Barnaby the Vusky

[Dave Lane]

Imp van Part 7.
Well things were fairly terminal mid 94 , the spooned on Caribbean blue paint job looked hideous , engine lost more oil than the Tori Canyon , burnt whatever was left and the transaxle was now borked.
Help was at hand in the form of someone offering me a 74 Super that ran lovely with a good transaxle for the heady sum of 40 notes , car looked better cosmetically but was designed by the Fred Flintstone flooring Co Ltd . Its engine and box were soon hoofed out and stuck in the Van.
IT LIVES .
Bodywork still looked terrible though.
More help came in the form of Bruce , an Imp club member who happened to have a compressor and spray gun for the use off , he even delivered it and helped me no end.
Van was stripped as best i could and sanded down , dents were kind of smoothed out and finally spraying commenced in the original colour of Bermuda blue .
All done outside though and on a final budget of £150 - wallet crushing as the whole thing only cost 50 notes to buy .
Rear panel turned out to be rotten so it was still two colours but getting better , XR2 seats , again from a breakers were shoved in the front for added comfort .
Things were finally on the up for the old heap however this was only to last a short while before disaster struck
Heres some pics

[PMCG]

That masking looks super neat, could teach one of our local painters a thing or two.

[Dave Lane]

Imp Van part 8 .
Well all was great for a while , engine and box worked superbly , we drove to St Andrews in 98 ( live in Somerset ) , we toured the Lake District and even got up the Wrynose and Hardnott passes , I continued with general tidying up by changing the now rusty bonnet ( more odd colours again) and as a daily driver it coped well with the 11,000 odd miles that year well.
Then DISASTER !!
On our way to Bournemouth one November evening we were side swiped by a hit and run driver on the wrong side of the road with no lights on , the car was red and thats all I know .
Smashed in the OSR wing and the door , punched the inner arch inwards 4 inches and even busted the rear alloy wheel which is why its now turned red .
It looked like curtains for the old girl

[Dave Lane]

Imp van part 9 ,

Anyway we now had the small issue of a smashed in drivers side , The door part was an easy fit - just get another door .
The rear wing however was going to be tricky , as you might imagine rear wings for these arnt available at Asda .
I initially thought seriously about scrapping it as finding a wing was not going well and the original was just too damaged to fix , swage lines all gone , and the rear was pushed in so much it hit the inner wing and squashed the heater pipe , i was offered a S/H part of one which i collected from Bournemouth but there wasnt enough of it to do much good .
Anyway back in 92 i did go to a breakers in Shaftesbury , well i say breakers but it was closed down for environmental reasons in the late 70s but the owner just left everything as it was and shut the gates for good , there was an Imp van in there at that time .
I wonder !!!!.
Drove to Shaftesbury in the only vehicle i had that could fit a van rear wing in- the van itself and low and behold the van was still there - for the princely sum of £5 a wing and a days work with hammer and cold chisel the remains of two rear wings were mine , i only needed the drivers side but for a fiver extra it seemed silly not to get both , OK there was no arch or bottom on either but the basic shape was all there .
Maybe - just maybe I can pull this off.
First pic is the donor minus its rear wings , second is the rear wing as cut off

[Dave Lane]

Imp van part 10 .
At the time of the side whacking i had no garage but my parents said i could use theirs so as long as i was capable of doing the job it looked like i might be able to save the old fart after all.
In the end it took four months to sort out , with a lot of work the old wing was cut off - not all of it as there was a lot missing from the new one , i fitted a new arch in , joggled all the various bits of wing for a good fit , seam welded and even lead loaded the joints . Took ages to push the inner arch back out but i got there in the end.
I kept the rear light part of the original wing along with the bottom by the door on the car and fitted the replacement using this , wing ended up as four separate panels welded together.
Sorry some of the pics are rubbish , Kodak disc cameras were crap - well thats my excuse and im sticking to it .
Various crap pics


A few more pics of that donor van - it collapsed a year later

[Dave Lane]

Imp Van part 11 , almost the end now , just one more after this .
So the OSR rear wing and door were now fixed , this was 2001 /2 .
Yet again paintwork became an issue as id none of the Bermuda Blue left from the first spray job - it was Feb 2002 and too cold for a proper paint job but a local factors was closing down and i picked up 6 large rattle cans of Rover Lipari blue which was close if you squinted though dark glasses at night looking the other way .
Over the next few years she went well . A few years was spent with a towball fitted and a trailer i made from a few dead car bits and she really did work very hard for me.
Some time around 2006 The passenger side front wheelarch got a bit frilly but id bought a NOS genuine wing for a tenner years before , no pics of this being fitted for some reason , anyway it was fitted and an arch repair on the NSR was also done , I finally got a rot free bonnet for £50 so she was finally solid and rot free .
In August 2009 or 10 , i really cant remember now I gave it a full respray the correct colour yet again , i bought an electric sprayer from a car boot sale and did the lot myself outside .
New wheels were purchased and the interior got a make-over ( will be in the last part )
Final waffle to follow

[Dave Lane]

Imp Van part 12 - the end - fin - epilogue - theres no more.
With it fully resprayed and looking reasonable I did the interior , I bought a pair of Huntmaster period seats for 99p on ebay and had them professionally covered locally , i rewired the whole car fitting 20 fuses in the process . Sorted god only knows what as and when required.
The 74 engine i fitted in 94 finally wore out and i threw a temporary lump in whilst i fully rebuilt it with a rebore +30 , new pistons , main and big end bearings etc etc etc .
This engine now runs twin SUs from a spitfire ( thats the Triumph not the plane ) , the transaxle from that car is still fitted but the diff was a bit slack and clunky so was rebuilt last year .
Total mileage must be over 400,000 judging by previous owners have said and what ive added on .
So there you have it.
Thanks for reading and i hope you all all still sane after this lot .

[Dave Lane]

Things ive found out since writing this .
The car that destroyed its front end was an Austin 1100 , this was done in 1974 In Trowbridge apparently - it killed the Austin in the process and both were scrapped off but the Commer was bought back by the previous owner ( the one who killed it )
and bodged back to life - hence the ill fitting front end it had .
I was bought new in Basingstoke by someone i cant trace .
Restall did the conversion themselves in Birmingham but for which owner ive no idea but most likely the first owner in Basingstoke .
Its lived in ---
Basingstoke
Trowbridge
Corsham
Bampton
Tiverton
Exeter ( two addresses )
Silverton
Paignton
Yeovil
Halstock
Then back to Yeovil.
The reason it went from Corsham to Bampton was the transaxle exploded on the M5 , It was recovered to Bampton where it was sold for £70 so the then owners could get a train / bus / Donkey home. I have a letter from them as proof.
I guess the garage that recovered it fixed it and flogged it on to the Tiverton owner.
The woman owner in Tiverton nicnamed it the " Chicken Chaser "

The Guy in Halstock blew it up towing his dead Hillman Avenger home - hed used it to drive from Halstock to Oxford two times a week for work .
I guess as im keeping it going the saga continues ever on.
THE END

[Dave Lane]

UMM , Looks a bit iffy - time to get Mr Grinder and Mr Welder out i guess

[Dave Lane]

And on it goes

[John A. Ross]

Nice work Dave, bit of colour and your all sorted

[Dave Lane]

The heap gets a bit more attention .

Bit of surface rust on the front half of the N/S Sill so ive sanded it all right back and etch primed it .

Whats baffling is that its an original factory fitted sill , never been welded or patched up , give the state of the rest of it im a tad stunned if im honest

[John A. Ross]

Tis brilliant it still has factory sill, thats a credit to how you look after it Dave and considering the first pictures of the work it needed almost a miracle !

Just as well you did it though, or it would get too jelouse

[Dave Lane]

Painted the passenger sill at last and redone the drivers one , looks half decent from a distance

[Dave Lane]

More Welding done on the heap , camera went flat so no pics of the process .

Also pressure washed decades of crap off the rear trailing arms and inner arches , this blew a brake pipe retaining clip to bits so i replaced these with 3/16 plastic P clips .

Inner arch has been stone chipped to death so for now ive just brushed waxoil all over it until i can do the job properly