well luke, you asked for it ...Gunslingers Mk2 LWB

[Gunslinger]

... just a litttle hole, this was at one time the n/s inner wing and chassis outrigger




and when its finished it should look something like this (bearing in mind this is the rear arch of course) ... and yes that plate really is what you think it is ... should be good for about another 30 years !




nearside rear arch from the outside, all nice and water tight again patched on either side, the o/s got stainless steel plates as there was not so much bending involved, the lower panel(sill) end that you can just see was made from scratch out of some nice thick galv ... just about got the hang of making those now (had to make all 4)




Nice new door, where once there was none ... the marks you see one the floor are weld lines from the 2 extra chassis outriggers that i made up and welded in




only small snag was a lack of the correct panel to fit between the two door posts, so i made it up out of some 1.5 mm galv and added the 3mm boxes around the hinge mounts to allow me access and add a little more strength




thats just a small selection of bits i am either working on or just finished, with the exception of the sideloading door, i had pretty much the same repairs to do on the other side (already done)

the biggest pain in the neck with the side door conversion was the lower panels, that lower section is made originally of 3 panels, but due to hadrain panels being cheap a$$ ba*st*rds that one is made up from 4 .... one lower section, one mid section which includes the lower part of the box, one back plate, and then the upper section/step which is where the weather seal seats to ... and the bit i had to make from scratch , so i made it from 18 gauge galv and added vertical supports below it inside the box section.

[Luke]

... and yes that plate really is what you think it is ... should be good for about another 30 years !

dunno about that mabe 300years!!
and i thought i spent too long welding!!!
Great pics mate gonna be as solid as rock when its done!!!

[Gunslinger]

yeah, i'm not the fastest worker in the world, and i hate spot welding things that should be seam welded, but the actual welding is not so time consuming if youve preped the panels and vehicle right, thats what takes me all the time, took me all day to cut out that front n/s area (includes part of the floor inside but i dont have a picture of that.

gonna have to losse all of the step inside (not the outer sill section like the otherside) and half of the little vertical plate below the step is useless and will have to go

and yeah, it already is 200% stronger thats for sure, beefed up the back end a bit too, not all of it has been done "100% correct" the rear panel is pretty knackered inside, so i have patched it, reparied the underside, but then boxed it at the back underneath with 2mm plate between the chassis legs, to add some strength for tow bar mounting, the upper section of the rear floor just inside the doors was looking a little saggy, so i cleaned it down ,no major problems, but would need doing soon, so i sealed it up and plated it with 3mm stuff from side to side, that way the area you dump stuff on when loading is nicely strengthened, and also is not a seam

[MrMPuk]

Nice to finally see some pictures! Gotta be hard work trying to weld Galv! Why not just use mild?

[Gunslinger]

just a case of what i had at the time, and my local steel fabricators had been doing a bunch of galv work, so thats what i fished out of the skip or from under their guilatine, plus, with so many of these parts being parts of box sections, its gonna last longer than mild

welding it is not the easiest thing in the world, if you dont get all the zinc plating off where your welding you will end up with a weak weld, not a huge problem in this scenario, as the welds wont really be stressed that much. the big problem is that its poisonous, so you have to remove enough of the coating so as not to gas yourself ..... if you have an air fed or filtered mask ... use it, if not dont breath the fumes in

if you dont clean it then it will splatter all over the place, burn with a green flame usually and the fumes will increase obviously.

other than that, painting is best done with an etch primer first, and you can buy filler designed for galv

i guess its all in the prep work, after that its quite nice to weld, although there was 1 or 2 pieces (i think the lower end plates at the bottom of the wheel arches) where i cleaned it and it welded ok, but was not easy, had to mess with my welder settings and gas flow, and it in some ways it behaved like i had not cleaned it, strange discoloration, white is deposits on reverse side, and greenish flame, but i know i cleaned it well, so i figured it was some kind of alloy .... dam strong welds though, was noticable when dressing with the grinder


i'll see if i can get some more pics done, those were just pot luck, as a friend with a camera droped in today and he had some room on the memory card, i would like to get you some in a few days when i have that corner back together

[MrMPuk]

Some times it don't matter how well you clean the galv you can't get read of it so you will end up with a green flame and white deposits, but at the end of the day as long as the weld holds that's all that matters!

[FredTransit]

Wow you have worked hard on this, she will be a credit to you!

[Valsheda]

WOW THERES SOME SERIOUS WORK GOING ON THERE GUNSLINGER , GOOD LUCK WITH YOUR PROJECT AND REALLY LOOKING FORWARD TO SEEING MORE PICS IN THE FUTURE

[jay]

wow thats going to be strong with that metal.i made a towbar out of 8mm checkerplate type of stuff a while back for my lorry.very strong if a little springy but havent broke it yet

[DaiTheVan]

Good luck with that Gunslinger, looks like some really clean welding there, I must practise more!! Hope all that hard work pays off for ya!

[Gunslinger]

thanks, my weldings getting better, still getting the hang of my new welder, the front p/s inner wing and chassis are now fixed, 8 plates in total around the inner wing and edges, should have been 7 but one plate fell short of the hole ... oops ! ... floor is now in tread plate, just the shock mounting plate to repair and then i can turn my attention to the missing sections in the step .... or should that be the missing step

[transitgeoff]

nice work oh and nice hinges

[Gunslinger]

lol .... yeah they look familiar ? i sand blasted them but it didnt clean off all the paint, the lower one had a blocked grease hole and was dry, so its worn a bit but when repacked with grease and adjusted to take up the slack it should be fine. had one small issue with the door not lining up quite right, took me an age to figure it out, but in the end i figured it .....

the upper hinge mounting plane is perfect, the lower one is angled outwards very slightly towards the rear of the van, it is very hard to see when you dont have the hinges in place and even then is difficult to see, but over the length of the door, its enough to make the corner of the door stick out at the bottom by a smal amount, so i will have to pack the hinges inside the door very slightly, but only where the 2 bolts are and leave the single bolt without any and this will correct it nicely fiddley but easy to fix

[john leeman]

hi gunslinger mate, having repaired transit's for many years that is a very very nice job you have done there excellent, stronger than the orignal. you aught to be very proud of that job.

[Gunslinger]

TY .... although, i'll pass on the photos of some of the front end welding .. i left a couple of plates in place that had been there when i started the work, and didnt think i would be doing such a big job on it, and a couple of ones i put in that i really should have tidied up a little bit better

TIP ... if you have a tub of grey-stripe sealant that is getting a little old, BUY a new one, cause the dam stuff never goes on smooth once its started to go sticky and looks kinda crap afterwards !