Pauls splitscreen van project: 2012

Oxalic Acid rust treatment

I discovered a cheap alternative for treating rust using Oxalic acid and warm water. I purchased this from ebay for £3.20 per 1Kg plus postage it worked out about £6 per Kg

I decided to get a few test pieces out to give it a try, using gloves and safety goggles the powder was mixed with warm water at about 500g to 5 liters 1:10 ratio and added some degreased very rusty tin ware

This piece was half submerged for 24 hours and you can compare the results, there was still a little rust in the pitted bits but a top up with more warm water to activate the crystals that had collected in the bottom of the pot and another dip and these should be gone.

There was a yellow residue on the parts when removed that I washed off with the garden hose, then dried quickly to stop any flash rust. These were only test pieces so on a proper job I'd remove all the paint first.

The work college that let me into this little secret said the good thing about this is it will only react with the oxidized rust and not eat into the steel so parts can be left in the pot with out disappearing.

See videos below.

Rust treatment method

Rust treatment results

Front panel damage

When I first brought the van I was aware of the damage to the front of the van but the repair filler and paint that had been done didn't look too bad a job. It is now time to see how good or bad it is.

Having spent an afternoon with paint stripper that does not work and getting covered in dust with my wire wheel I got most of the filler off, just one big lump left.

There was also damage to the inside of the panel, it wasn't too bad just quite a lot of it.

With a days' work and a can of environmentally friendly paint stripper that doesn't strip paint I finally got the front of the van cleaned up. The damage was to all off the left side of the panel. There was no need to repair the panel although there was a small weld next to the light bowl that may have been used to pull the panel's dent out originally.

As I don't have or can get access to Go Go Gadget arms to reach through the front windows I figured I'd need to remove the head lamp bowl to get to both sides of the damage for panel beating. I started by drilling the spot weld with a drill bit in a normal battery drill, I soon found the drill wandering as I could not get on the spot welds square.

I then had to use an angled die grinder to grind out all of the welds trying not to go through both skins. With bigger holes than I intended the welds were free. A whack on the back of the bowl just left a dent, so where I could get access I eased the lip and released the rust with a tiny pry bar and ground down hacksaw blade

Then grinding the attachment of a dent puller to the shape of the bowls lip and a spray of WD40 I gently persuaded the bowl out without damaging it.

The bowl came out quite easily with the puller and a bit of penitence. A clean up in the blaster should tidy the bowl up.

I then used a light coat of black paint as a guide coat to cover the panel and went over it with a sander to reveal the high and low spots.

If you click on the photo for a better look you can see the beating the panel got from the previous repair and how aggressive they were with the sanding disc. I'd hate to think how much time and money it would take to get a pro to straighten this out so I can see why they just pulled out the worst and layed on the filler.

So with my new bargain priced £170 panel beating kit and panel file I'll be spending some lonely hours trying to get this panel looking better. There will probably have to be a bit of filler put back onto the panel as my panel beating skills are still at grade 1, but hopefully not a van load.

Accelerator hinge fitting and link modifcation

This was the rusted cab floor

I repaired it earlier but now needed to fit the hinge and pedal back in position.

I brought a pedal hinge from custom and commercial.

Using the pen lines I had drawn when cutting the old hinge out this with a drill bit through the holes helped keep it square and lined up.

I counter sinked the two holes to help get a penetrating weld, you can see from the pen lines that I nearly fitted it the wrong way around.

I then moved onto repairing the hinge on the accelerator pedal

I whittled this little piece from a lump of square mild steel bar and drilled the holes to suit the hinge pin I brought

I then had the idea of fitting 6 mm track rod ends to a lump of steel that I'd weld to the pedal. But they looked to big the weld would have looked ugly and a bit of over kill.

So i decided to open up the oval hole in the pedal and make a bush to fit a 5 mm ball joint

The bush was turned with an interference fit and squeezes into place with a bench vise.

with the hindge in its position I needed to fix it in place.

I was going to mig weld it but thought Brazing would look neater I've never braised before so this should be good.

The only thing I had to get a hot enough flame was an Arc welder and some carbon rods.

These rods once slid together ignite from the current from the welder, as they burn shorter you slide them slowly together, until pulled apart to stop them so the current can't bridge the gap.

I probably over did it with the heat and the ammount of braising rod I added between the gaps but the lower hindge is going nowhere, Just have to clean of the slag.

Under the cab floor the two angle's that hold the drilled out nuts where the rod goes through to link the pedal to the cable were also oval from ware. I opened these up, but had to cut a drill bit down to fit under the floor.

I then made a couple of brass bushes to squeeze into the holes that would fit an 8 mm round steel bar.

I then cut, radiuses and bent a piece of flat steel bar and turned a tube with a shoulder to fit in the lower end braised it in place and drilled a 5 mm hole for the ball joint at the other end and taped a hole fro a 4 mm grub screw.

These are the parts laid out ready for mockup.

Then put together on the bench.

I then painted them up pushed the bushes on the rod, that scrape the paint off. assembled all the parts and then drilled through the grub screw hole to make a dimple to locate the grub screw once the angle a position was correct.

There was a little friction in the mechanism I probable put this down to not drilling the brass bush holes parallel to each other.

Fitting a 4" Narrowed Beam

I had to make the decision a while ago if I should make my own narrowed beam or buy one.

This wasn't to tuck my wheels under my arches as far as I could but to help with the offset of the Porsche Fusch wheels I needed to fit under my arches.

As you can see above I decided to buy a Type 2 Detectives 4" narrow beam, I worked out I only needed 2" to get the wheels under the arch and in line with the rear wheels but was persuaded to buy a 4" beam to help with clearences.

I dragged my old leaf springs out of the shed where they have been wrapped in oily rags since I pulled the king and link pin beam of the van years ago.

I made some 12mm spacers for the top mount, the spacer ended up sitting inside the rubber of the mount and the shock was just 2mm away from the beams side. I may make these out of steel and longer with a lip inside.

Using a flat surface I marked the distance with the seal pressed against the surface plate

Then used a vernier to get the gap measurment

Getting all excited about getting the beam together I thought I'd check the trailing arms in the beam but the trailling arm got stuck in the bearing so I thought I wouldn't push it all the way.