A bit more progress

Sept 2013
1) Body work
Maurice, at MTR, has been sorting out my body work problems and has come across some more issues while fixing the nearside step. However he thinks he has mainly resolved the problems that others had left and is close to welding it all together. See photos below.

2) Livery

While 'George' has been away I have been giving some more thought to his final livery. I have pretty well decided to use a 'Blood & Custard' British Railways design. See illustration below. If anyone knows of the correct lettering or near correct, apart from 'British Railways' I would appreciate some advice. I strongly suspect neither an Austin 101 or Morris J/JB was ever used by British railways but I think it would suit anyway. It fits the era nicely and I am sure to get some railway enthusiasts interest, for good or bad!

More bits and pieces

June 2013
1. Decided to have a couple of wheels shot blasted and painted to see how they came out. So hammered out any dents in the rims, got them shot blasted locally and I added a few coats of primer, top coat and lacquer. Result was good enough. Colour is Ford Ivory! Now I only need tyres, valves and hub caps!
Can I have tubeless crossply tyres?

2. Got some 7 inch repro chrome headlamps off Ebay. They may just do the trick?

3. Got around to painting the dashboard tray. Have also filled in the cutout for the heater vent as I decided not to fit a heater. Therefore have two spare heater outlet nozzles should someone want them?

top side

bottom side

Front cross beam...

May 2013
MTR restorations have told me I am a front cross beam missing....the one that supports the steps and sills. So Maurice has fashioned one from Morris Minor chassis parts and some skilled sheet metal bending and welding. Looks like this.......

More body work.....

May 2013...Some photos of the new rear cross beam being installed.

May 2013

Body work begins!

March 2013 update

'George' has been away for a couple of months now having his body work restored.
He is in the capable hands of Maurice at  MTR Restorations .
Work so far has involved repairs to:-

• The rear offside hinges, outer skin corroded and rotten.
• Rear cross beam cut away from chassis. beam had been welded in the wrong position some years ago.
• New cross beam made by Maurice.
• New sills made by Maurice.

See photos following:-

Jan 9th 2013- Start of a long journey.

Offside- lower door hinge and body repairs.

Offside- upper door hinge body repairs

Colour Schemes

Jan 2013

Well here we are, full of hope and anticipation, for a good year,.... and some progress on George this year!
The general plan is to get the body work repairs started in January and take it from there.

In the mean time I have been pondering about what colour to paint him and what sort of paint scheme to do. 
So I decided to create a number of drawing views on the PC to help.  I ended up with four views, front, back, offside and nearside and can now colour all parts just as I want. They may not be 100% accurate to scale but do give a good idea of what the finished van may look like.
Below are a few examples of  my schemes to date. 

PS have also modeled Morris front views. ( see below)

I have created all these using Serif DrawPlus 8 software. If you have this software and want to have copies of the masters just email me. If you want me to do you some schemes just let me know the colours and I will send you some pdf files to view. ( No charge!) I can change wing mirrors lights and any other parts if you send me some details.
emails to:-emailmikebell@sky.com

Austin 101-1

Austin 101-2

Austin 101-3

Austin 101-4

Austin 101 5

Austin 101-6

Morris

Morris Commercial

Doors & grill painted

Sept 2012
Progress has been very slow, (waiting for body work repairs beyond my current skills), but during a few days of fine weather I did manage to spray prime all the doors and front grill. This was my first attempt at using a spray gun and it all seemed to go very well with good results.
After the first coat I did spot a few minor dents and blemishes which I filled and sanded before re-spraying. Have about 4 coats of primer on to date and all looks blemish free!
Here are a few pics after the first coats.