our new project for 2014 2005 ldv convoy minibus

Lydia is our new arrival for conversion,she is a 2005 ldv convoy 17 seater minibus which has had one non careful owner {probation service}.The plus side is her very low mileage of just 75000 miles and knowing that because she was government owned will have been well serviced,but the down side is they didn’t look after the bodywork so she is covered in dinks,scratches and some rather unusual rust patches..I will address the exterior at a later date once conversion is complete i’m thinking,step 1 was to remove the knackered minibus seats,these apart from being ripped and dirty had an awful odour attached to them,the floor carpet also has to go as this is well past it’s sell by date, 18/04/2014.I have removed the rear seats and donated them to my local scrap merchant, they took more muscle power than i was expecting i even had to resort to a torque wrench to give more leverage,Also i have removed the interior trim as my intention is to insulate the walls of the van with 25mm polystyrene panels this offers a good level of insulation at a fraction of the cost of using kingspan types of panel,the interior panels are only made of rigid plastic so i will carpet these with van lining carpet,one nasty surprise was the rotten inner wheel arch under a seat mounting base,this looks like someone has been depositing fluid there over time {i dread to think} so a bit of welding to replace said rotten metal will be needed.

Posted by rod whirity

  1. seats removed
    with a little toil and sweat the seats are finally loose,for some unknown reason the body builders had used 4inch bolts to secure the seat bases this caused a major headache and i had to use my torque wrench to free most of them,the worst bolts were the ones attaching the bases to the wheel arches these needed the help of my next door neighbour a 16mm spanner and a wrench to aid removal..on the down side some of the weird rust patches i mentioned in an earlier part of my blog look like someone has been urinating over time down the side of the seat over the rear wheel arch which apart from the awful smell and tell tale water mark on the inner arch has also rotted it through to the outer skin of the van ,so i need decent welder to re seal it and repair the damage

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