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900 Bluebell the 900e Amigo

Introduction

We have just taken on the ownership of this camper from Kelly and Karl and hope to have it on the road within the next six months.
17717052334_1044bd2216_b.jpgDSC_6177 by Peter Thompson, on Flickr
Not only is it a really lovely vehicle, it was also a pleasure to buy it from such a genuine and really nice couple. There was a huge amount of interest in the sale and I am really appreciative that I was favoured to be the buyer ; so many thanks Karl.:)
18335728502_1005bcd374_b.jpgDSC_6176 by Peter Thompson, on Flickr
There is a certain amount of essential welding to do underneath, which will add to the welding that has been done in the past. It is currently pretty solid underneath but not as pretty as it could be. I hope to tidy as I go and then work around the bodywork. This has signs of a lot of filler and there is rust poking through in places, but it looks like we will be able to get using it soon.
There are a number of mechanical issue but nothing too onerous and it starts and runs really well.
So a rolling restoration to usable standards.
I just need to get the roof open now!
Watch this space as I document my progress.
That's very kind Peter.
I'll post some pics of the window on my thread so you can see what the window's like and if you have anything you don't need that may be useful.

Things taking longer than expected seems to be a common theme for us too...

Alignment looks not worse than the doors on my van. We've been messing with door alignment a little this week and have had to concede they are never going to be perfect!

There's no check strap on my tailgate for the engine compartment. There is a little distortion of the panel underneath where the hinge is attached. As you say presumably from just dropping the tailgate.
 
Alignment looks not worse than the doors on my van. We've been messing with door alignment a little this week and have had to concede they are never going to be perfect!

There's no check strap on my tailgate for the engine compartment.


Considring what these vans have been through I suppose we have to accept compromises in alignments. I have a few other areas where things just niggle me alittle. This happened when I resored the 500 and I ended up welding slim fillets of steel around the opening of the driver's door to micro-gap thngs. It looked good and has stayed that way, but this is going to be a constant use van, not a show-car.
In trawling the internet for I've now got this mage of a check-strap added by someone.

pandora engine by Peter Thompson, on Flickr
 
I made a repair section for the inside bottom part of the tailgate and painted the parts which will be inaccessible with weld-thru paint. Just a bit of the internal window surround to sort out now.

MAL_0713 by Peter Thompson, on Flickr

Whilst the going is good I decided to rip apart an ugly and dysfunctional old repair to the bottom hinge of the side-door.

MAL_0702 by Peter Thompson, on FlickrMAL_0705 by Peter Thompson, on Flickr

It's hard to work out the thinking behind the repair. Someone has been quite thorough and even dissected the back of the "B"-post, presumably to access things better. The panel had been welded back afterwards almost invisibly after grinding, but the actual penetration and strength is very poor.

MAL_0711 by Peter Thompson, on Flickr

At the very least I will be going over the original welding to strengthen it, but I may even weld a plate over it as the area will not be seen under the trim.
After a lot of cutting I am left with this.

MAL_0706 by Peter Thompson, on Flickr

I think it's possible that one of the repairs accidentally locked up the adjustment of the hinge with rogue weld and this made it impossible for someone to achieve the repair they were trying to do. When I separated the components I had this:

MAL_0709 by Peter Thompson, on Flickr

Surprisingly it all works and is undamaged so I could temporarily remount it like this with these motley screws:rolleyes::

MAL_0712 by Peter Thompson, on Flickr

This enables me to start a repair section to replace the panelwork that was ruined and had to be removed. This is what gives the rigidity to the hinge-mounting once it is spot-welded together.

MAL_0714 by Peter Thompson, on FlickrMAL_0715 by Peter Thompson, on Flickr

You can see that there is a bit more fettling to complete this section, then I will remove it, paint the interior of the pillar and then weld it in and mount the door.
 
After quite a bit of fine-tuning and additional welding, cutting, grinding and drilling I ended up with this fairly reasonable facsimile of what I think the pillar should be like around the hinge mounting.

MAL_0716 by Peter Thompson, on Flickr

I tacked it on taking great care to check alignments and I had the door on and off loads of times to check that I would be able to achieve the correct hanging.

MAL_0717 by Peter Thompson, on Flickr

Considering that the door has been through some major surgery and the hinge area has had at least one previous bodged repair, I was very pleased to find that the door aligns fairly well with the panel contours and is excellent as regards the door gaps and alignment with the waist-moulding of the van.

Now I have the baseline of the bottom of the door, this will allow me to remove the sill and start to tidy up the inner and the internal supports for the "B" and "C" posts. More to follow.
 
The sill had been replaced in the relatively recent past using layers of 18 gauge steel and lots of relatively good continuous welding. But it was ugly and distorted and interfering with the door-bottom so off it came. This is the view from he back of it.

MAL_0720 by Peter Thompson, on Flickr

The top bits of the original factory sill were still in place. It was extremely easy to remove this with minimal grinding and most of the spot-welds just pulled apart and this was not due to corrosion. Several thick layers of steel join here and I guess that even the factory spot-welder struggled with that.
This reveals the inner sill which from the other side of the van, I already realised had been repaired. Again this is in a sturdy gauge of steel and reasonably good although erratic welding.There are some unfinished areas and I will need to clean it up and reweld where necessary.
The "C"-post, which is the closing pillar for the side-door, was barely attached to the inner sill.

MAL_0723 by Peter Thompson, on Flickr

You can see that the new outer has a cutaway for the base of the pillar and tabs to be welded to it.

MAL_0721 by Peter Thompson, on Flickr

So I urgently needed to make a new base. I made this from 18 gauge Zintec steel and as all this is hidden from view I cut corners by not cleaning off the zinc-coating, which after all is very thin and welds through easily. This gives a little bit of added corrosion protection for the future.

MAL_0730 by Peter Thompson, on FlickrMAL_0731 by Peter Thompson, on Flickr

This needs tidying up and then I move on to the "B" post.
I quickly did a trial fit of the sill and the front arch and it all lines up quite well. But there's quite a bit of preparation work before they can be welded on.

MAL_0728 by Peter Thompson, on Flickr
 
I've removed and replaced the badly welded front end of the inner sill because it is where lots of constructions meet up, so it needs the best integrity possible.

MAL_0738 by Peter Thompson, on Flickr

I have to dissect all the rust and poor repairs of the inner, front arch and replace them one piece at a time.

MAL_0739 by Peter Thompson, on Flickr

Now the sill and arch are tacked on so that I have my alignments to repair the base of the "B"-post.

MAL_0740 by Peter Thompson, on Flickr

There's a lot of things to line up, but as the base of the driver's door is needing drastic repairs in any case, I have some leeway and will just accept that the wheelarch repair panel has to sits where it sits.:rolleyes:
 
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I only managed an hour in the garage today, and although that meant very little physical progress, I think I resolved a lot of tricky compromises on alignment issues. So I've primed the area behind that pillar base, tacked the base into position which allowed me to finalise the position of the wheelarch panel and to confirm that it needed some adustment to make it align with the contour of the pillar. Checking against the other side, the dimensions are definitely different so I suspect a "pattern" part. I have slit it and will let in a small wedge of steel when I take it off the van to prime the hidden parts.

MAL_1161 by Peter Thompson, on Flickr

These hidden areas do have a surprisingly effective and consistent but thin coating of wax which unless thoroughly removed, plays havoc with welding.
Seen here with the doorbase repair panel in place, things look acceptable. But that panel will need a lot of subtle tweaking in the way of shrinking of the edges to give curvature.

MAL_1158 by Peter Thompson, on Flickr

It seems that the factory designed this area with the unusual cover panel under the wheelarch edge, so that this was probably the last item welded on. That would allow them access to hidden spot-welding. My access will be through a section of door pillar which I will remove and replace later.
This is an insane design where the door bottom edge overlaps the wheelarch going under it to be in the direct line of all the road dirt and dampness.....no wonder they are all rusty.
 
I tidied up the back end of the sill, making a small section to replace a poorly finished piece at the end, and chopped off all the layers of previous inner rear wheelarch repairs which were getting in the way.
The inner sill and the inside of the outer sill are now painted and it will be welded in place tomorrow.

MAL_1208 by Peter Thompson, on Flickr
 
I have spent a huge amount of time preparing the sills etc. to be welded on. That included drilling lots of holes for the plug-welds and grinding off all paint at every weld junction and then degreasing everywhere.
At current prices my Sealey 185 mig-welder would cost upwards of £700, so it's a good job it was bought brand new in exchange for a job I did for someone about 20 years ago. It is really controllable and reliable. But lately it has started to get a bit erratic...a fault I traced to the trigger-switch on the torch. The wonder of the internet brought up an image of the switch with a local supplier who had three in stock. Strangely I also ran out of gas so a trip to town made sense. So with everything refreshed, the old welder was itching to go this evening. The bright, low sun of the evening allowed me to see into the difficult area where the door-pillar and front wheelarch bases were originally connected with hidden spot-welds....such an awkward area I couldn't even get a decent image of it. I racked up the power and wire-feed a touch in order to get good, hot puddles and then proceeded around the front arch.
The call of the wine-bottle and being chased by biting midges sent me indoors, but another hour should see the whole assembly complete.

MAL_1213 by Peter Thompson, on Flickr

MAL_1214 by Peter Thompson, on Flickr
 
Finding and paying for new sills was was easy, but working out which were the correct ones amongst the many variations available was tricky. My 900e would originally have had sills with a grooved moulding pressed in. All signs of this were obliterated when I bought the van and for the best price I bought a pair without the groove. But whilst these fit perfectly at the top and are exactly the right length, they seem to lack a bit of curvature. So having fitted them they did not quite meet up with the inner sill, which had previously been repaired by A.N.Other. So I had to make a little, stepped, spacer section which will be plug-welded to the bottom of the sills and bridge the gap. For all I know this might even be how it was originally done.

My metal-folder will only take 600mm sections so I needed to make two pieces and weld them together. I also cut out a couple of slots and welded in a bent cover so that when welded in I will have drainage-slots on the inner sill.
MAL_2447 by Peter Thompson, on Flickr
In order to fit this piece I had the fairly challenging job of removing the catch mechanism for the spare-wheel cage which needs a repair and had been badly welded-in. In order to make space for the welding I also had to hack away at the ends of the front and rear chassis cross-members which need extensive repairs in any case; the poor previous repairs can be seen in the photo.
MAL_2449 by Peter Thompson, on Flickr
Having been away with the grandkids all week, not much progress has been made on this but it should be cleaned-up and welded in tomorrow.
 
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Just a trickle of progress at the moment but the sill and the bridging piece were secured today.
MAL_2496[1] by Peter Thompson, on Flickr
The van is better than most vehicles to work underneath but it's still a struggle when barely jacked off the ground. But it's worth the effort so that the plug-welds don't show as an ugly lump from the outside.
MAL_2495[1] by Peter Thompson, on Flickr
The temporary rivets are a real help in situations like this where you can't get behind the panels in order to clamp them.
 
I'm sorting out a few loose ends before deciding whether to start priming the areas I have already welded or to carry on with more body repairs.
So I had a little area to close up at the base of the side-door pillar.
MAL_2501 by Peter Thompson, on Flickr
On the tailgate there was bit more internal corrosion than it seemed at first sight....a familiar story! So I made a few sections, partly using the stretcher tool, and started welding them in.
MAL_2499 by Peter Thompson, on Flickr
MAL_2505 by Peter Thompson, on Flickr
MAL_2503 by Peter Thompson, on Flickr
MAL_2502 by Peter Thompson, on Flickr
As you can see, I have a massive "Grindathon" looming to smooth this and lots of other areas out, but that's not a job for 9 o'clock in the evening.:eek:
 
My attention was diverted to the front doors. I had bought a brand new driver's door and a repair panel for the base of the passenger's. Under closer scrutiny , now I have overcome some really serious rust, the doors are possibly not as bad as I thought. I've stripped the bottom of the passenger door to see how far the previous repair and filler go; I won't need the whole of the repair panel.

MAL_2722 by Peter Thompson, on Flickr

It looks like some adjustments to the door bottoms or the short piece of front door sill will be needed to get a perfect fit. The positioning of these was dictated by a whole load of other factors so it's not surprising that some minor surgery wil be needed.

Just for fun I thought I'd put up the roof for the first time in two years.....it is enormous.:eek:

MAL_2726 by Peter Thompson, on Flickr

MAL_2724 by Peter Thompson, on Flickr
 
I get confused by the various companies that built the vans, but I think this was the the last evolution of the Amigo. The external roofs look similar with rails on them but without the overhanging front. So same company as Amigo? Whilst it was up I worked out that one of the dampers that help push the roof up was pushing out the weak hinge fixings. So I disconnected it....what a job. At least the roof closes properly at last. But there's a bit of faffing about needed with the sliding mechanism inside.... a job for the distant future.
 
yes, similar problem with the Pandora. It uses a curved arm, powered by a damper. It runs in a shallow guide to raise and lower, but once or twice now it has 'derailed' leading to a jam. To put it back in the guide means fighting the damper force whilst wrestling with the weight of the roof, all whilst balancing on a bumper or wheel arch!
 
You are getting really good at this welding lark Peter! But you have had plenty of practice by now! Some really tidy welds there!

I haven't done any serious mig welding for a few years but once you get your wire feed right and voltage settings good, it's becomes a lot more satisfying. Sizzling bacon always comes to mind! Do you tweek them much whilst welding?

I take it the roof dampers are hydraulic? If they are straight? You can normally get some decent alternatives of fleabay. It is a bit of a Tardis though isn't it!

I used to have, dare I say it on here, a VW T2 camper van. It was enormous inside with the roof up. Really regret selling it, especially after all the Tony style refurb it got beforehand. Brilliant air cooled engine as well, joy to work on.
 
I used to have, dare I say it on here, a VW T2 camper van. It was enormous inside with the roof up. Really regret selling it, especially after all the Tony style refurb it got beforehand. Brilliant air cooled engine as well, joy to work on.

VW campers get a high approval rating from me and are a lot easier to get parts and guidance for. We get a lot passing through The Highlands and I always stop for a look when they're parked up.

Edge to edge (butt)welding has become a doddle now. When I looked into it it turned out that I have gradually worked out a technique that many, more experienced welders recommend;a bit like how I was double-declutching without knowing it.

The roof of the van has three, very strong hydraulic struts; one was removed by the previous owner to make it easier to put down. I think they are over the strength they need to be. Obviously the roof has been used relatively infrequently but I noticed a ball-bearinged slide-runner that was damaged and might be hard to repair/replace. When I stand up inside there is still a massive gap between the top of my head and the top of the roof....better than most tents I've been in. :worship:
 
I've started to strip down the door internals ready for welding and I'm finding it much easier than the notorious doors of the Fiat 500. The seals, window-guides and surrounds come out more easily and are made of a really good type of plastic which has aged well and doesn't crack or deform. A little persuasion with a steel ruler to get things started and then using just my fingers I was able to remove them.
The door-lock mechanism is self-explanatory and similar to the 500.

MAL_2753 by Peter Thompson, on Flickr

The window winder mechanism comes out easily with the three screws holding the handle-winder removed and then the two that clamp a bar to the lifting wire. Then the loop of wire and the winding come out after lifting the wire off all the pulleys.

MAL_2754 by Peter Thompson, on Flickr

The main window needs a bit of manoevring to get out after removing the top and bottom screws holding in the quarter-light frame. Then that simply pulls out.

MAL_2751 by Peter Thompson, on Flickr
Someone has had problems before because the little triangular piece of glass on one side is missing one of its pivots and both the lights had been sealed in. The weakness is that the pivots, like the internal latch, are simply glued to the glass and as soon as any stiffness bulds up in the mechanism it appears that these are the weakest links. It's will be "fun" finding spares.:confused:
It's good to have the doors stripped back and having a plan of action for repairs, I'll get cracking tomorrow.
 
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