Doullama's 1977 Marina van

[doullama]

Hz is at the beaters to have both swages under the rear windows replaced, too ratty to (re)-fill and beyond my skill to replicate. depending on the bill from that may get the Lh sill, outer wheel arch and the panel above said sill replaced too. Bloody Australian cars, rust way worse than British ones! Austin is legendary, holding up to daily duties well. 

[doullama]

In breaking van-news, popped in to see the panelbeater today and oh wow what a great job hes done, cut out a strip about an inch either side of the RH swage from front door to rear hatch, plated/replaced more than half of the horizontal inner skin and formed a new outer skin + swage by hand, welded that in and it looks (expletive deleted) amazing. Im no fan of wallet-based jalopy repairs but this is one job i'm glad I farmed out, was getting a bit down on it due to that particular rust patch being so extensive/complex/structural. He reckoned the hardest part was bracing the van body while this was going on to stop that side collapsing haha! even had existing bogged over fatigue cracks in the side from flexing/flopping about in the past. The stuff thats been cut out is an absolute puttied/bogged/godknows mess. Am feeling much better about the project with that complete, have thrown more money at him to do the other side, which should only need minor patching in comparison. Pics to come!

[doullama]

Panelbeater is still plugging away, both sideswages done, turned out the left side was just as bad as the right, just bogged better  now into the rear 1/4's and arches, After that it'll be the Lh sill and the bit above it, bottom of Lh guard has some random unwelded patches too, which I suspect aren't welded fully because you can't weld to bog. Still need to figure out why the a-pillars are filling with water in the rain, @Shakotom are the a-pillars ok under the chrome screen-trim? Could even be a bad seal I suppose but seems odd that the water is only pouring in to the pillar-posts. This van is reminding me just how lucky I've been with Gm cars in the past haha, getting there though

[doullama]

It should be noted that the rear 1/4's are being done only because beater needed something to weld the arch lip to that wasn't a shopping bag full of rust flakes and filler haha, watch as this chain reaction leads to a 30% new van 

[doullama]

Holden came back friday, had just about forgotten about it! Got some sweet rostyles plus some brown door cards and an 80's shaft-radio off @Threeonthetree, nice to meet you Neal! unbelievably (and probably in a fit of jealousy) my marina failed to proceed after coming back from auckland, sputtered and died in my driveway! Not too sure whats up with it, poor spark. Anyhow here's some pics from the beater, am hoping to have this thing complete in 2019, much work awaits

[doullama]

Whipped the LH door off holden to address some rust in bottom of A-pillar, + its poked (so is RH) so not putting that one back on, while I was there thought i'd do some investigative grinding, someone has kindly smashed in the front quarter? with a hammer to "line up" -read leave room for 1" of bog between it and the poorly folded, and now rusted out replacement outer sill. rearmost 8" of inner sill is also shagged. Luckily patch-panels are available for all this, chinese mig's gonna get a hammering! Also found why water was leaking into A-pillar, nowhere near the appropriate amount of sealant around windscreen, so I guess that comes out too..  Swaps for Austin/morris, no rileyz

[doullama]

Oh hurro original sill, suspect the other side is an oversill also - however will refrain from confirming suspicions.. The RH rear quarter is an over-quarter too. Seriously is it that hard to run a grinder along to cut out the bulk of the rust before slapping a panel over? Even thats rough but this is next level, oversill held in by about 20 poor tacks + bog to taste.. got it started with grinder +nail-puller then just tore it off by hand! Have both inner/outer repro sills, Outer sill will be a pretty easy replace once I cut out the front quarter panel (still waiting on arrival ex aus) Inner sill looks a right bastard, (complete replacement reqd, big suprise) so much spot-welds under low car.. may even just cut it off at spotweld flange, clean it up and spotweld the replacement inner onto that, then cover the mess in por (just got some, never tried it before but not much to lose -soo much surface rust/pitting to cover. Whatever I do cant possibly be worse than what is there I figure. Be "interesting" to see what A-pillar base is like under guard. Have grabbed a bunch of random scrap steel & an old ute tray headboard which will come in handy for replacing the rotten arch support. Still blown away by 70's australian rust-susceptability tbh!

[doullama]

Have finished making some patches & started welding in the front of hz's lh inner sill tonight, luckily most of the inner is salvageable excepting the very front and a couple of feet of the rear! bit where sill joins firewall was toast but complex, just cleaned it up & gave it a mig-wire rebuild. There is meant to be some sort of support under the a-pillar, it was rusted beyond recognition so may just use some handy bent c-channel I have lying around, couldn't find a relevant patch-panel   excuse generic bird-splatter 

[doullama]

and the rear inner + bottom of wheel arch, just about ready for outer which is cut to shape. Guess I'd better repair guard & door for this side so I can bung em on to check sill alignment before I get too carried away

[doullama]

Almost there, just front quarter now. Sadly my wheel arch lip alignment was thrown off a bit by some bog discovered a touch too late, not unbearable though

[doullama]

Much welding & filling has taken place, and the whole shebang has been given a coat of oil paint + penetrol, left to cure & then given an inaugural coat of urethane in a stylin’ brown, my ancient + cheap gun seems to want to spray orange-peely unless there’s only 50ml of paint in the cup? Rather than get a new gun I think i’ll Roll 50ml at a time haha, after another day of wet sanding of course. Swaps for nice champagne AU, serious 

[doullama]

you've come a long way baby, not really happy with my paint-job, bit orange-peely but oh well, better than it was. Reassembly almost complete, just need to install stereo, get rid of fake whitewall things and get a better drivers seatbelt, hunt down front bumper rubber thing + carpet the rear. Put styley brown doorcards on which suit well, along with new weatherstripping. Even has a functioning rear hatch handle, and vastly better rear bumpers. Swapped to a smaller oil filter to eliminate start-up rattle. Really needs its o.g suspension put back in, not a fan of having to crawl over obstacles + I assume the swaybar was removed due to incompatibility with lowness, have a 1 ton one to put on, gotta have that RTS after all. Don't intend to keep this van long, just sick of its bs haha

[doullama]

did a bit more work to van, wof'ed and put up f/s to the great unwashed, here's a pic for posterity

[doullama]

and ended up swapping for a chebby turck, in pretty good nick, RHD and 94k miles. Is 350/th700r4, was LPG at some stage so has been converted to carby. Certainly gets up and marches, sounds the tits too. Also has canopy for camping missions. Will never be mentioned again as not really OS (89) Great leyland support vehicle

[johno]

hey ya bud, funny I now have this panelvan . Interesting to see the behind the scenes with your blog.

308,  th400 and going strong.

[doullama]

On 25/05/2021 at 13:25, johno said:

hey ya bud, funny I now have this panelvan . Interesting to see the behind the scenes with your blog.

308,  th400 and going strong.

Oh choice mate, I saw a while ago it was spotted during certification for the 8. Great to hear its still getting about, you will probably have to sort the RH sill and rear quarter one day - did the left hand side but let sleeping dogs lie on the other! Pretty good van compared to most - not that there are many left, and it is solid in/around the roof where they usually rust out. I would like to personally apologise for the shithouse paintjob, thats totally on me haha

[doullama]

So I know many of you have been losing sleep, wondering "whatever happened to that british pos van". Well wonder no more, for an update is forthcoming. I felt sorry for the van, forlornly keeping the mower company in the shed, so dragged it out and gave it some tlc, consisting of a good thorough greasing, and bending the fuel pickup down as the tank had imploded somewhat in the past and left it high & dry when 10L remained in the tank. I then painted it (again) in the driveway, this time in Leyland "black tulip", with some aliexpress purple pearl thrown in for good measure. As usual I could only be bothered removing a couple of dents. The back doors are pretty rough, having been hit and repaired twice that I know of, so slapped some stickers on there to hide all the ripples! I'll take it in for a wof when I can be bothered, should be pretty good (for a Leyland product)

[doullama]

Decals are a bit small, but far better than suffering the enduring shame of having a panelvan with zero barbarian content

[doullama]

Added some more decals and cleared over them, I was a bit unsure about the slayer but it hearkens back to a period where this was hamiltons official "slayer van"

[doullama]

Felt cute, might delete later idk. Surely this is nz's most hilariously cool marina van