MOT failure,Welding work and paint

After failing the Mot on bodywork, mainly a front wing which I knew needed doing I figured I might as well do it all now instead of a bit now and a bit later.
The pictures tell it better than me but basically we removed the entire front of the van and replaced inner and outer arches and front sill/step box, replaced all the inner sills, welded and filled all the rear arches, replaced the rear valance, welded and filled the rear doors and had to cut out and plate and fill the side around the water heater outlet.

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This weekend we've got it back in and finished it off.

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It's been a lot of hard work but worth it I think. I'll get all the masking off tomorrow and put it all back together this week. Don't think I'll have time to polish it to a glass finish before we go away so will probably do that later in the year but I'll get a polishing machine and compound and do the entire van then finish with crystal gloss polish. Hopefully it should be good for a couple of years then.
Next big job will be to fit a Subaru engine or similar, that will be another long weekend for sure.

Just to clarify, I didn't do all of it on my own. I had a huge amount of help from a friend who is 20 years my junior and has much more enthusiasm for this kind of thing than I can muster these days.

Goes without saying. 
In total it was about 70 hours work.

A great bit of work!  Well done. 


Dutto

Well done sir! It's good to see well restored older A/S's still out & about in good condition

Nice one! I look forward to seeing it at SnowJoke (it's Pete by the way, white T3 VW) I sold that at the start of the year and guess what I replaced it with... a 1998 Transit (2.5di) Duetto. I've a few rust spots so it would interesting to get your option on the seriousness (over a beer ). They are cracking campers and I'm very pleased with it even if it's not an auto like yours 

Great work!

The way I see it is that if you've found a style of van and level of technology that suites you then time and money invested in doing the job comprehensively and thoroughly has to be the way to go. Besides in comparison with purchasing an equivalent new van, this has to be far more cost-effective.

Well done!


Bartfarst

Thanks guys, it was a project for sure. 
@Pete
TBH I wasn't going to paint it yet but we're away for two weeks after Snowjoke and Gill said I had to because she wasn't going anywhere in a half finished van. Would you have argued? 
Besides she noticed I had bought a new bike and blackmailed me. 
Just need to get the camera on and the solar panels and I'll be happy for now.