Post by andrewthe33 on Oct 1, 2020 8:14:07 GMT
In an adventure worthy of the final scene in "The Italian Job", I'm proud to say I have, with a HUGE amount of help from Matt Dafs and a friend of mine by the name of Ian (and his dog, "Bear"!) rescued a Daf 33 van! As those in the Daf worked know, all Dafs are rare, but the 33 vans are the rarest of rare! I've had my eye on it ever since seeing it parked in a driveway in Potters Bar, near my home. After dropping a note through the letterbox I established communication with the van's owner, who explained that he had acquired the van with a view to restoring it himself, but he had been unable so to do. He didn't really want to scrap it, but it seemed he had been under pressure to "tidy up" the front of his house, so was contemplating scrapping it when I contacted him. I told him of the Daf Club and my interest in Dafs, and 33s in particular, and he was happy to see it go to a good home, instead of the scrapper.
Now came the tricky part...... The car's tyres had rotted away and it was more or less sitting on its wheel rims. In addition, the driveway on which it sat was gravel, as opposed to tarmac or concrete-both factors adding to the difficulty of moving a car that had stood for 25 years in the same place! As an initial "trial move" I arranged to see it it could be pulled from its resting place using a tow rope and, using my Subaru 4x4, I managed to pull it a few feet which encouraged me to arrange a trailer, to shift it properly.
The scheduled date of 30th September came along, and I set off to collect Ian and "Bear" the dog, and then picked up the trailer, where the salesman explained how it, the ramps, winch and coupling all worked-very useful! We drove off to the van, and began to position the trailer and ramps. The van had been parked "nose in" 25 yeas ago, and although it is preferable to place vehicles on a trailer bonnet first, thus placing more weight on the coupling, we had no choice but to place it on the trailer backwards. Daf 33s have an almost 50/50 front to rear weight distribution anyway. I started to winch the Daf up the ramps onto the trailer...... the steel hauser tightened..... the winch became tighter.... and then the winch handle snapped! Now, I like to think I'm a fairly strong individual, but not capable of snapping steel bar with my bare hands, although it appeared this was what I had done. Unable to use the winch, the three of us pushed and shoved the van off the trailer and back down the ramps, folded the ramps into the trailer, coupled up & set off back to the trailer hire company. Owing to several very sharp corners on the shortest route we were obliged to take a more circuitous one, adding more time to the journey. They were apologetic and gave us another winch handle & we set off back to the Daf, some 1 & 1/2 hours later than planned!
The entire operation began again, with much pushing, shoving and sweating. Just as the van was about to slide onto the trailer...... the winch failed! The language we all used would best be described as "industrial", but we had reached the "point of no return" and decided, somehow, to continue with the loading of the van. we used a trailer strap and my tow rope, attached to my Subaru to pull the van the last few feet onto the trailer. It was HELL-the off-side front wheel had seized solid and I resorted to jacking the front of the van to "encourage" it into place!
By 1pm we had secured the van to the trailer, and were ready to go. The drive to Essex Dafs was uneventful and only took one and a quarter hours. Getting the van off was another HUGE effort, but we sweated blood, used a trolly jack to fit 4 tyres and swung the van backwards & forwards until it was safely ensconced in its space in the barn.
Once again, a HUGE thanks you to Matt, Ian (& "Bear") for all their efforts in helping save this extremely rare Daf van. Now it's safe I can breathe again, before thinking about the restoration-but that's a thought for another day!
Now came the tricky part...... The car's tyres had rotted away and it was more or less sitting on its wheel rims. In addition, the driveway on which it sat was gravel, as opposed to tarmac or concrete-both factors adding to the difficulty of moving a car that had stood for 25 years in the same place! As an initial "trial move" I arranged to see it it could be pulled from its resting place using a tow rope and, using my Subaru 4x4, I managed to pull it a few feet which encouraged me to arrange a trailer, to shift it properly.
The scheduled date of 30th September came along, and I set off to collect Ian and "Bear" the dog, and then picked up the trailer, where the salesman explained how it, the ramps, winch and coupling all worked-very useful! We drove off to the van, and began to position the trailer and ramps. The van had been parked "nose in" 25 yeas ago, and although it is preferable to place vehicles on a trailer bonnet first, thus placing more weight on the coupling, we had no choice but to place it on the trailer backwards. Daf 33s have an almost 50/50 front to rear weight distribution anyway. I started to winch the Daf up the ramps onto the trailer...... the steel hauser tightened..... the winch became tighter.... and then the winch handle snapped! Now, I like to think I'm a fairly strong individual, but not capable of snapping steel bar with my bare hands, although it appeared this was what I had done. Unable to use the winch, the three of us pushed and shoved the van off the trailer and back down the ramps, folded the ramps into the trailer, coupled up & set off back to the trailer hire company. Owing to several very sharp corners on the shortest route we were obliged to take a more circuitous one, adding more time to the journey. They were apologetic and gave us another winch handle & we set off back to the Daf, some 1 & 1/2 hours later than planned!
The entire operation began again, with much pushing, shoving and sweating. Just as the van was about to slide onto the trailer...... the winch failed! The language we all used would best be described as "industrial", but we had reached the "point of no return" and decided, somehow, to continue with the loading of the van. we used a trailer strap and my tow rope, attached to my Subaru to pull the van the last few feet onto the trailer. It was HELL-the off-side front wheel had seized solid and I resorted to jacking the front of the van to "encourage" it into place!
By 1pm we had secured the van to the trailer, and were ready to go. The drive to Essex Dafs was uneventful and only took one and a quarter hours. Getting the van off was another HUGE effort, but we sweated blood, used a trolly jack to fit 4 tyres and swung the van backwards & forwards until it was safely ensconced in its space in the barn.
Once again, a HUGE thanks you to Matt, Ian (& "Bear") for all their efforts in helping save this extremely rare Daf van. Now it's safe I can breathe again, before thinking about the restoration-but that's a thought for another day!
