Rust and Hole – 1st part

by | 10 Nov 2015 | Vanlife - Fitting | 0 comments

Date de dernière mise à jour : le 23 July 2018

This time I think we need a welder’s help…

The problem is that we clearly don’t know anything about this. So, after some discussion with acquaintances, coworkers and friends, the conclusion is pessimistic… Some are telling us that the steel plates are too thin, some others categorically refuse when they see the pictures of damages, telling that it will be just some kind of makup and that the rust will reapear few time later.

Randomly browsing from links to facebook groups, we hear about an association in Paris suburbs who want to help people reairing their vehicules, from motorbikes to heavy trucks. Why not, let’s try to contact them. First contact by e-mail and pictures sent. Already with the first call, the tone is set:

  • “We will do that, don’t worry. It’s nothing, we saw worse! The plates? We have all that you need in the workshop. Park it here? No problem! Come next saturday with you truck, and w’ll take a look at it with a cup of coffee”.

Yeah!! Rescued! Where do we have to sign? So, we go searching for Tikal in the country, and we travel the last 100kms until we reach the association’s workshop.

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I think that Tikal will meet some new friends here!

After the meeting, a complete Tikal check-up, and after disussing about all details, we roll up our sleeves and start to work the week after.

Let’s start with  the most important part of this job: the footstools and the floor of the cabine supporting the front seats. As a reminder, here is an overview of the initial state:

Before cleaning

Before cleaning

repose-pied avant droit + fixation sièges

After

Now, it’s not funny anymore, we’ll move on to the serious stuff:

Au marteau et au burin

With hammer and chisel

Puis à la disqueuse

Then with the grinder

The idea is to delete all remaining rust marks, even deep into the metal.

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cutted

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The other side is on, too:

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The steel plates wonderfully cuted and shaped perfectly adapt on footstools. We’re now moving on to the welder step (and also preventing Tikal to burn several times 😕 ), then to the long welds grinding step…

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Then, like magic (but a day long magic…), voilà !

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Perfect!

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