gel coat. So, just made up some packing “shims” out of 3mm exterior ply and tapped them in between the wooden block and the outer skin.

Now, having sanded all the upper part of the body, all the storage bin holes are masked up and the area painted firstly with epoxy primer and then hi build primer.

As we are going to add top coat colour this time, a guide coat of black is added.

This then sanded, untill all the black is gone. This makes sure all the marks and imperfections have been sanded out. The bins are masked up again.

The colour is now spayed on. The colour we’ve chosen for this is a period colour from the 60s & 70s, BMC “Old English White”.

After the paint has tacked off, the whole thing is demasked.

Need to let it harden off completely, then we can start to fit it up with lights and stuff

[phunkie hiboy]

Right, whilst the main body is hardening we’ll paint the lower rear door, hinges and the hook up flap.
Hook up flap first, as it’s plastic we need to have some adhesion and flexability so firstly a coat of adhesion promoter then a couple of light coats of etch primer. This ensures that the textured finish is not lost.

Then a couple of coats of “Old English White” to finish.

So onto the lower door and hinges. It was decided to paint the hinges body colour, firstly ‘cos they just wouldn’t look right in black and in the early advertising and the video they are shown as a light colour, so either body colour or white. Same prep as the body, one coat of epoxy and two/three coats of high build primer all sanded down and painted with three coats of colour.

After painting the main part of hook up unit, where the hinges are, by hand (brush) it was fitted to the body and the flap fitted to that using it’s pivot pins.

To fit the lower rear door hinges, it was decided to use rubber gaskets. As these can’t be bought, they had to be made. A quite simple job, a piece of wood with two holes drilled for the bolts, some thin flat rubber (old truck inner tube) and a sharp craft knife. Cut two holes in the rubber, install hinge through the rubber into the holes in the wood and cut around the hinge.

Right we are now ready to fit up the rear end. Fit half the hinges to the main body and the other halves to the lower door. As the hinges had been badly fitted in the first place and this made the lower door too low, an easy fix to raise the door would be to make two oblong brass balls to fit between the two hinge halves. As luck would have it some of the Land Rover hinge balls are a larger diameter, which just meant turning down the middle diameter to make them oblong. The door was then assembled to the body and secured.
The original style new handle was fitted with stainless steel screws.
The refurbished original number plate light was re-positioned to the centre of the lower door.
Number plate fixings were made from a couple of import lower number plate fixings and a couple of Rivnuts for the top mounts.
The rear lights chosen were the same lights that we used on our Airstream camping trailer and are of the type used on an Austin A55. They were obtained from http://www.vintagemotorspares.com for 22 quid each. These were fitted and connected. Also the reflective triangles that came with the caravan originally were secured with SS screws. And now it all looks like this...

Now we’ve made a start on the sides. The left side has had a couple of small repairs in the gel coat done and sanded. Following what went before, one coat of epoxy and a couple of coats of high build ……….

A guide coat ……………

All sanded down and then three coats of colour …………….

I thought that while that was starting to dry off, I’d install the hinges ready to fit the whole side to the body once it was completely dry.

Until next time then ……………………..