#bedford cf

[all-action-all-picture]

Speed Collection - The Ambulance Service by Ian Kennedy.

The vehicle Ian has drawn is a Bedford CF which was a common choice for Ambulances in the UK at the time.

Treasury of British Comics.

[fromrusttoroadtrip]

Yesterday we changed a wheel cylinder on the Bedford.

This may seem like a tiny act, an insignificant little part in the grand scheme of things, but two years ago we broke down in Spain, and to have two wheel cylinders replaced we were charged over €500.

We don’t ever want to find ourselves in that situation again, at the mercy of a garage and whatever ridiculous costs they decide to rip us off with.

We had no mechanical backgrounds, we didn’t grow up working with our dads on hot summer weekends like so man kids had the privilege of doing. We’re not naturals, and we’re learning everything through a painstaking process of trial and error, Haynes manuals and advice, but we’re learning.

And so the simple act of removing wheels and brake drums, unhinging brake shoe springs and replacing a tiny little wheel cylinder symbolises a full circle for us, a hard lesson learned, and seizing control of our futures and our abilities.

P.S. We promise we’ll have a new Bedford video out for you next week. We’ve been fixing a leaking diesel pipe on our own van which has consumed much of our time recently, but thankfully she’s back on the road and chugging along nicely.

In the meantime, here’s a little preview of what we’ve been up to: repainting the Bedford, and building a wall.

What new skills have you been learning lately?

[fromrusttoroadtrip]

I would never have called myself a mechanic, but in recent months I've found myself using the term more and more, in the sense that a mechanic is someone who knows how to work on vehicles, even in the most basic sense. I haven't quite earned the term yet, but I'm getting there.

But even having acquired the knowledge I have always found myself bound by a lack of strength. Even if my head could tell me what to do my bad back and weak arms restricted me in my abilities.

So I started using my legs. Ridiculous as this might sound to a real mechanic, and even Ben who just thought I was "messing around", my legs have ten times the power that my arms do. And so using my feet to kick a spanner around a tight bolt, or to undo wheel nuts by jumping up and down on a breaker bar, I feel is a valuable skill made possible with a slightly alternative approach.

After all, is our greatest asset as human beings not out adaptability, and our ability to utilise tools?

I will not allow my woman's body to restrict me from the world of mechanics, or building, or any other thing I set my mind to. And I hope that by writing about my somewhat ludicrous techniques that I can make other women question the boundaries of their skills, and encourage them to try something that they too thought was beyond their abilities.

P. S. I know #InternationalWomensDay was last week, but women should be celebrated every day. This is the second radiator I've ever changed now, and my face in this photo is pretty proud.

[fromrusttoroadtrip]

Firstly we wanted to say thank you to everyone so far who watched this week’s video, who has offered to come and help with the project, given us advice, or who’s found us parts or a donor van- we’re so pleased to be a part of this community, full of such lovely people with one thing in common: a love of vans.

We’re still chipping away at the Bedford week on week, packing in short bursts of work in between the relentless weather, learning new techniques, how to use different tools we’ve never touched before, and watching our creation take shape.

We’ve been scouring scrapyards, reclamation yards, junk shops and online sites for materials we can re-use and re-purpose. We’ve been toiling away measuring, cutting, welding, bolting and pop-riveting metal (we’ve also just ordered a total of 2500 pop rivets... you’ll see why soon).

Building the van’s foundations has been an unexpectedly long process, but we’re hoping that everything should come together fairly quickly once we start building upwards. Our current tasks involve ripping out and replacing the 40 year old corroded brake lines, fighting to remove the rear wheels (the joys of metric wheel nuts) and creating a frame to hold the flooring boards.

We’ll be bringing you a new video as soon as make a decent bit more progress. This project is getting more and more exciting as we go...

[fromrusttoroadtrip]

The fifth video in our Bedford build series is out on Youtube NOW!⁣ ⁣ Join us as we follow in the footsteps of the Orange Man himself as we're building a wall! But unlike that babbling idiot, our wall isn't a wall of hate, it's a wall of love! This wall represents the beginning of something great for us and this project, and an important step in the restoration and conversion of this beautiful classic van. ⁣ In case you're wondering what this project is all about, we've included a recap of the entire process so far too.⁣ ⁣ Van conversions never go to plan, and they never keep to a timescale, as we discovered all over again with a huge setback we faced this month, having to completely detach the subframe we'd built and de-rust it all over again.⁣ ⁣ Oh and if you've been wondering if it's possible to paint your van with rollers, well that's in this video too! We managed to achieve a gorgeous glossy finish on this classic cream-coloured van which has to be seen to be believed!⁣ ⁣ Head over to our Youtube channel now to watch by clicking the link below, and don't forget to give that Subscribe button a friendly little tap while you're over there!⁣ ⁣

From Rust To Roadtrip  via  Youtube.com

[fromrusttoroadtrip]

It’s been a difficult month to say the least, full of setbacks related to weather, lack of assistance, and slowly realising the difficulty of finding parts for a classic vehicle. It’s been an interesting learning curve getting to know a van that’s twice as old as us but at the same time refreshingly simple to work on, especially compared to our van with its convoluted electrics and ECU.

We’ve been dusting the cobwebs, stripping out the nasty cab floor, discovering the full extent of the rust and mechanical issues we’ve got to sort, and treating all of the rust on the exposed chassis, of which there was surprisingly little. We’ve had mixed reviews about the power, fuel consumption and reliability of our Bedford CF, and our local parts shop has almost nothing that will fit it, but we’re determinedly pressing on while simultaneously asking ourselves on a daily basis what the hell we’ve gotten ourselves into.

Some of you may have seen that we even managed to get the engine running, albeit briefly due to a stubborn oil leak in the rocker cover, and amazingly this is the first time it’s been run in two years and she’s sounding sweet! We’ve yet to take her on a drive and try out that four-speed gearbox, but this is the first bit of real progress we’ve made so far and it feels great.

We won’t give too much away as very soon we’ll be releasing our first video on Youtube of the conversion, which will be covering everything we’ve done so far in depth, so keep your eyes peeled and your notifications on for that one!

If anyone is in the local area, has a passion for working on classic vehicles or knows how to weld and would like to help us out give us a shout! Likewise we’d love to get some skilled carpenters involved in the later stages of the build.

[fromrusttoroadtrip]

We realise we've been a little quiet on the Bedford front lately, but it's not for lack of working on it; in fact we've been so busy we've barely had time for an update!

Last week we finally managed to get the subframe attached to the van chassis, which may not seem like a huge step but was in fact one of the biggest parts of the project, taking nearly a whole month of our time as we had to fabricate the entire thing from scratch.

The subframe is necessary to build the box onto, and according to the DVLA must be detachable from the van itself, so after weeks of cutting metal, welding and painting we finally got the damn thing bolted on, which has given us an excellent idea of how much floor space we'll have.

Here’s a photo of Ben learning to weld- neither of us have quite got the hang of it yet, but we’ve been learning on the go, and will hopefully be able to apply our newfound knowledge to the rest of the project.

We know this one has been a while coming, but we’re excited to announce that the latest instalment of Bedford conversion videos will be out tomorrow evening on Youtube! We are quite literally laying the foundations of this build, and for anyone thinking of building their own box from scratch this is a must-watch!

We hope you’ll join us tomorrow night at 8pm GMT- you can head over to our Youtube channel now by clicking the link below!

From Rust To Roadtrip on Youtube.com

[fromrusttoroadtrip]

Removing rust from a van is a multi-tool, multi-day challenge. There’s no one way to do it, instead it requires a combination of approaches, different methods and a lot of patience.

Having bought an infamously rusty LDV we’ve had more than our fair share of practice, and over the years we’ve honed our technique for busting rust. We also get a lot of questions asking how we manage it, and realised we’d never done a dedicated post about how we do. in yesterday’s video we detailed the technique we’ve found to be most thorough, which works on both internal and external rust that’s not so serious that it needs welding.

We’ve found that using an angle grinder with a flap disc is the best method, to remove any loose surface rust and grind it back to bare metal. We also use a chisel and a wire brush to get into the corners and difficult areas. We used this technique on the chassis, the cab floor and the roof of the Bedford, as well as on the gutters and pretty much everywhere else of our LDV- wings, arches, sills, doors, you name it.

Recently we discovered the virtues of red oxide primer, which seems to be what everyone uses on their vans these days- originally we used to use Kurust, but that didn’t work half as well. We coated all of the exposed metal in it immediately after grinding, and once that was dry we were able to paint over it with either Stoneguard or van-coloured enamel coach paint.

Another handy tip we wanted to share with you all is how we sealed the leaky gutters and windscreen on our Convoy (all you LDV owners know what we’re talking about), using Bostik Flexacryl Instant Repair for flat roofs. It’s brilliant stuff, a little pricey and very very sticky, but it has almost completely cured our leaks better than anything else we’ve tried in the past. Just make sure the rust is completely gone before applying, or it’ll just seep through.

We hope sharing these tips we’ve picked up over the years will help somebody else with their own van conversion, and if you’ve got any tips you want to share with us let us know! We’re excited to bring you more progress updates on the Bedford as the project continues.