Time for action
Danny and Clive’s T4 adventure gets going with bodywork
On day three of filming things got serious. Two episodes down, four more to go and Clive and I were beginning to feel it but it was great to, at last, be getting down to the nitty gritty. The previous day, while we were getting oily and sorting the T4’s mechanicals, PC’S Workshop Editor, Matt Tomkins, had been outside in flatpack heaven, building the cabinets and rock ’n’ roll bed that would make our van a nice place to live and sleep. On turning up, first thing, Clive and I noticed that they had not only been built, they had been painted too, in the same sky blue that the van’s lower flanks are covered in... nice work Matt. They were ready to fit. Just in time really, the next two days were going to be all about bodywork and interior. Our T4 was blessed with a decent underside and relatively little in the way of corrosion, however Clive would need to don his welding PPE and get to grips with a small patch on the inner wing while I removed, prepped and painted the front panel. Then we would both have to endure the trials and tribulations of a couple of hours with an Amazon Basics wire brush in hand as we scraped the flaky surface rust away in preparation for a covering of wax.
Blue Nose
Our T4 was bought with an aftermarket black nose panel fitted. Obviously at some point a ding had occurred and a replacement of the original panel was required. It lets the whole van down so I set out with my premixed paint in a spray can to sort it. Immediately I deployed the Mechanics toolkit and popped the T4 nose forward to get at the panel, which is clipped into the plastic grille.
Ten minutes and I was outside with the grit paper keying up the surface of the black panel I was about to paint.
While I was outside creating pastel blue perfection Clive was indoors with his head up a wheelarch sorting out a small hole. To start that process he made sure the mats in the o side footwell were away from the metal he was about to sort from the outside. He also made sure our brand new Yuasa battery was disconnected. With the correct PPE donned Clive ground back the a ected area and then cut back the metal back around the corrosion to create an oblong hole. It really makes a
di erence to have some straight lines to weld to.
Then Clive grabbed a set of Amazon Basics tin snips (yep, Amazon make tin snips!) and cut the correct size patch from clean sheet steel… safety gloves on. A decent initial measurement meant he only had to do this once. He’s like that, Clive, a bit of a stickler. Then he tacked in the patch at each corner and laid a run of weld between each tack. Sounds simple… but isn’t. Once in and ground back Clive covered it with seam sealer and then epoxy.
With my panel done and Clive’s welding complete, we got into glamour mode with wire brushes and facemasks… two hours of intense scrubbing followed by the end of which we both looked like miners. At least the worst of the rust was cleared though and that gave us the opportunity to get stuck in with Liqui Moly 7390 Rust converter followed by 6047 primer filler along the seams after which we finished o with a coat of 6104 wax rust protector. We needed a bath after that… and a rest.
‘Good welding looks simple and sounds easy, but it really isn’t!’
Day 4 – Inside job
Day four dawned and we were ready with the cabinets and rock n roll bed. Our friend Nicky was with us to help with the heavy lifting because this wouldn’t be a simple case of putting cupboards in a van… oh no… this was going to be a proper fa . The cupboards and bed are made to be tailored, and trimmed to fit the van you own… so we were going to be shifting them in and out a number of times… and they were not unheavy!
Cutting MDF isn’t the simplest either so we deployed a jigsaw for the small trimmings and Clive’s ‘circular saw of justice’ for the big cuts.
Three hours of graft had the cupboards fitting with just enough clearance to slide the bed in… once done though it all looked really good. In fact it looked so good we almost decided there and then to go on holiday immediately and put it to the test!
By now we were on a roll so we decided to get rid of the old wiring to the original leisure battery in readiness to resight it with a new loom and leisure battery. Clive also fitted the new speakers and stereo I found on Amazon.
We were going to have tunes! ■
TIME TO CLICK ON AMAZON? And use Part finder. Quick, easy, e cient and the best way to get what you want.