tim sykes barndoor

1951 Barndoor

I agreed the sale of my 64 camper to Tim Lunn in November '04, having been inspired to begin again after 8 years, at L2B.I had seen Paul Rui's BD panel, & was inspired by it , & other rat-look vans, leaning towards the panel. I scouted all the usual dealers, &, after a false start with a crew cab, I came upon a bright green barndoor for sale at KK. I continued to look around for a week or so, at other BDs mostly, until the sale day was nigh, & I looked at the KK site, again. BUGGER ME, if they hadn't DROPPED THE PRICE BY A GRAND!!!

Sale agreed & a handful of swag in my sweaty palm I raced up the Mway to Sarfend to see the offending Green Goddess. I soon changed the name to SHREK, having viewed the beast up close!..........Perhaps I'm painting too gloomy a picture- I did buy it, after all!...I was really quite impressed, & it DID seem like a bargain ( stupid boy, Pike!).

OK, the tech.-

the underside was (is) ROCK. Ritchie was quite happy for me to crawl all over/under this baby, & so I got a good look, up close. the roof was the smoothest, unspoilt 1 that I had ever seen (BD). the interior was a nice, if quaint home-made wooden camper conversion, with a PERFECT later headliner. the cab was complete & functional & fitted with all sorts of 'extras'.......

The guy that had converted this bus was some kind of fanatic- however limited his means. He had MADE a radio out of all sorts of circuitry ( quite beyond me); the bus now had 3 looms! Numerous pieces of Aluminium plate were utilised throughout the bus for various things, & were expertly crafted. Necessity, they say, is the mother of invention; & this was one MOTHER of an invention!

Lifting the heavily vented Barndoor hatch revealed his 'greatest' coup- a 4 cylinder (lengthwise) water-cooled Skoda engine. The butchery that fitting this lump had necessitated is too harrowing to blacken these hallowed pages, but, suffice to say it was extreme!. a home-made petrol tank ( half a central heating boiler) with an external filler occupied the left hand side, along with a fan-cooled radiator. The spare wheel 'tray' was a large square of ply , supported by a pole bolted to what was left of the valance. Etc, etc.. However ( foolishly), I handed over my hard-won folding, & was the owner of the second oldest BD in the country! Joy!

........so it was mine!

Dramatic plans filled my otherwise vacuous head, & an agreement was struck for Shrek to go directly to Harry Harpics for Paul Miller to work on. A straight axle conversion sorted out the Skoda gearbox ( hydraulic clutch!), & also lowered the rear end. My existing 1641 was fettled & fitted & hooked up to run.

The front beam was cut & fitted with HH's own adjusters & lowered. The brake system was overhauled & new copper pipes run all over. My brother & I turned up in early Feb & took the green blob away on a low loader- & rolled it into my garage- for quite a while, as it turned out, as I had a shoulder operation the next week, & was off work for 3 months.

This, of course, allowed time for 'tinkering', & a new version of the interior started to take place, with a local chippy ( who had done the interior on my '64) helping out. As much of the original camper conversion as possible was utilised, some panels just painted & refitted; the original ( orange!) curtains, which run on ali rods top & bottom, were dyed black & refitted. My original Canterbury Pitt cooker- which I meant to sell, but couldn't bear to be parted with-was fitted to the inner rear door, atop lacquered panelling to match the other trim. Some snazzy lino & a circular table finish it off. In the cab most of the work was removal. Literally 10's of meters of wiring had to be removed from the cab area alone- I kid you not! I downloaded a BD wiring diagram, & set to work with NOS replacement parts including fuse boxes,

instrument pod & switches & a VERY special speedo. ( pic). A three spoke (keyed) steering wheel was sourced with Wolfsburg crest horn push. Some essential gauges were 'blended in' & a cd player grafted into the passenger well panelling.

The Samba supplied countless parts , including a new gear shift & linkage, quarter light latches, cargo door lock & key, grooved door handles & external locking handles to name a few. A front bumper came my way , in the North of Essex, one dark night, from a very nice man, for very little money; a little distorted, but complete & correct!

A correct, wide-necked filler, petrol tank came from Graham at FBI, complete with filler cap & tap, along with a spare tyre tray, which I later sold on. I had to make a replacement valance deck from some of the copious amount of aluminium sheet from inside the cargo area, along with brackets to offset the tank for the dual carbs.

The lights are a story all their own, so I'll keep it brief; seen those front lights? they were some eastern block headlights set into steel rings WELDED into the light bowls with T bracing WELDED in behind! A day EACH to remove, & I'm still not happy with that job... Luckily KK supplied a pair of U.S. spec headlights in the deal. The rear lights I make no apologies for. They were supplied by Stafford

Vehicle Components (SVC!!)& are made up as follows;

2 red & 2 amber lights designed for '50s Morrises,

1 rear fog light,( 3rd brake light)

1 reversing light, ( No. plate light).

All these new lights ( which bear 'Made in England!) cost less than 1 repro BD rear light. As this bus will be my daily driver, I am happy to use new components on the safety side.

The replacement engine lid came from Holland, via Ebay, & was a relative snip. The hinge & hinging are on the barndoor were butchered & welded to such a degree that I have just about managed to fit the new one, & will have to put up with the way it looks. A lid prop came recently ( from my old mate Dave at The Split Van Centre), but I have , as yet, not worked out how to fit it correctly!

The wheels...

oh, they're another story... I decided( I think!) to buy Polished Empi 5's, as I had seen a pic of a chocolate brown notch with them on , & it looked the bizz; & I've never seen a BD with them on ( there's a good reason for that- read on !).Turned out a mate of mine had a set for sale, with tyres, so a deal was struck.

The tyres , of course, turned out to be the wrong size, so some 145's we resourced, mated to 185's on the back. Moody, but not TOO radical.. except they don't fit, do they?!!..BD front drums are' coned', so the wheel doesn't reach the brake drum....Spacers!!- 'cept now the tyres fouled the arches!..off with the spacers & machine them flat on one side & reduce the stand off by half...ooh, & then , of course the bolts I've just bought are too long now, so each of them has to be cut down....now I know why!!....On the back the wheels sit on beetle drums, of course, so they have adaptors ( 4 to 5), which, when coupled with lowering & 2 ton of weld & associated tacked-on steel inside the arch, mean getting the wheels on & off is a VERY tricky job.

So, RAISE it a bit. Jiggery - pokery with the torsion bars & plates & up it goes an inch, & Robert's your father's brother!!-or NOT!. Unfortunately this has left the wheels toeing in (tops out). So a Bus Boys straight axle kit with adjustable spring plates is coming to bring the wheels inboard more & straighten them up, then raise it back up on the adjusters; bonus is I can fit 205's on the back next year....

That's most of the plus points- the bodywork has got to be one of the biggest drawbacks....This bus is COVERED in a layer of filler @ 5mm thick. It has obviously had a hard 53yrs & , judging by the glimpse of the long panel I had when fitting the interior, is as poc-marked as a 15-year old with acne. No major rust, though, just dinged to blazes. That's another good reason NOT to try to return it to concours ( well, not on my budget, anyway!!)

Next steps ( after M.O.T.) are to re-model the rear arches back to something like original; skim the rear corners back to smooth; change the green to grey, & gloss black to satin; fit some safaris, if I can ever find any & start to drive it! L2B '04 is the planned first outing, whatever the state, then a proper debut at Volksworld '05. Whatever happens, I'll keep you posted....

UPDATE 05 DEC 04

Months passed & the intricacies of vehicle registration became obvious to me... you need to be VERY CAREFUL that EVERYTHING is EXACTLY right!! To cut a long story short, one day in early Nov. i came out of DVLA offices in Maidstone with a beaming smile on my face, & the registration & tax in my hand . 871 UXF WAS BORN!! Plates were duly applied for , with a U.S. style one going on the front ( to fit in the small gap of the early bumper), in a surround with family relevance; & a big ole ali square out back..

That aside, mechanical complications have continued , with the addition of early '60s beetle shafts & drums for the back, & many, many hours of jiggery-pokery getting everything to fit. The result is a narrower rear axle , at a better ride-height, & 5 stud drums (again). In turn, this allows wider rear tyres, 195s, which i've fitted to 5.5 chromies.These have come along for a variety of reasons, not least of which is the need to use 4.5 rims (wearing 145s) on the front, & get round the need for spacers.The only other thing to do was to get the front beam down one notch on the HH adjusters-time consuming , but worthwhile, & infinitely adjustable!!

Fiddling with the engine continues unabated. A new pair of Dell 36s were sourced, as we discovered the original ones were butchered. Venturis were switched to 32s, carbs cleaned & all seals & gaskets renewed. All looks good! During this period , Kent VW kindly lent me a pair of 45s-WOW!, What a difference!! awesome response ( if a little juicy!!) throughout the range. A 'new' dynamo is going in & a new set of uprated pushrods; the fuel system is being renewed, & a simplified oil filter set up sorted. The cooler has been removed temporarily, along with the thermostat, as the bus is now too low to hang it underneath(!)

The cab has been cleaned up, painted & 'finished' , ready for the fitment of the allusive safaris, around Christmas. This will be the last major 'improvement' undertaken, with final filling & paint following throughout Jan.

Then the long & winding road beckons........