nicely posted at 602 pm lol

I like the blue and think you could sign write it too

I saw it was 6:01 when I'd finished writing it, and couldn't resist waiting another minute

Whoops I've done it now. Actually though Would it really be that hard to do? It might be a nice touch...

Its something I always notice in modern cars too, like a collegue who had a modern Volvo (or Seat or something) which I got in to drive and found the handbrake on the far left of the wide central console, right next to the passenger's seat. The manufacturers must have been in a meeting working on the conversion - It was like ok so we've moved the pedals over for the RHD market, ok yeah lets move the instruments, ... ok so the steering wheel too, how about the handbra- ahh sod it.


Squares ain't for squares.



For the signwriting, how about something like this?:


That would be cool ... Only in French of course:
"Département Municipal de Région Parisienne de l'Extirpation des Zombis"

You'd have to get that checked by a real french person, that was only a bable of parisian region municipal department of eradication of zombies. I admit I'm a bit foggy about french grammer concerning the word Zombi.

Well I'm very keen on the sign writing, I'll give it some thought. Either way, I've got a long time to make my mind up!

I'm intrigued by this hand brake now, I'll be working on the bulkhead the next few days hopefully, can anyone give me a bit more advice?



That's all the rotten bits cut out now, I'm going to have fun making that look neat!

Is it just the handbrake that is in a different place on a slough built, or are there any other differences? Does anyone know of any high resolution pictures, or better still know where I could steal some measurements from for the bulkhead...?

Thanks!

George

Well, I've attacked this part over the Easter holidays, though I haven't had much time with other projects etc. getting in the way. After talking with people on the mig welding forum I decided to just make a whole new bulkhead rather than patch up the old. There'll be nothing original on the van by the time I'm done!
Sorry Xmas, I decided in the end to be completely boring and just make a standard bulkhead up, as dad's bleu celest is parked outside for me to take measurements from, and I'm rather pushed for time.

In chronological order, for once;

We picked up a sheet of steel from a local builders merchants, it's 0.6mm galvanised steel. The original is 0.4mm, but I felt a bit scared using metal as thin as that, and I'm sure the extra 0.2mm wont hurt. If I just grind / wire brush back or whatever the galv coating where I weld, I'm sure it'll be fine.





Andrew (On the 2cvgb forum) sent me a copy of an article from the magazine showing how to make a bulkhead, which I followed mostly until I got bored .

The main problem is pressing the 'ribs' into the sheet, and without it distorting too much. For my wheel arches, Paul (Again from the mig forum) showed my how to use his bead roller and so on, but for this I fancied doing it all myself, so I made a similar tool to that show in the mag article.







Hopefully you can see how it works? The metal sheet is clamped in the middle, raised up by about half a centimetre, then the 'T' shaped bar is hammered down on op of it to create the rib. The reason behind clamping it is so that the material where the rib is to go is stretched, instead of it drawing in metal from either side leading to distortion. This didn't work particularly well, but it's not the end of the world.
Here are a few pictures of my test pieces, to get the dimensions of the ribs correct.





They seemed to go all right, the next problem was making ribs that didn't run off the end of the panels, but stopped in the middle somewhere. I remade the 'T' shaped tool from solid metal rather than tube, so as I could round of the ends. I spent an age with a file before realising a flap disc on the grinder did a much better job! Also, I made some curved pieces to sit in the tool, raising the level up to the same as the rest of the metal.



Then time to try it out on the real thing, it's surprisingly scary walloping an immaculate shiny sheet of steel with a crude lump hammer, but it seemed to be working OK.





There are the first couple of ribs done, they seemed to work all right. By the end it was looking decidedly wibbly though.



Well, the ripples are in place. It was 7 o'clock on a Sunday by the time I had got that far, and Mum insisted I give the neighbours a break. Monday was spent hitting it some more, I've got a lot to learn about metalworking! I was trying to round of the ends neatly, but it's still not perfect. I don't know how the metal behaves yet, and I can't tell which bit will pop up out of place when I hit a different bit, but I think I'm getting there.



Now I just need to cut out and weld the battery tray in, cut a load of holes for heater tubes and so on, and stick it in the van. I've got exams all through this month though, so I'm afraid you'll have to wait a bit for the next update.

Excellent work , just shows what can be achieved.

Very impressed, great work!

I'm still around, and the project still continues, albeit slowly!

I've just had my last exam for this year, so I haven't been doing anything much to the van, but now it's only a month or so until the summer holidays, so hopefully I'll get a lot done over the next few months. Need to finish off the bulkhead, and stick that in place, and tidy up the whole of the front end, then I'll have a look at replacing the wheel arches!

In other news, I passed my driving test this morning!
So now I'm badgering dad to add me on the insurance for his Bleu celeste, and I'll at least get to drive a 2cv now, even if I have to wait a bit for the van to be finished...

Pictures of work hopefully to follow soon!

George

Congratulations!

Hey George thats a fine job indeed.
Perhaps i should have spoken to you and got you to fabricate all the panels for my Kubelwagen, that would have kept your neighbours happy,lol
Keep up the good work