Spend since last report: £160. Total hours labour since last report: 25.5
In February 2022, I worked a lot of hours and managed to do 21 hours on Eric. In March 2022, I worked a lot of hours and managed to do 15 hours on Eric. Then I retired and had no time to get in the garage again until August! They say that you wonder how on earth you managed to find time to work and for sure, I am keeping busy. From April to July, my first four months of retirement included 36 nights away in Poppy, my wife Lorna’s 1972 Crossover, including club camps at Cheddar, Great Bourton, Odiham and RAF Odiham! I also reupholstered 2 sofas, built a large timber deck for a friend, a car port, and numerous other projects.
Finally in August, I felt that I had enough items complete to venture back into the garage to see Eric. For anyone new, forgetful or just venturing into the magazine – I bought Eric in August 2015 as a blind purchase on eBay, he had been rotting outside for many years and was in a terrible state. The previous ten years of MOTs were a litany of corrosion, underseal, advisories and decay, spend on him was minimal and the mileage shows he did not get used. I am now at 862 man-hours of labour on Eric. Yes, 862. The project plan lists another 300 hours to go and total outlay excluding my labour is projected to be £17,000, just don’t tell my wife!
The first job after time away from his restoration was also the reason for not getting back to it – the scary piece of chopping the bulkheads from behind the seats. Given that some Bay window vehicles have no bulkheads, I was happy to do this from a strength perspective as I was putting in further metal to brace the B posts. Out they came! Then some 20mm box section steel was cut up and welded to make a rectangular back rest for a bench seat going the full width of the van. Then I repeated it to make a rectangular seat base for the bench seat. The bench seat is inclined very slightly to match the original seats and is mounted to the floor on welded brackets. These brackets effectively make hinges that are about 6 inches from the front of the seat mounted on the tubs approximately where the original seats were mounted.
“14 Eric 01” caption is “Two bulkheads”
“14 Eric 02” caption is “No bulkheads”
“14 Eric 03” caption is “Bench seat frame”
“14 Eric 04” caption is “Cardboard back rests to assist the arm placement”
“14 Eric 05” captions is “Serpentines, coils and outer in place”
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But why go to that length? The base is hinged, and I then made some blocks to go at the rear of the base. This makes the base inclined slightly the opposite way. Then I made “arms” for the back rest and after much mocking up with corrugated cardboard, the offside and nearside arms and their brackets were fabricated from 2mm steel plate. These arms support the back of the seat allowing you to drive in comfort. Once you get to your destination, the arms can be repositioned allowing the seat back to face the opposite direction. With the base also inclined in the opposite direction, Eric should end up with a sofa facing backwards. That cannot quite be finished yet as the back rest height is determined by the height of the seat base. Following the standard seat design, I welded some coil springs to the base frame down the sides of driver and passenger. Then I welded some serpentine zig zag springs front to back in between them. These sit on little bits of serpentine spring blow torched to bend to the right height. This now looks very like the original seat, and I added a steel string of 3mm diameter all around the outside to help the fabric sit correctly. Two front seats with metal as per the original for long distance comfort. Hopefully.
Next up, I need to add serpentine springs to the back rests for driver and passenger per the original design and work out exactly where the back rest will sit, then attach it to the arm.
Malcolm and Val joined us for my birthday weekend and the demo of the seat and the slide out pod (see previous issues) went well. As ever, Malcolm offered his thoughts and ideas which greatly helped refine the rough edges ready for implementation. Welding new steel is so much easier and more fun than blowing holes in rotten metal!
<Hannah to add “06 Nick sign off.tiff”>