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Stalled rebuild...

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Stalled rebuild... Empty Stalled rebuild...

Post  mykb Mon Jan 21, 2013 1:05 am

If you check out my pictures you will see that I really went to town on the rebuild of 'Lilly' my '69 elf!
I originally bought an elf back in '99 and ragged it round til it nearly fell apart! It tried killing me one night when the brakes failed so I decided it was time to take it off the road and rebuild it, unfortunately at the time I had just bought my first VW camper so I asked the guy I bought the camper from if he could store the elf while I did the work on 'Tia II'. This took a lot longer than I thought, so 18 months later I tried to get my elf back; I'd rung him occasionally to make sure everything was ok and that he was happy to keep storing it. It took me another 3 months to track him down and was told bluntly that he had left the elf in the barn and had no knowledge of it's whereabouts!
I knew this was a lie because I had spoken with the owner and the new tenant of the barn and they were both adamant it was empty when the new lease started!
Anyway!!!! I saw 'Lilly' on ebay in '07 and trekked up to Myrtha in Wales in 'Tia II', when we got there we realised we couldn't put a mini sub-frame on the 'A' frame I took with me! So like some weird scrapheap challenge we turned a box trailer into a flatbed in 6 hours in the garden, with some old angle iron and a clapped out mig welder and made our way home, with the electrics playing up all the way, at one point we nearly got rear ended by a 18 wheeler because my tail lights had failed, which also meant the back board wasn't working!!
Having done such an injustice to the last one I decided that 'Lilly' would be given the full works! As you can see from the photos I totally stripped her down and cut out all the rot and seam welded all new metal in replacing panels I could get me hands on, the whole front end was replaced!
After a full engine rebuild, including having the crank reground and replacing all the seals and bearings, and half a million layers of fresh paint! I moved her into her new home in my garage expecting to crack on and finished the fiddly stuff, electrics, brakes, interior....
Because I hadn't spent much time upkeeping my camper she had got to the stage where she needed to come off the road, so I bought another one and made one good one out of two wrecks! This took 8 months and moves to 3 different garages, finally getting my own so I didn't need to keep moving around! I was then asked to work on a Morris J2 for a friend of mine which ended up being a 10 months project! Then my wife wanted me to rebuild a beetle for her, which took 5 months, in the mean time 'Lilly' sat there being neglected! I've had a look every now and then and just see crates and boxes of parts and think WHERE THE HELL DOES THAT GO?!?!?
I recently asked a mini specialist to take her on and get her finished but he keeps running away and hiding!
So it is with trepidation that I've decided I've got to get back out there myself, only problem is I've just started a new project for a friend rebuilding a Commer which has decided that every time I put a new bit of metal in will rot another bit out! So a 2 month job has already taken 3 and will probably take another 3!
I supposed I should be lucky that 'Lilly' is sitting in her nice dry garage not going backwards! But I recently tried turning the engine, which cost silly money to sort out, and it's stuck again so I'll probably have to take it out and strip it down again!
If anyone has any encouragement, ideas or even better spare time to come and get me back on track it would be really appreciated! I look forward to all the messages flooding in!!!
I'm looking to get a new garage as I had to give up the last one, and then I'm bound to end up with less time than I do now! But I'm determined to have 'L'lly' on the road for London to Brighton this year; not too optimistic surely? Even if I have to sell myself to get it done it has to happen this year! I've been promising it for the last 3 years now and it's getting beyond a joke...
mykb
mykb

Posts : 17
Points : 4103
Join date : 2013-01-13
Age : 54
Location : Bournemouth

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Post  soupdragon Wed Jan 23, 2013 11:34 am

Is it actually the same car that you lost?
Pretty amazing story if it is!
Good luck with it, basket cases are a bit intimidating!
soupdragon
soupdragon

Posts : 33
Points : 4171
Join date : 2012-11-28

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Post  mykb Wed Jan 23, 2013 7:26 pm

No unfortunately not the same car Crying or Very sad my original one was a '67 'Lilly' is a '69. But hopefully will get her on the road this year, there really isn't that much left to do!
Thanks for the support!! cheers
mykb
mykb

Posts : 17
Points : 4103
Join date : 2013-01-13
Age : 54
Location : Bournemouth

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