Still Stoked Longboard Skates For Surfers

Re-inventing Red

This entry relates to: [ Travel ]

Saturday, Jun 19, 2010

We were somewhat forced to sell the VW camper as our boy would not sleep up the top and even in the huge bed the VW had, there was not the room. We were at a loss as to where to go next camper-wise. With the ever increasing price of petrol (not to be whinged at, after all it is a finite resource) there was no way we could afford to run a Mark1 Transit with their top MPG of 18 but we love the space and layout of the CI Autohomes which were only put on Transits and Bedfords in the 70's.
So you can imagine how chuffed we were when we found a 1992 transit with the back we wanted. The guy said it had 11 months MOT and was in pretty good condition and did about 30-35mpg. So off Donny went to collect it.

Well, we're no experts, though sometimes I wish we were. We got it checked out at a garage when we got home, as there was something not quite right with the suspension and the guy went white and said he reckoned it was a right-off!!! What a complete downer. VOSA check showed 18 failures and another 13 adviseries. One of the failures probably would have killed the passengers as the seat and belts were only screwed down with wood screws!! Oh Dear.
Not wanting to right it off completely the only way wot go was to buy a better tranny and stick the back of this one onto the new one. Advice said it had to be a Transit Flairside and after a few false starts we found a great one.

After taking out (with some difficulty) the bolts that hold the back on, we got it off with the help of a mate's tractor.



Now Silver is a bare boned beast, all welded and sealed up to get it to last as long a possible. The next step is to under the camper body and the "easy" job of lifting the camper off and sticking it on silver. No problems! We will keep you updated how it goes.

Posted on Saturday, Jun 19, 2010 at 10:04:57