Shirley 'The Miami Princess' restoration

[maplegum]

Restore a vintage van they said.  It will be fun they said.

We have just purchased a Miami Princess, possibly a 1968-1969.
Interior is in good shape, exterior not so great.






Today we begin the restorations. We have already run into problems   Go figure.

Our first job was to remove the coupling so we could rebuild/fix it.  It had been spot welded in areas and it was impossible for Mr.Maplegum to get the grinder underneath.  Had to drill out the spot welds.



There, it's free!



Now Mr.Maplegum tells me that the 'pin' has also been welded on making it impossible to service the inside of the unit.  Is this common?  Is there a way around this?

Next was me getting under the van to work on the surface rust.  There has to be an easier way.  Grinders, steel brushes, scrappers.  It's a downright awful job and my neck, my arms and back gave in after only half an hour of it!  The van was jacked up but there is still no room to move and so many little tight corners that you can't get tools into! 



We are located an hour west of Melbourne.  Can anyone suggest a sand blasting place that would work on her?  The one company we managed to speak to said that they wouldn't take the job on.   No one else has returned our calls.  

Next on today's list is the bearings.  Wish us luck 

[willow5075]

Good luck, she's a beauty! Sorry Im in Adelaide so no suggestions for sand blaster

[franni]

Wow, another Shirley. Fantastic. you sure are off to a running start. good luck with the restoration, it is a pretty little thing.
we called our little pommie immigrant 'shirley' after Shirley Valentine and because the name "shows a desire for travel and adventure" according to one website, which is so apt for a van that travelled from england to Australia overland!

[Franklin1]

G'day maplegum,

...Next was me getting under the van to work on the surface rust. There has to be an easier way. Grinders, steel brushes, scrappers. It's a downright awful job and my neck, my arms and back gave in after only half an hour of it! The van was jacked up but there is still no room to move and so many little tight corners that you can't get tools into!

I'm with you!! I've only done the chassis on two vans - one crawling on my back like you did, and the other walking around the chassis after the van was demolished down to chassis level. I can tell you which one of those jobs I preferred more!

But then after a bit of navel gazing, I started to ask myself WHY did I bother doing either of these chassis??!! What "bang for my buck" am I getting from spending two weeks under a van with dust in my eyes, and wire brush strands sticking in my back?! I can't remember anyone posting photos of a Vintage van event where they've shown photos of underneath the vans, so why are we doing it? A survey I did of 100 ants and lizards showed an overwhelming majority couldn't care less when a rusty chassis passed over their heads.

I say we should REBEL against those who insist a chassis has to be in pristine condition!

I reckon the only crawling-under-a-van should be to check for broken welds in the chassis members; or to check the brackets for the water tank; or to make sure the handbrake cable fittings are working nice and free. The only other time would be when we want to hide from that "know-all" fella who is making a bee-line for our van.

Save your Sanity! - Go rusty instead!!

cheers,
Al.

[JBJ]

Hi Al,

I'm with you.
I've restored/rebuilt a couple of vans, & never did any refinishing underneath other than required repairs.

I don't even detail underneath cars I rebuild any more.
With my hips & knees suffering from old timers, I see no point checking out what you can't see standing up.
Many years ago I used to show cars, & it always intrigued me that detailing underneath got so many points in judging, so much so that it was near impossible to win your class at a show without a spotlessly clean & detailed undercarraige. This in street driven classes too.

The reason most old vans are suffering surface rust underneath is that the metal framing was never painted after the van was built, or at least that's what I have noticed over the years.

JBJ

[maplegum]

We feel so reckless! We have taken your advice guys and NOT cleaning up the bottom of Shirley. Of course the drawer bar and wheels etc will be done. It feels so good to not have to worry about that part. We did manage to get hold of a few places and its not cheap to have it sandblasted!

[King Fisher]

We gave ours a quick and I mean quick wire brushing, just to remove the flaky rust. Was totally over the wire brushing thing after about 10 min! Then a coat of rust converting sealer and then a coat of thick hard enamel black paint. Looks a little bumpy, and is no show pony, but should now last easily another 50 years without any problems. Not too fussed about showing it off, just wanted to protect what metal is left.

As you can see the final finish in this photo:

[maplegum]

Would you guys believe it, we have changed our mind again! Well kinda sorta. We decided that we would just send Shirley in to have the drawer bar, wheels etc done by the sand blaster. So off she went today and will probably be gone for a couple of days. That frees us up to work on the darling little enamel stove that came with her which is really in quite good shape tomorrow. We have ordered the lights and bits and pieces to get her prepared for registration. The entire brake system is being replaced also. Cant wait for her to come back home now!

[maplegum]

Shirley is back home from the sand blaster and her belly and draw bar look a million bucks!







Now that she has been painted and cleaned under there, we can see a stamp which i assume is the chassis number? It's engraved in a number of places and reads AIS - WA. Does that help to date the van at all?? Is this the chassis number??

While she was gone we cleaned up the stove. I see they are fairly common stoves but we really wanted to keep it and its in great shape!





The stove has this plate on it. Would that be a manufacture date?



(I will continue the post in a separate below)

[maplegum]

Shirley is back home from the sand blaster and her belly and draw bar look a million bucks!







Now that she has been painted and cleaned under there, we can see a stamp which i assume is the chassis number? It's engraved in a number of places and reads AIS - WA. Does that help to date the van at all?? Is this the chassis number??

While she was gone we cleaned up the stove. I see they are fairly common stoves but we really wanted to keep it and its in great shape!





The stove has this plate on it. Would that be a manufacture date?



(I will continue the post in a separate below)

[Geoff & Jude]

Apr 1, 2015 8:34:40 GMT 10 maplegum said:

Now that she has been painted and cleaned under there, we can see a stamp which i assume is the chassis number? It's engraved in a number of places and reads AIS - WA. Does that help to date the van at all?? Is this the chassis number??

hi maplegum

ais wa stands for australian iron and steel, wa, who made the steelwork for the chassis.

it has no relationship to a chassis number.

geoff 'n jude

[maplegum]

We set to work on the brake system when she came back. New bearings etc.
We had some company checking over our work..



After the bearing stuff, Mr Maplegum decided he would replace the rear light covers with our shiny new ones. He removed the old covers, played around with stuff back there then i hear 'no, no, NO' and then swear words. Lots of swear words.

One of the wires had slipped back down inside the caravan wall ! I tried to remain level headed and suggested he just pull the caravan walls off to get it back out. Then there were more swear words.

His solution was to race to the shops, right on closing time, and but a camera thingy. You know, on a long bendy stick like surgeons use.

[maplegum]

Now Mr.Maplegum is a tradesman so he has enough tools to build anything! And i mean anything! But - he didnt have a camera thingy. Quietly, I think he was kind of excited to be adding a camera thingy to his collection. So now he can retrieve wires and do key hole surgery!

So in it goes. We see the wire a number of times on the screen but its difficult to grab on the little hook but we finally did it.



My heart raced, Mr Maplegums heart raced then he gave the wire the 'bird' and did a few more swear words.





I grabbed the electrical tape and stuck that damn wire to the caravan wall so tight it wasn't ever moving!

After our wire experience, the light cover goes on and we leave Shirley for the night ready for her trip to the brake people who will put new brake lines on her today.

I think there will be more swear words from Mr Maplegum in our endeavors to fix the old girl up. I may even be adding a few myself

[maplegum]

Apr 1, 2015 8:38:33 GMT 10 Geoff & Jude said:

Apr 1, 2015 8:34:40 GMT 10 maplegum said:

Now that she has been painted and cleaned under there, we can see a stamp which i assume is the chassis number? It's engraved in a number of places and reads AIS - WA. Does that help to date the van at all?? Is this the chassis number??

hi maplegum

ais wa stands for australian iron and steel, wa, who made the steelwork for the chassis.

it has no relationship to a chassis number.

geoff 'n jude

OK, thanks for your help. I guess she has no chassis number then, or VIN. Poor old girl.

[maplegum]

With new lights and brakes, Mr.Maplegum took Shirley in to get weighed. She's weighs in at 630kg. Bonus! We don't need to get her to Vic Roads, we can register her under the 'light trailer pack' which just involves the paperwork.

We measured her today as well. Thought we had a 13ft van, turns out she is 10.5ft. Just a light weight

I've spent the last couple of days scrubbing and polishing the window frames on the inside of the van. They look so shiny now! What a difference it makes. My back and neck are now seized up but well worth the discomfort!

Another job for today was to paint over the 'green paint' that had been used on the edges of the cupboards and other areas. Not exactly our taste so we chose a colour that was more in keeping with the colours of the van. This is the green on the bottom of the table which is now a beige colour.



You can see the difference on the cupboard door edge here..


Down the track we may completely replace the cupboard doors as Mr.Maplegum is a cabinet maker. A job for another day.

We will get her registered on Tuesday after the Easter break. It will be an exciting time knowing that although she isnt up to scratch - we can still go on short trips as she is roadworthy.
She may not be 'pretty' but she will be usable!

[maplegum]

Not much to report on as the last couple of days have been spent polishing aluminium. Oh no hang on, I can report that it's not going to plan. I'm struggling with getting that stuff looking good again.



Mr.Maplegum re installed the old stove. I just love that thing! I'm so glad we decided to keep it.



A shot from outside looking in, as I was out there polishing and scrubbing

[maplegum]

Yay! Shirley was registered today!
Quite a painless procedure really. We thought they may go over the van with a fine toothed comb, but not so. The check itself was over in a couple of minutes! So even though she doesnt look her best at the moment, we can still take her away on trips as we work on her.




Now back to cleaning the window frames!

[maplegum]

If your looking for me, I'm in the garage, cleaning aluminium. STILL.

I did manage to get my Mum to help me sew curtains for Shirley, I had to take time out from what seems to be a worse job than breaking rocks. Brace yourself for the 'girly' details. Men, you may want to look away now. I was going to go with a 'gelato' colour scheme with lots of soft greens, blues, lemons etc.
My final selection is nothing like i had imagined, but i love it! Stripes, chocolate brown, teal and blue. It's so gorgeous!



I've also sewn up a few buntings(flags). Mr Maplegum asked 'why'?
My answer 'it's what all the cute vintage vans are wearing this season'

Here's my little horse watching over me cursing the aluminium. He didn't stick around long. He went back to the tranquility of the field.

[King Fisher]

Congrats on the rego. We sure are in the lucky state for registering a vv.
Look forward to seeing you out and about.

[maplegum]

A little update - yeah, I'm still polishing aluminium while Mr Maplegum has been busy fixing the roof hatch.
I've completed the outside of the windows and all of the aluminium trim on the exterior of the van now , so I have began taking the cupboards apart and polishing the hinges and screws.
Totally messed this one up by putting the polished hinge back on upside down, inside out and backwards!



Now the outside of Shirley has had someone take to her racing stripe with a paint brush before we bought her. Seriously, it looks like a 5 year old tried to repaint the stripe! See!!!!





I hate that someone has tried so poorly to make her look better. It's truly awful

So we dont have the funds to have her repainted all over at the moment so we attempted to strip back the art work by the 5 year old to see what lays beneath.

Her original racing stripe was just fine! What goes through someones mind to prompt them to attempt such a crap job?

Anyway, this is what we are left with. Her original stripe which looks far better than when we bought her. Sadly, we also managed to remove some of her white paint along with the blue.



Looks like this dark blue was their original choice and either ran out of that colour paint or completely changed their mind.




We are working every single day on her at the moment. Slowly chipping away. I have got to the point where my fingers are starting to 'lock up' as I'm polishing and I have to manually bend my fingers back in to place!

[shesgotthelook]

Two of my vans looked like someone said to the kids in the holidays- 'paint the van & I'll give you some pocket money'. Truly awful jobs with paint running over window frames,latches & handles, dripped on the floor etc. It takes very little time to remove the hardware or put up some masking tape but I guess that's beyond certain folks.
You will be so pleased once you have done a 'proper job'

[cruiser1980]

Apr 1, 2015 8:47:01 GMT 10 maplegum said:

Now Mr.Maplegum is a tradesman so he has enough tools to build anything! And i mean anything! But - he didnt have a camera thingy. Quietly, I think he was kind of excited to be adding a camera thingy to his collection. So now he can retrieve wires and do key hole surgery!

So in it goes. We see the wire a number of times on the screen but its difficult to grab on the little hook but we finally did it.



My heart raced, Mr Maplegums heart raced then he gave the wire the 'bird' and did a few more swear words.





I grabbed the electrical tape and stuck that damn wire to the caravan wall so tight it wasn't ever moving!

After our wire experience, the light cover goes on and we leave Shirley for the night ready for her trip to the brake people who will put new brake lines on her today.

I think there will be more swear words from Mr Maplegum in our endeavors to fix the old girl up. I may even be adding a few myself

[cruiser1980]

I am contemplating fitting a wireless Camera to the rear of the caravan. My thoughts are that a twin lens wireless system with a night time capability will be simplest to install, won't impact the van warranty and will provide a decent rear view of the traffic as well as a reversing view. For this I search out locally and also by Google. By getting reference from some friends, I am able to know about a company PPA, which has many services. I went there and after 10 minutes of discussions, they were able to point me in the right direction, they come to my house and install it to my Toyota Land cruiser and caravan.
The installation process took 3 hours and I must say I was happy with the result. They offered me a reversing camera and screen package with 2 cameras where one was pointing to my tow ball and the other was installed behind the caravan. Both cameras had night vision as I want and now it is safe to reverse.
Here is a link to their web site
www.ppacaraudio.com.au/index.php?route=product/category&path=108