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Author	Message
Anon Deleted Posts : Location : Status : Offline	Yeah but £uck it. Who give a rats a$$? ----------------------
Wed 24 Oct 2012 @ 00:12
Anon Deleted Posts : Location : Status : Offline	Spookytim wrote: Yeah but £uck it. I prefer CFUK it. Rae & Ann ----------------------
Wed 24 Oct 2012 @ 00:14
Anon Deleted Posts : Location : Status : Offline	One thing I did discover when trying to nail down my insurance this year is that all plans I had for putting a mock livery on my van have to be abandoned (I planned to have British Industrial Salvage sign-painted down each side and on the back door) because insurers look very negatively upon a leisure vehicle that has a livery on it. It suggests it has a 'purpose', even if its not official...like a band's tour bus or something. So my van will not be getting a retro livery treatment now. £ucking Jobsworth wan (Look, before you get cross with me moderators, I'd like to point out that Rae started it) ----------------------
Wed 24 Oct 2012 @ 00:16
Anon Deleted Posts : Location : Status : Offline	Spookytim wrote: Look, before you get cross with me moderators, I'd like to point out that Rae started it That's it Tim, blame me, I didn't say you had to use it. Brings to mind "head in oven". Rae & Ann ----------------------
Wed 24 Oct 2012 @ 00:24
Anon Deleted Posts : Location : Status : Offline	Hello Tim, Stumbled across this today and thought you might be interested. 130783055429 Rae & Ann ----------------------
Wed 24 Oct 2012 @ 20:07
Anon Deleted Posts : Location : Status : Offline	Wow, another Essex conversion. Interesting to see. I think I'd rather go with my conversion though as its cheaper than that and also I really like a panel van rather than a box-back camper. Don't like his engine cowl much. Doesn't look like it could keep a chicken back, much less the sound of an engine. There is some talk of shifting the rad elsewhere on mine, and having a couple of skinny Kenlowes fitted so that the engine might be able to come further forward and slightly lower too. Not sure how that affects the steering rack but it was discussed very casually as a possible option when we get that far. So it might possibly not invade my cabin quite as much as that ebay one. I'm sure there'll be something that prevents that happening though. It was only a vague and casual discussion over a cup of tea when I dropped it off. Work hasn't started on the van yet. The engine is being stripped and rebuilt as a separate cost before the van work commences. I wanted to do it step by step so that if the engine is a dog, I don't have to pay the rest. If the engine is rebuilt and the van is a dog, then I sell the engine ... or I sell the van and fit the engine to something else. I'm going manual with a type 9. My engine came with the auto box and bell-housing, but after considering the amount of additional work changing the peddle box over and cooling the gearbox lubricant, coupled with the fact that Ford engines seem to make dog's meat of Bedford gearboxes, and also considering old auto gearboxes are never particularly great and can be prone to unexpected downshifts on corners and islands etc (Car & Classic reviewed Scimitars last issue and said this was always quite a problem with them. They'd shift down unexpectedly round a corner and you'd lose the back end) so I decided to invest in a type 9. I only use my van for driving pleasure. Not camping or carrying stuff. I just like to go off on drives in it, often on the winding Sussex country lanes. So the manual gearbox is pretty important to my driving pleasure. Automatic would kill that pleasure a little bit. So, when we've got that far, Retro will be stripping down and rebuilding my 2.0CIH and gearbox ready for re-sale... so if anybody found themselves in need of a 2.0 petrol (unleaded) CF2 engine or a 5 speed box, I know where you can get one. Its a good engine, its on about 82k if the milo is to be trusted. Its pretty peppy too, as long as you're not going up a moderate-to-steep hill, and after a rebuild it will not doubt be even more lively. ----------------------
Thu 25 Oct 2012 @ 23:09
Anon Deleted Posts : Location : Status : Offline	Hello Tim, This is my rad set up. I favoured two fans as there wasn't a lot of room there. I went for the thermostat switch as an easy option: put it in and forget about it. Rae & Ann ----------------------
Thu 25 Oct 2012 @ 23:59
Anon Deleted Posts : Location : Status : Offline	Ah great stuff. Cheers for posting that Rae... I couldn't really tell if that was a possibility or just a bit of idle chat at the time. Seems its a serious consideration then. I'd quite like to minimise how much it impedes the cabin for the simple reason that it might also required the twin passenger seat to be replaced with a single seat and that's a whole other cost and bit of bother. Is your engine in yet Rae? Can;t decide from that pic if thats the front of your new one in view. ----------------------
Fri 26 Oct 2012 @ 00:32
Anon Deleted Posts : Location : Status : Offline	Tim - do you have any idea of how much they want for the 2.0 and box? Or would you part with it before they rebuild it? I have been looking at buying a CF2 to rip the front cross member and engine out of to put in my Trailblaze. i can rebuild it myself - but I assume it doesn't require it at this stage? Phil
Fri 26 Oct 2012 @ 18:09
Anon Deleted Posts : Location : Status : Offline	Oh, and I use a very similar cooling setup to Rae, twin 8" fans and a mechanical thermostat stuffed in the tophose. works a treat and you don't get the wasted energy of a viscous fan.
Fri 26 Oct 2012 @ 18:10
Anon Deleted Posts : Location : Status : Offline	Spookytim wrote: Is your engine in yet Rae? Can;t decide from that pic if thats the front of your new one in view. Hello Tim, No that's still the 2.3 slant. There's no mad rush, the engine at the moment is running fine but I'm just collecting the bits to do the conversion as and when it decides to give up the ghost. It's no good waiting til it breaks then run around trying to find the bits Rae & Ann ----------------------
Fri 26 Oct 2012 @ 23:59
Anon Deleted Posts : Location : Status : Offline	Hello Phil, The deal with RetroEngines is that they take the old stuff and put it into stock for rebuilding if and when somebody needs it. So the objective for them is that at some point they will gain a re-commissioning fee on it. So technically it is no longer mine to do with as I see fit, as it is part of the deal that they take ownership of it. Otherwise I'd be replying to say you can have the lot for nothing. Having said that though if you were interested in taking it off them as it is to rebuild it yourself, they might be interested in that as a quick way to shift on uncommon stock. Its not really an engine they are interested in, they're dealing more with the Essex, Pintos, and huge hairy engines from the US. The engine is a really good runner. No idea if and when the cam chain was ever replaced so it would probably need that soon (mileage reckons its done 81000 miles but for all I know that could be 181000). Gear box is great too. No problems with either. Brand new 34ICH on the engine. PM me if you want some contact details, or go to http://www.retroengines.co.uk/ http://www.hhttps://www.facebook.com/RetroEngines ... and talk to Simon. Sorry I can't simply offer it to you, which I would love to be able to do. ----------------------
Sat 27 Oct 2012 @ 17:59
Anon Deleted Posts : Location : Status : Offline	Thanks Tim. No problem. I am off to look at a van this week (hopefully) so may end up buying the whole thing if i can get it for the right price. We shall see...
Sun 28 Oct 2012 @ 16:15
Anon Deleted Posts : Location : Status : Offline	Philbut wrote: buying the whole thing if i can get it for the right price. Hello Phil, That's how I started my little collection off. If you've got the space then it's the best way to go. Rae & Ann ----------------------
Mon 29 Oct 2012 @ 23:02
Anon Deleted Posts : Location : Status : Offline	Phew, its good to be home. I suppose at some point I should provide a report on my Essex v6 conversion. ----------------------
Mon 01 Apr 2013 @ 20:49
Anon Deleted Posts : Location : Status : Offline	The tale of my engine swap. After spending many weeks shortlisting various places to commission for my engine swap last year, I finally made the decision to go with an outfit in Somerset... a very long way from me, but of all the people I grilled about doing the job, they seemed to be the best choice. They were always prompt with answering my questions, and seemed to be the people most capable of doing the work... so one cold Saturday morning in late October, I got up early and drove my van, with its v6 and gearbox strapped on a palette in the back, down to Martock in Somerset. Met the main man there, we talked about the job. He said it would be no problem. We discussed the job fully and the only outstanding thing was that he'd let me know an approximate schedule and confimr they can do it when he chatted with his team on the Monday morning. I gave him my keys, and got the train back home. At this point, he had a week to inspect the vehicle and confirm he could do it, or not. So a week later he called up. Yep, they'd inspected the van, they could do the job, no problem. Deposit paid, and a request for a reciept and a schedule was made. About two days later, I knew... I just knew that something was wrong. Before paying my deposit, they'd been very communicative, very prompt, very good at coming to me with answers to questions or suggestions. Now all they had to do was email me a receipt for my deposit after I'd paid them and an approximate schedule... and they just weren't doing it. "Its only two days" my missus said "They're probably busy". I have a sixth sense about this sort of thing and I can generally tell when something isn't right. I left it a full week, then I started calling. No reply. Left messages. No return calls. Emailed. No reply. It was obvious something was up. I reached for google to see what I could find, and on that very Monday, a Scottish Newspaper published this... http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/authors/the-judge/furious-mechanic-pays-4000-for-part-1415465 That was the place I'd taken my van to. I started calling in earnest, and emailing, and still getting nothing. Then I switched to a friend's mobile phone to mask the caller ID and called the main man's mobile phone at 8:30pm that evening. The main man answered. As soon as I said who I was and asked what was going on he went very odd. He tried to be angry about me calling him 'on his own time' but he knew he hadn't a leg to stand on with that after I pointed out that he had my deposit and had not communicated with me since, so after some odd verbal diahorrea (or however you spell it) he calmed down and assured me the work was in progress... my V6 was already stripped and in the washer, and my van would be undergoing a strip-down the following week. I didn't believe him. I sent my father in law over to have a look. The van was where I left it. V6 engine still in the back. Not stripped. I knew something was up. Then... he disappeared. Completely disappeared. His work units were huge. They were filled with some very respectable classic vehicles, a lot of 70's American muscle in disassembly, and some very nice engines on stands all over the place. He had all the kit in there, and clearly had a lot of customers. He just seemed to disappear though. I had already started running up his profile, and had all of his details from companies house. It didn't look good. over 12 years he'd had about 12 companies under 3 different director IDs. I started checking through legal channels. Had to report my van stolen as I had no idea where it was, and I started making contact with anyone and everyone I could find. Turns out he had an investor who had put money into set the company up. I got hold of him. Thick was into the business for a serious chunk of money, and was a director of the business too, yet had absolutely no idea what was going on at all. At around this time, the main man, Mr Brown, had resigned his directorship of the business, leaving this investor bloke as the sole director and therefore solely responsible for any aggrevances. This other bloke didn't even know that had happened. He had no idea he was now the sole director for a company that appeared to be behaving in a very dodgy fashion. Anyway... I was the lucky one. Because I got suspicious quickly, and I chased down this other director quickly, I managed to get him to do what was necessary in locating my van and arranging for me to collect it. About two months after I had last seen it, I went back down to Somerset on the train and found my van looking slightly worse for wear, abandoned on a slither of waste ground outside the workshop .. it hadn't been treated particularly well during the time it was there, but it was still in one piece. I got in, turned it over, checked the brake lines and everything, and drove it home. Didn't skip a beat. Since then I've learned this 'business' or 'scam' was a pretty major operation. He'd put so much work into the business that its hard to believe it was all intended to be a scam scheme. If it was a scam, then it was way too much work to get it going. But... a large number of people gave him their vehicles, engines for rebuilding, hot rods to customise... and most of them had been happy to be informed every few months that the next phase of work needed to be done, so they kept handing over money... without even so much as asking for photographs as proof. Some people I've since found had paid £5000, plus left him with rare bits of classic brit metal, expensive engines, really nice wheels... some people have lost in the region of tens of thousands including the metal they've lost. Since it all happened I have managed to speak to the main man once. I did the same trick as before... borrowed a phone, called him on a weekend, many weeks later. He answered. I recorded the call. The moment I said who I was he assured me he was just sorting out the details of returning my deposit. It was obvious he wasn't. Nobody has ever heard from him again. Beware who you do business with. No matter how legitimate it seems... beware. I was so driven by my desire to get the engine swap done that I was happy to believe everything he told me. By the time I got my van home, it had suffered the weight of the V6 and box and all the ancilliaries in the back of it for many months. The rear end was very low, and I didn't like driving it in case a pothole did her in. After consulting with the local garage who look after my van (who were actually a contender for doing the job), they said it could be very problematic to attempt to do it in their busy place without a dedicated lock-up and the luxury of time... they could do it, but they couldn't promise it would either be easy or cheap. In the end I decided to abandon the project. I sold the engine and gearbox on, and I'm back to square one. That's how I got on with my engine swap! ----------------------
Tue 02 Apr 2013 @ 22:00
Anon Deleted Posts : Location : Status : Offline	Bloody Hell! A cautionary tale indeed, Tim. Hopefully you didn't lose too much money. I am surprised he can still walk, as some of his "customers" can't have been as charitable as you have been. ----------------------
Wed 03 Apr 2013 @ 15:54
Anon Deleted Posts : Location : Status : Offline	There's plenty of people tracking him down. He'll need to stay away from all sorts of car clubs. I've gathered a collection of disgruntled people over the internet. I was really lucky. Probably the luckiest customer he had. I lost some money, sure, but I'm biding my time on addressing the issue of outstanding business. I'm busy with other things for now and there's no sense in joining the queue for a piece of nothing... limited company so little chance of getting anything back. Lesson learned: Pay by credit card or don't pay at all. He fed me a whole load of guff about why it had to be a bank transfer and stupidly I went along with it. Signs were all there, I was blinded by my desire to get the engine fitted. Like I say though, I was lucky. Didn't lose more than I can afford to lose. Plus I got my van back in one piece. He got lucky bilking me out of a few days pay... good luck to him. He worked me hard and I fell for his bull. Wont be venturing into the possibility ever again though... once bitten and all that. And that's the bit that really guts me: My van doesn't have the kind of grunt I wanted, and it never will now... and I will hold that grudge for a long long time. I have his picture, off one of his dodgy business websites, taped on my dashboard. Every time I get overtaken by an elderly lady in a Nissan Micra on an A-road, I think of him. Every time I slow down on an uphill stretch, I think of him. I have lots of connections in his part of the world. Some family, some are the friends of family. He'd have to leave the area completely if he wants to avoid me finding him when I'm ready, and he can't do that too easily, he has kids there. And I know where he has to pick them up and drop them off from. I know rather a lot about him as it happens. ----------------------
Thu 04 Apr 2013 @ 00:28
Anon Deleted Posts : Location : Status : Offline	Your van Mate, don't do any short term fixes on her, do it like this http://www.bedfordcf.co.uk/mboard/thread.php?id=12807
Fri 05 Apr 2013 @ 20:00
Anon Deleted Posts : Location : Status : Offline	Help with your van If you'd like you're van done properly and with extreme care then use this guy. Sienna Cars Neville Partridge Unit 28 Deverill Road Sutton Veny Warminster BA12 7BZ 01985 840966 He's a close personal friend of mine and thats his place you see the CF being completed in. He works on all sorts of old and unusual cars. He's also the one who owned my '67 Pontiac (which you can see in my blog). He fits V8's into vans like yours and mine. He's a careful and respectful gentleman. You'll have no problems with him at all. He's over in NZ now until 8th May (he's a Kiwi). I've been over with him and just come back. Feel free to email him at studedude50@hotmail.com. He's picking up his emails every few days and will get back to you. Need anymore info just ask. He's defo worth a visit and a chat. Kind regards Ian
Fri 05 Apr 2013 @ 20:16
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