The show must go on!

OK so after a lot of talking and some thinking and a bit of help we have decided to go ahead and do the restoration of Maisie.

We will have to see if we can afford to keep her but for the moment the show goes on.

A decision to make

Good news (sort of) from the garage today.

They have done a bit of ringing around and has found a friend who has a Jig that can be borrowed (well the workshop with the Jig in can be used). So the job is still possible.

The down side is the cost now all the corrosion is visible we are looking at 10 times what we originally agreed. That was however for a lot less work, we now need some large structural work and respray due to the body panels being replaced.

We have now to work out if we can find the money to keep Maisie or cut our losses and sell her on. 

The end?

Another call to the garage and some more bad news......

Having now cleared off all the rust and taken out the cab floor the state of the chassis leg has become horrifyingly clear. A previous owner had put together the leg with filler and a some bits of metal then covered liberally in underseal to hide the resulting bodge.

Unfortunately this means that the job is now much bigger than before and requires a Jig to hold the body steady whilst a large chunk of chassis is removed. It also means that it might not be possible to do at the current garage as it is not a piece of equipment that he has.

So we are now looking at a much more expensive job than before, we have sunk a tidy sum into replacement parts and we are at a stage where our current garage may not be able to finish the job. Maisie is all cut up with rusty parts chopped off and some still to come out.

Where do we go now?

If we sell her as a project we will loose money and the children will never forgive us for letting her go.

If we keep her we will have to find a big wad of cash to get the work done and also pay out for moving her from where she is now to a new garage with the correct kit. :(

Meet Daisy

Van less for a bit we not to be deterred for the camping season so booked to go off to the forest of Dean again to meet up with George and Kev. When up in the loft sorting out the camping gear I found an impulse purchase for a while back I thought i might as well get it put together ready for the trip.

So now Maisie has a little friend.

Seb helping to fix Daisy

Complete with her own bunting

VW Festival 2013

In search of inspiration for the interior and in need of something to keep the little ones occupied for the day I headed to the VW Festival. A little difficult managing the rucksack with Seb in and Millie on my Shoulders but we had a great day and came back with lots of ideas for the new interior.

One Step forward......

An update from the garage that they had some good news and bad news. The good news was the step was in and bumper bolts added on one side. 

But then for the bad news.............

As well as the Jacking point and steps that we knew about  was quite allot more rust appearing as the underseal was stripped back. More jacking points and outriggers are needed and the main chassis leg under the cab floor and the passenger side cab floor will all now need replacing.

MOT - Good news and bad news

Maisie went off for the yearly panic inducing inspection and........







Passed first time. Brilliant we thought, no work needed doing for the test all sorted for the summer.

Or so we thought.

Last year some it was pointed out that welding the front steps would need replacing and we had not quite got around to getting it sorted. This appeared as an advisory again this year and we needed to have an extra seat belt point mounted in the rear (a PO had removed one when making repairs) so we decided it was time to book it in now.

A few phone calls around the local(ish) VW specialists brought to our attention the long wait for work to be done. Hmm what to do? We need the welding done to be able to use the van (need all 5 seat belts now) but if we book her in we'll have missed the summer.

The solution presented itself when we noticed a couple of old Jags (Inspector Morse style, Mk2 I think) outside a local garage. A quick inquiry confirmed that they did a lot of work with classic cars and would be happy to work with Maisie. They also had availability this week on Friday.

Result!

So all booked in ready to get welded up and back on the road.

Interior all gone

The buyer for the interior finally came to collect it so we now have a blank canvas for the new Rusty Lee bed (bungee'd to the side in these pictures).

One of the seat belt mounting points is missing so we will need to get a new one welding in before we can fit the bed.

Christmas present

Another shiny present from FiftySixDelux this time window winders.

I was planning to save these until we had finished the new door cards but in a fit of superhuman strength i managed to snap the drivers side wider opening the window. So out came the new winders to be fitted. They will look much better when the new cards are done but in the mean time they maintain my ability to open the windows.

Speedo Cable change

The speedo stopped working on the way to Dub freeze so I picked up a new cable from Megabug at the show.

Looking at the Bentleys manual it looked like a simple job and it was. Very fiddly getting the cable off and especially back on to the back of the Speedometer but otherwise an nice easy job.

The cable runs neatly through a hole in the floor and then through a few clamping points under the bus. It did involve a bit of a crawl around on the floor but one of the advantages of standard ride hight is that I didn't even need to jack up the bus to get this done.

The wheel end was easy (once I found the hole from the rear. It needed a little wiggling to come all the way through and out the front of the hub. Then is was just a case of trying to hold it there whilst pushing on the circlip.

Job done.