Le Petite Van Gris Part 8

 

Le Petite Van Gris Part 8

 It has taken some time to get things made. All the engineering firms are very busy and not many want to take on small jobs. I have found just a few. What I thought I needed was a cross member for the van in front of the rear suspension. There is support beyond that with the chassis and side rigger plates. I mentioned in the July missive and was far too brief in what was being done at the time.

My brother Adrian came to visit for a few days to help me. The mission was to lift the van body and cab to fit the cross member and remove the under floor pan that needs to be fitted under the chassis after the fitting of the longitudinal drive shaft. The floor pan slid out easily but the cross member did present with a few problems. One was where to place the securing bolts on the chassis and be able to tighten them up. The first idea was to have the beam with the legs facing rearward but there was not enough room to get a spanner on the head of the bolt the s pension unit was in the way, so the beam was reversed and this made enough room for spanners. Now that it was secure the van body could be replaced and the cross member could be checked for fit. The right side and centre were perfect but the left side was proud because of a previous repair. To maintain the integrity of the repair the cross member needed to be modified to suit. This required the upper part to be reshaped and the bend in the section to be moved to fit the body. This was done by cutting the top edge about every 3 centimetres straightening out the bend and redoing it a few millimetres lower. Once it was checked for fit the cuts were welded to retain the strength and the area repainted.  I will have to remove the body again for spraying and when I do this I will secure the body to the cross member 8mm button head bolts, penny washers and use rib nuts in the cross member.

    

I had already fitted the stainless steel joining strip that goes between the cab and the van body floor. Each bit you add to the glassfibre only makes it stronger. Having done this job quite quickly there was another job that needed two people. I had bought a tool to attach to the hub that acts as a counter lever against the spanner for undoing drive shaft nuts which are torqued to 180 ftpds with Adrian’s help we did all four on the van. As we had all the tools around the rear hubs were removed from the redundant rear suspension arms. I need one for the El Cid.