Coachmen Leprechaun

The only thing I can say to that is, if YOU were there Siobhan, you would have made something of that sunset with your camera skills!

It was a good day in the end. A crap day turned into something special and I'm ready for the workshop now again. A spin on the bike always 'does it' for me.

Sandblasting.

Its all about preparation as they say... So the fun begins.

I brought the parts up to my local sandblaster but got a quote of €200 which I thought was a bit too saucy to blast the bits I had in mind, so they home with me... (Yes I'm a tight SOB).
On my way home I picked up a few bags of 0.2-0.6mm kiln dried sand. I bought a cheapo sandblaster kit off ebay a few months ago and decided to do the job myself. I have the time, its the budget I'm conscious of!

So I set myself up and got cracking on with it...

It's slow going as I only have a 25 litre Aldi compressor, but it got the job done. I started out on the chassis rails. A bit messy as its a 100% total loss sandblasting system. There was sand & paint flying all over the place, but wearing the right PPE, no problem.

I'm really pleased how they turned out. Good clean metal underneath all that old crud. The sides and bottom of the rails are now blasted clean and wearing 2 coats of rust bullet paint. I still have a little bit to do on the tops of the rails so they're not blasted or painted yet.



Onto the smaller fiddly pieces... I woke up at 5am on Saturday morning with an idea planted in my head...







This is the fruit of that idea... (don't laugh now)..







It;s a bit McGuyver 'ish, made from scrap plywood, an old B&Q bucket and a pair of sleeves from an old sweatshirt... but it works! Necessity being the mother of all inventions!


So now I stand in front of this box, blasting away to my hearts content (still wearing a filter mask), but happy out to be cleaning up all the fiddly brackets & bits in comfort!

Just a few of the many little bits I'm cleaning up. Sandblasted and then coated with a shot of Isopon anti-rust primer. Hanging on hooks in front of an IR heater to bake them dry. (it's a bit cold in the shed these days)


Standing at my plywood sand-box, and dreaming of summers 2014,15,16,17 and maybe having this oul wagon back together one of those years...

Absolutely, good quality filter mask is top priority Pat

I used almost a full bag of sand on the chassis rails, lets just say my technique sucked. In the sand box there's also a full bag but it's recycling now so no loss there. I had to filter it out this eve with a sieve to get some flaky paint bits out of it, but happy to do that instead of destroying the shed with sand. Nasty stuff indeed. I hummed & hawed over a nice sandblasting cabinet from Jebb tools, but couldn't justify the cost.

Hmmmm. Maybe I went to the wrong guy? I did have about 15 pieces in the trailer but yeah I thought €200 was well out of line.

Boy that's a good question. I look forward to finding out!!

Darn it, ye had my hopes up there for a while so I got in touch with another few different sandblasting places in the Cork City area today during my lunchbreak. Bottom line is I can't get anything lower than €200 and the highest quote today was €350! That's for stripping the parts down only, no primer or other coating applied after stripping...

I'm still waiting on quotes from one or two other places a little further afield, but unfortunately, all of those who have replied to me today seem to be averaging out well beyond what my budget will allow.

Ah well, it looks like I'll continue as I'm going.

1 Cross member, 1 anti-roll bar, 2 lower control arms, 2 upper control arms, 2 coil springs, 2 hubs w/back plates, 2 front bumper support arms.

Thanks for the PM's Pat (Chausson) and the info for the various sandblasters you knew of down here. I got in touch Jeff in Carraigtowhill and he looked after me with the best rate yet. I dropped the parts to him on Thursday and they were ready to collect on Friday morning. I just need to lash a bit of paint on them now and they're ready to bolt on.

I finished off the cross-member this morning and then it was then time for painting. All the bits that were sandblasted last week needed a lick of paint, so I finished those off today. I also decided to separate the transmission from the engine AND do some much needed tidying up in the shed. It was getting pretty messy in there!

I don't plan on opening up the engine as it ran well and had good compression on 8 cylinders before I removed it from the camper, but I DO intend to clean it up and paint it. To do this I decided to make up a basic little steel cradle to support the engine while i de-rustify it and paint it. Got that done today also.



Torque converter -



Transmission -



Tomorrow, I'm hoping to offer the donor cab up to the camper chassis and see what mods are needed to mount it.

I've been tipping away but nothing major to report. Trying to get some funds together for the next blast of parts is my current focus, but I'm almost ready to place the order. I'm trying to cover the cost of this refurb without going to the bank manager, so it takes a bit of effort to get that together!

I'm still waiting on the last bunch of parts that I ordered from the States! New driver side lower control arm, brake hoses, brake pads, seals, bushings and various other small bits for the front end. They only landed in Ireland this morning so I don't yet know if the customs will be calling to look for their pound of flesh. I suppose they will. Hopefully I can collect them later this week.

I've pretty much finished the refurb work on the front crossmember & suspension. So it's all ready to bolt together now.

Over the last few days I've been working on the chassis. I decided to beef up the top caps on the chassis rails. They were a bit light for my liking so I made new capping from 1.5mm sheet and added new attachment points for the cab. It'll make things easier when the time comes to attach the cab to the chassis... All these fiddly little jobs are taking a HUGE amount of time! Its a real eye opener. You know when you are watching overhaulin' on the telly and they can turn a pile of rust into a beautiful car within a week. I have absolutely no idea how they pull that off...

I'm still enjoying every second I get to spend in the shed working on it. It's 100% therapy for me, so it's all good...

The next photos I want to share will be of the cab sitting on the front of the camper.

Nice... The fifth of five expensive packages have just been delivered to my door. No holdups at customs & excise.

I'd be lying if I said I didn't have a few dark thoughts over the past 12 months. Thank god the bad thoughts haven't outweighed the good thoughts...

Speaking of which, I need to put down the laptop and get back out there..

I replaced the chassis rail capping as I didn't like where it had a couple of thin spots where the rust had done it's thing. I suppose I could have just painted over it and forgotten about it as it's in an area that won't be seen, but sher, while I have it torn down this far, I might as well make the effort and do things right.

I removed the chassis capping by drilling out all the spot welds. I found virtually no rust inside in the channel which was a relief. While I had access, I wire brushed and painted the channel with a few coats of rust bullet paint for good measure.



Then it was a matter of making a new, heavier top cap to suit. Then with a piece of sheet metal and a hour or so with a grinder and a hammer to get it into the right shape. Here I have it ready for welding into place.




T'other side, same thing, Cut - wirebrush - paint- cut - bash bash bash - weld - flapdisc - paint - done.

Anyone got a big tub of vaseline!