m.o.t duetto 1996 nightmare

just had new doors fitted to our duetto .took it for m.o.t only to find out the chassis is cracked.the guy at the test centre said it might be hard to find anyone to touch it and its probably a full restoration job.me and the wife are gutted:so_sad: we can't afford to scrap it so will have to bite a very big bullet and try and get it done.anyone else had this experience or any advice to give?

If you can get it to Bristol I can probably do it for you over a weekend if it can be repaired but a full restoration is beyond my facilities I'm afraid. 
I have some sill and step work to do on mine.

thanks for the offer celticbiker but it is going to be a major job the interior needs to come out in order to have the welding done.i am going to put up another post to see if is possible to do it myself.

The thing that I would really want to know if it were my van is why the cracking happened.

I've never heard of a Transit chassis cracking without a clear underlying cause - in fact the only one I've seen was cracked around the front upper suspension mounting points, and in that case the cause was clear - the front part of the inner wheel arch had completely rusted away, leaving the upper mount unsupported at the front, so it flexed up and down.

Is there a clearly visible underlying cause in your case?

As far as a MOT inspection saying scrap ,that is due to the very low value a van normally has.
A motorhome is in a much different category. 
I  am interested in where this crack is  located.

regards

mike

That's what I was thinking. 
A cracked chassis rail should be easily repairable. 
Removing internals should only be required if the floor or an inner wing need doing.

how do you put photos on here?

mickenbacker 330 wrote:how do you put photos on here?

Load your pics via an image sharer such as tinypic  http://tinypic.com/

There are many others but they all do the same and tinypic is possibly the easiest to use.

1) Take your photo/s.

2) Off load to your PC in a folder......call it something like TRANSIT PICS

3) Click on "Choose File" in tinypic which then opens your drives.

4) Select drive > select folder your pics are on then upload.

5) Copy 'n paste the URL to your reply here and that's it.

[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
i have no idea if this going to work but here goes:shrugg:
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this is the state of the chassis any comments welcome

I no longer have a Transit so I can't place it accurately - there seems to be an antiroll bar in view, so I guess it's the proximity to the mount points for that which has caused the MOT fail?

Unfortunately the "cracked" area is not quite in focus, but it certainly doesn't look tragic to me. There doesn't appear to be any sort of stress cracking - just typical rust scaling that has gone through. If that's all there is it shouldn't be too expensive to cut out and weld in a patch. And if that's all there is, don't think about taking out the complete interior - as I said before, just do the minimum that you need to.

Can't see any cracking there. Just looks like surface flaking an dry under seal. 
Any chance of a wider angle to get an idea of position on the the chassis? 
More pictures pending but I'd hazard that this is no big deal Tbh. 
The offer is still open BTW, I have to do mine this weekend anyway.

much to my relief we have found a garage who will do the welding without removing the interior,incase i had to i got a mobile caravan engineer in for a quote,the garage will also do all thats needed to get the van through the mot. although the mechanic did recommend getting it done then sell it asap.he said once the rust gets a hold we would probably have a similar scenario every mot.but we are undecided mainly because of the money we feel we might lose.dutto had said in a post that he worked out he could spend so much on his duetto over time. for the price he had paid for it it would still workout cheaper than buying a newer van.i am liking the cut of his jib but i suppose it boils down to where do you draw the line?

this is exactly what  had on my MOT last year, this and sills, apparently part of the cause for sills and outer panels is poor insulation and condensation build up at bottom of walls etc, as I said in your other post (only just put 2+2 together) whole lost including lower spray was just shy of 2K but i quite agree the mot only values the base vehicle not the motorhome or indeed sentiment side of things. If you can afford to do it its always cheaper than write off and re purchase. good luck and hopefully like me next year you get a £40.00 MOT bill

Dutto is right - older vans can be incredibly cheap to run, because once over a certain age they almost stop depreciating with age. After that their value becomes dependent on condition, so as long as you keep up the maintenance you're generally Ok.

I kept my last van for more than 8 years (bought at 5 years old), and I worked out the cost per year of ownership after I sold it. Including about £1600 worth of welding, the total cost including depreciation over that time was almost exactly £1k per year. By contrast my current van has probably lost around £8k in one year alone, purely in depreciation!

mickenbacker 330 wrote:much to my relief we have found a garage who will do the welding without removing the interior,incase i had to i got a mobile caravan engineer in for a quote,the garage will also do all thats needed to get the van through the mot. although the mechanic did recommend getting it done then sell it asap.he said once the rust gets a hold we would probably have a similar scenario every mot.but we are undecided mainly because of the money we feel we might lose.dutto had said in a post that he worked out he could spend so much on his duetto over time. for the price he had paid for it it would still workout cheaper than buying a newer van.i am liking the cut of his jib but i suppose it boils down to where do you draw the line?

Really glad to read of your good news that you are about to 'get sorted'.

I can understand the mechanic recommending you to sell but also your reluctance to. If the job is properly done it should, and can, last you another few years. Take comfort from this;

My first Camper was a 1993 Transit SWB which i picked up cheap as it had no MOT. I took a risk on it as i had no idea what needed doing to get it through an MOT. I soon found out the bad news! Like your van it needed extensive chassis member welding. Most places i approached wouldn't touch it......they just didn't want the job and all said the interior would have to come out! Eventually i found a one man welding specialist who came and looked it over. He told me he could do the job without taking any fittings out and the price wasn't too bad either. A week later the van was ready to collect complete with MOT! 

I used it for four years touring throughout many countries in Europe. Here it is in Poland; https://2img.net/h/oi57.tinypic.com/2m5mj2o.jpg

I sold it in March 2010 for £2000 more than what i'd paid for it! I've just checked the DVLA database and that van is still taxed and on the road! So take heart from my 'experience' and i think you will get a good few more years use out of your van. 

Hi ,Many true words here.Its finding those helpers.Wheeler Dealers have a garage that does work for free.No labour costs.
That's what you need.
Its always best,to keep long.However I don't practice what I preach. have always wanted to keep changing vehicles and hence have lost a small fortune in depreciation.
Since retirement i only buy second hand vehicles.That can reduce your depreciation.

Best regards


Mike