Sunday 31 October 2010

Bay Window Resto...



Well, here it is. One of my friends bought this 1971 panel van a couple of years back, perhaps not knowing the extent of the rust lurking but anyway, it is a panel van and there aren't many here to choose from now.

With the body condition in mind, most of the money has gone into the mechanical's on this beast. The front suspension is now adjustable and dropped down, and I have dropped the rear end to match the desired front height. Not as low as some out there for sure but it does look okay and should provide a degree of comfort when belting down the road.



While the front and rear suspension's were being reset, I dropped the trans-axle out for a tidy up and replaced the CV's with new ones, new CV boots of course and ran some new wires down the guts of the chassis to enable the electric fuel pump and tach to operate.
Also just had new battery cables made up today.
The engine mount is off being powder coated at the moment after being altered to clear the merged exhaust. I expect I will see that this week. Then I need to make some mounts to hang the engine and it's all good to go.
Yes that's a solid tail gate from a German fire car or similar we think. Apart from the slight dent on the right side, it's a perfect original lid. Nice score.

 
I built this engine about 5 or so years ago now. 1776 cc, with counter weighted crank, Engle 120 cam, 8.5:1 compression, new dual port heads with larger valves (forget the sizes after all this time), Berg wide deep sump, 26 mm Berg pump, Berg relief valve pump cover, alternator, 36hp dog house shroud, dual 40DCNF's on god knows what manifolds (alloy but can't remember if they were Scat perhaps?), merged exhaust, pertronix pick up, MSD coil, new everything else where it matters.
I have only run the engine for about 5 minutes previously on the floor of my garage to get the timing and carbs running close to correct, so it will be good to see the thing on the road and get it running spot on.
I had a similar engine in my own 1977 Bay Window panel van about 15 years ago and it was no problem getting the van side ways. Surprising how easily these old van's can be made to do burn out's!
With a load of filler and some primer, plus the BRM wheels installed, this old van will live to see another day.

Isotropic rem polishing