after a few days of looking at the panel van in the rain i decided that i ought to get a move on and on sunday arvo trooped down to the local halwits to pick up a set of spark plugs, a new distributor cap and a rotor arm and some other bits n bobs…

got the plugs and the cap, so one two out of half a dozen isn’t bad for the people who lost out to the cadbury boost bar…

back at akciddento acres it became quickly evidednt that the battery is kippered and it looks like there’s a water leak from the engine jacket on the wasserboxer on number one cylinder and it makes quite a kinda grinding racket when you crank it over…
…which was nice.

anyhow, the upshot is i didn’t get it started but it’s not all bad, i started ripping out the existing airsystem. air box, piping, valves, ducting and all manner of plastic junk in a nice heap in the yard. most satisfying.

not really getting anywhere with the engine and feeling a little disheartened i decide i ought to finish off the last bit of bulkhead that i didn’t rip out last time….
cue large hammer and cold chisel and a merry half hour of splitting welds and generally sitting in a large steel drum going deaf.

half a kilo thrown onto the pile in the yard…

then my attention turns to the dashboard, a hunge expanse of rather fetchingly fleck coated steel filling half the cab.

it’s got to go…

unfortunately i need to open the doors to get the outer screws out. the dash folds round the middle of the a posts and is screwed in but with the mobile breadbin parked next to it in the yard access is only throught the back door…
doh…

so another merrry half hour ensued unscrewing everything in sight and adding it to the pile… during which i came upon a discovery that had been bugging me. the heater control are illuminated! (must fix the bulb in the other van) though the ones in the panel van aren’t any more… primarily because the heater control are now sat in a wheelie bin on the kerb outside my house waiting for the bin men to collect them at dawn tomorrow.

although i wanted to get the bus up to raceshack and put it on the scales to get the correct original weight (too late now!) the documentation i’ve found indicate that the wedge weighs in between 1395kg and 1740kg. so i’m taking the bottom of the scale and saying that the panel van weighed 1400kg(3086lb) to start. the target weight is 2000lb (907kg) so i have to lose 500kg from the bus…

about the weight of a small car.

easy.

btw, the street weight of the samba was 2964lb (1344kg) …..

(picture of big piles of plastic to follow tomorrow)