New project car in West Wales

[pauldaf44]

There is a fair amount of news today from from the land of unprounouncable names. First off is that I have new workshop and undercover storage space which means my projects can finally move at a reasonable speed rather than being perpetually rained off. In light of this news and the need to move 6 vehicles 25 miles I made a new purchase yesterday which is going to be seeing regular use and surprisingly costs less to run and insure than the Discovery it replaces. So here she is in all her glory.

She is a 1989 Volkswagen LT35 2.4D. She sounds sweet as a nut but I am going to have to modify her to make her more suitable for todays roads and the local hills. Under the cab is a 2384cc Inline 6 Indirect injection diesel with a pathetic power output of 67bhp. A turbo version would give me 94bhp so I may be looking into what the differences are mechanically between the D and the TD and what changes would have to be done to turbocharge it. Otherwise I will chuck the engine and fit something more powerful like maybe the 122bhp 300TDI EDC thats sitting in my shed. I drove her back from near evesham last night with the Defender on the back and she was at 50mph flat out and down to about 10mph on the hills.



As you can see she is now loaded up ready for the first classic to be taken to its new home. Gremlin isn't being driven because she keeps randomly popping fuses so I want to check out the wiring rather than risking her setting herself on fire



Cab is pretty spacious as well and will be fitted with a double seat in the near future. Once I figured the power issues I intend to fit a tow bar so that I can take two DAFs to events and also worth bearing in mind is as a 26 year old VW the truck itself classes as a classic.

[macplaxton]

Excellent news there Paul and a handy vehicle too.

67 'orses though. Grim!

[33grinder]

Sweet! Have always had a soft dot for LT35s

[basherdaf]

Feb 4, 2016 0:44:46 GMT 33grinder said:

Sweet! Have always had a soft dot for LT35s

Peter, you have a well usable beaver tail flat bed there, remember, the idea of increasing the grunt comes at a cost.

uprated breaks/servo/discs etc, to accommodate the extra horses and the need to stop on a sixpence once your average speed increases by some 25mph....I have driven the LT55 models loaded up with 48/50/60 cycle sound proofed generator enclosures destined for the many UK TV network companies amidst my earlier Coach Building days, quite pleasant vehicles to drive around. They far outweigh the transit & LDVs competitors by a mile. It is still relatively easy to get MOT tests due to the GVW, they are under the plating category unlike the twin wheel rear wheel drive Fiat Ducacto and Man range. Most local car garages will accommodate a £55-00 MOT test for you. 

My normally aspirated Fiat Ducato Motor Home remains fully laden all the time, the GVW is set at 2880kg & the GTW is set at 4120kg, great so long as you have a decent overrun breaking system installed.

I have already had a new set of leaf springs made for the tubular rear axle.

I have increased the standard 4 leaf set to a 6 leaf set. I have made my own rear hanger brackets from 10swg bright mild steel and they now accommodate poly bushes, meaning that the standard rubber bushes and 14mm bore steel sleeves have been binned.

The rear of the vehicle sat well down at the back before because, unlike your LT35 it was never unladen. Where is your new workshop area situated now, Rayleigh or Maldon? It looks like it is well off the beaten track, old and quaint.

If you require bodywork sorting out on that then I'm your man, that's more like my line of work, more my cup of tea (even though I drink decent coffee)

all the best with the project anyway,

see you soon I'm sure,

basherdaf.

[pauldaf44]

Update on this one and all sorts of stuff going on here. Now that i've managed to get motor trade insurance and space for multiple cars i've been going a little bit mad on car buying spree so this one has been working hard.

First was a car I bought intending to break and ended up with a sweet running little motor that needed less than £50 of work and a lot of what was done was not required to get through an MOT. That is a 1999 1 litre Vauxhall Corsa B. As Howard will tell you these are brilliant little cars that are dirt cheap to buy, fuel and maintain. The Corsa is now on the road with all advisories sorted and is ready to sell on.



Second vehicle as of today is a 1991 Citroen BX19 TGD that I rescued from a breakers. It starts and runs nicely and rises and lowers, saying that it does have a few issues that need sorting. It needs repairs to both rear sill ends but other than that its fairly rust free, Electric windows and sunroof don't work, hopefully a fuse, and the biggest gamble of them all is that theres a big red stop light showing on the dash, this I believe is due to low oil in hydraulic system. The car looks to have new suspension spheres fitted so hopefully a top up will sort it and someone just hasn't put enough oil in as I can't see any leaks.



And lastly I am currently bidding on a rather swanky Mercedes E class although I think that will go for more than I want to spend although I hope it doesn't because its a really smart motor that should be a quick turn around.

I will mention that any vehicles mentioned in this thread from now on are short term projects that are not intended to be kept. Hopefully it will prove to contain a nice variety and be fairly fast moving to boot.

[pauldaf44]

Well here she be on her way home

[mattsdafs]

Good luck with it all Paul..a couple of tidy motors you have there.

[pauldaf44]

Thanks for that Matt. As promised an update now i've had chance to start cataloguing the work needed on the BX. Its not awful but there is still quite a lot of work to do.

On collecting she was very slow rise up and hand a big red STOP light showing on the dash. Once home this was traced to seriously fluid in hydraulic system. 1 litre of LHM+ has her rising nice and quickly and all the nasty lights out. However thats not the end of the story as I spyed a puddle of oil under the rear of the car which is suspect to be the reason the hydraulic fluid was low. Its not near the wheels but seeing as it isn't diesel I can't see it being anything else.

Some other issues that she has are that the electric windows don't work. I had hoped this would be a blown fuse so on looking in the fuse box found a missing fuse which happened to be the windows fuse, replaced missing fuse but still no windows so more diagnostic work is required there. I hope its not the motors but knowing my luck thats exactly what it will be.

Whilst looking inside and playing with electrics I discovered that the sunroof is also not working although that seems to be the mechanism itself rather than the motor as you can hear it trying to work. So a closer look



Ahem yes that might be why the sunroof is working. I think it might need a replacement.

Looking around inside once more and I must say the interior really is like new but another glaring issue is the handbrake travel





Whilst looking in the glovebox I got a pleasant unexpected surprise in the form of a factory manual and the cars original service schedule which contains lots of stamps.

And onto the exterior

Rust wise she is fairly good besides some areas where the rot has got quite bad. However nothing that isn't worth fixing. Both sills need major surgery at the rear end and there are a few rust bubbles appearing on the passenger A pillar inside the door shut. The latter makes me suspect I may have to do some surgery to the inner wing but hopefully not.





By far the worse issue on the outside though is the paintwork.



With both the bonnet and roof looking like that I don't think I can get away with anything other than a full respray.

and lastly to end on a good note rather than a bad look at my nice engine bay

[mattsdafs]

A fair bit of work needed on the Citroen then,is it worth it Paul?..they don't make alot of pennies when sold.

Could this be a case of being a backup classic to keep rather than sell?

Good luck with the work,result you found some history.

[pauldaf44]

Apr 24, 2016 8:27:20 GMT mattsdafs said:

A fair bit of work needed on the Citroen then,is it worth it Paul?..they don't make alot of pennies when sold.

Could this be a case of being a backup classic to keep rather than sell?

Good luck with the work,result you found some history.

I reckon there is some money in it. It needs a fair amount of work but not much in the way of parts so I should be able to keep costs down. Most expensive cost is going to be sorting out the paintwork which if I do it myself I can do for about £300. Having done my calculations I think £700 will get her to a point where she will sell for around the £1k mark and seeing as she only cost £150 there is a small profit there.

Most of the time is bodywork which doesn't really cost a lot if done yourself.