2007 VW Transporter 2.5TDi 4motion

[Bailes1992]

We had a family holiday booked for this week, nowhere too exciting, but a seaside tourist town called Blackpool in the north of England. Blackpool is around ~250miles from the town where we live in South Wales. This trip is one of the reasons I got my head down and got the van finished quickly. It would be a good time to bond with the van, build some memories and hopefully earn some trust.

The start of the week was a bit strange. A friend of ours had stayed with us the weekend prior, leaving early on Monday morning. About 10 minutes before we were about to leave for our trip, she phoned us to stay she'd been sideswiped on the motorway by a lorry and suspected she'd broken her wrist and needed help. I jumped in my Polestar and raced to her location around 40 minutes away.

Her car faired okay considering. Unfortunately both front wheels were facing in different directions and I suspect will be unlikely to see the British roads again. When I arrived the Police had turned up and were dealing with the situation. The lorry driver was found to be over his legal driving hours and charged with this, plus driving without due care and attention.

I ended up taking our friend to hospital to get her wrist checked out. Not knowing how long we'd be, I told my Wife to start heading North with the kids, and I'd catch up later on. I was a little gutted by this, I was hoping to be there for that initial road trip and also be there just in case anything did go wrong with the van.

The little van however did me proud! In fact, it did me proud all week. It drove the 250miles up there, it spent a week carting us all about and drove 250miles home today without issue clocking 216k on the way home. The whole trip, the van did 32mpg (~27mpg US) managing 550miles on it's 80litre tank with a little spare. I think this fuel economy is **** impressive for a 3,000kg van, with a fairly large and agricultural 5 cylinder diesel engine and four wheel drive.

The van under the Blackpool tower.

And the van from the top of the Blackpool tower.

I had to laugh, we asked our 5 year old daughter to clean up a drink she spilled and she got a little carried away.

So what's next?

Well I have new bushes, shocks and springs for the rear end. I also have a haldex service kit and oil here to service the rear diff. I may try get all this done before April is out. It's probably worth ordering replacement fixings for anything I need to remove.

After that, I really need to consider aesthetics and getting the underside prepped and protected for the British winter roads. The paintwork is a patchwork quilt. Some areas have lacquer, some are single stage. The front end has been upgraded to the facelift version and the colour match is terrible. There's lots of bubbling on lower sections which at the moment haven't penetrated the panels etc. I'm unsure if I should try do a full respray at home? If I do a full respray should I attempt a bare metal respray? Or just prep what's there and paint over it all? Or should I just do localised 'smart repairs'?

Either way, plenty more to come over the coming months.

 

[fdcg27]

We had a family holiday booked for this week, nowhere too exciting, but a seaside tourist town called Blackpool in the north of England. Blackpool is around ~250miles from the town where we live in South Wales. This trip is one of the reasons I got my head down and got the van finished quickly. It would be a good time to bond with the van, build some memories and hopefully earn some trust.

The start of the week was a bit strange. A friend of ours had stayed with us the weekend prior, leaving early on Monday morning. About 10 minutes before we were about to leave for our trip, she phoned us to stay she'd been sideswiped on the motorway by a lorry and suspected she'd broken her wrist and needed help. I jumped in my Polestar and raced to her location around 40 minutes away.

Her car faired okay considering. Unfortunately both front wheels were facing in different directions and I suspect will be unlikely to see the British roads again. When I arrived the Police had turned up and were dealing with the situation. The lorry driver was found to be over his legal driving hours and charged with this, plus driving without due care and attention.

View attachment 331185

I ended up taking our friend to hospital to get her wrist checked out. Not knowing how long we'd be, I told my Wife to start heading North with the kids, and I'd catch up later on. I was a little gutted by this, I was hoping to be there for that initial road trip and also be there just in case anything did go wrong with the van.

The little van however did me proud! In fact, it did me proud all week. It drove the 250miles up there, it spent a week carting us all about and drove 250miles home today without issue clocking 216k on the way home. The whole trip, the van did 32mpg (~27mpg US) managing 550miles on it's 80litre tank with a little spare. I think this fuel economy is **** impressive for a 3,000kg van, with a fairly large and agricultural 5 cylinder diesel engine and four wheel drive.

The van under the Blackpool tower.

View attachment 331192

And the van from the top of the Blackpool tower.

View attachment 331194

I had to laugh, we asked our 5 year old daughter to clean up a drink she spilled and she got a little carried away.

View attachment 331193

So what's next?

Well I have new bushes, shocks and springs for the rear end. I also have a haldex service kit and oil here to service the rear diff. I may try get all this done before April is out. It's probably worth ordering replacement fixings for anything I need to remove.

After that, I really need to consider aesthetics and getting the underside prepped and protected for the British winter roads. The paintwork is a patchwork quilt. Some areas have lacquer, some are single stage. The front end has been upgraded to the facelift version and the colour match is terrible. There's lots of bubbling on lower sections which at the moment haven't penetrated the panels etc. I'm unsure if I should try do a full respray at home? If I do a full respray should I attempt a bare metal respray? Or just prep what's there and paint over it all? Or should I just do localised 'smart repairs'?

Either way, plenty more to come over the coming months.

I'd say ya done good!
You've certainly paid your dues in bringing this well used van to a state of reliability.

 

[BrianF]

Thats what its all about!! Family trips, making memories. Glad she is ticking along!

 

[Bailes1992]

So little change of plan. I was hoping to service the back end (ooo errr) this weekend with new bushes, shocks and fluids. However, vans had other plans.

It's a common issue on the T5, that a small amount of rust builds under the windscreen and causes it to 'de-bond' in the top corners resulting in a water leak.

Unfortunately I didn't get any photos, but storm Dave hit on the weekend and during which, the interior of the van got a little wet. I suspect it's something that's been 'bubbling away' long term and the long journey last week finally finished off any sealing going on.

This generation of van spanned from 2003 to 2024. And while it was technically split into two variants, the T5 and T6, they were the same basic van underneath. What that means is upgrades are plenty! Later vans had full Ford-style heated windscreens and a few months ago while trawling late at night on the interconnected webbicles I came across a brand new, OE windscreen for a late T6 with heating elements for just £100!

This windscreen does have some ADAS accommodations, so I'm going to have to find a way to make that look more discreet, but still, a bargain!

I've just had a windscreen removal kit delivered. It was very cheap at £17, but it only needs to work once!

So plan is to get the windscreen out with my Wife tonight.

Tomorrow I'm going to take any rust back to bare steel, mask up the van and get some coats of epoxy mastic down.

Friday I'll do any filling/sanding and final prep before applying a few coats of 2k direct gloss polyurethane acrylic.

I'll leave the paint to cure as much as possible until Sunday when hopefully we can get the new windscreen installed.

I did do a trail sample piece last weekend just to see the colour match of the paint I've bought.

Random bit of steel sanded and stuck to the wall.

Mixed up some Bilt Hamber Epoxy Mastic and thinned it 10%.

Three coats later.

Scuffed up with 500grit.

Found one of my mixing cups has all it's text put on backwards.

And three coats of colour.

Not quite 100%, but close enough that I can feather it out, sand the blend and polish and it should be indistinguishable.

Hopefully my next post will be more fun.

 

[CleanSump]

No old cardboard to protect the wall from paint or are you going mod art interior design decor?

 

[Bailes1992]

May have bitten off a little more than I can chew removing the windscreen. People on YouTube certainly made it look far easier than it was!

I used this tool that looks like a giant form of birth control to push the stainless wire through the existing bonding material.

And then added a handle either side of said wire to be able to saw it back and fore.

Then over two days I spent 3 hours sawing away at the bonding sealant until the window was ready to come out.

So why do I think I've bit off more than I can chew? Well I've damaged the dashboard.

I do think I can repair it. I'm going to sand the plastic down to the swage line a little further up the dash. Fill the gouge I've made and apply some textured black coating to that part of the dash. It'll look different, but hopefully won't be as noticeable as it is damaged. With the windscreen out, it should be an easy accessible fix.

Although, good news, the window frame is solid with no perforation.

And 30 seconds with a Norton Blaze disc got this area back to fresh metal.

Another issue I've found, is the corrosion has gone a few inches up the seam sealer on the roof.

Not sure how to deal with this yet. Some research required.

 

[RooflessVW]

You will notice a repair more than you will notice the damage to the dashboard, trust me.

 

[Bailes1992]

Progress has been slow. I always forget that wind exists. We've had a very dry month, but we've also had a windy month.

I used some Norton Blaze discs to remove all signs of bright orange, loose and flaky corrosion around the windscreen arpeture.

I also managed to find some full-van bags for not a lot of money which are great!

I also attacked any other signs of rust on the roof, and applied a few coats of Bilt Hamber Epoxy Mastic as a primer.

The Epoxy mastic needs to be thinned ~20% to spray effectively with my 1.4mm tip gun, but it sticks to anything and dries rock hard. It also contained rust inhibitors so hopefully, that should be the last of any corrosion on the roof.

I then block sanded the roof with 320grit on some flexible sanding blocks to remove any ingrained contamination, help level any defects and provide a key for any future applications.

I then applied seam sealer to each side of the roof where it meets the side panels, where corrosion had started to eat away at the old stuff, and applied a little filler to any low points on the roof.

All filler was sanded down with 240grit, and then followed up with 320git.

I popped up a new gazebo big enough for the van and did a trial fit. And also applied some filler primer to any locations that had filler.

And that was about 8pm last night.

I'm not comfortable with the gazebos ability to contain any overspray, even if I tape up all the joins and pop some plastic sheeting on the lower sections to seal them to the ground. There's some rather expensive metal in my street, and I'd rather not fall out with my neighbours over overspray. In addition, while I have a respirator that 3M say is acceptable for isocyanate containing paints, it's far from the air fed mask you should be using.

So, that in mind, I'm going to roller the paint on. I'm going to speak to the paint supplier about getting a slower-acting hardener and look for some good quality foam rollers that can put up with the chemicals within the paint. I'm going to apply 2-3 coats as flat as I can, hopefully it will self level with an appropriate level of thinners and a slow acting harder and then I can flat and polish.

I'm not sure how this is going to go... so wish me luck.

 

[Bailes1992]

Much progress made.

I applied the paint as if it was a coach enamel. Manufacturers data sheets say 2:1 paint to hardener, I dropped this down to 3:1 hoping to lengthen the drying time a little. Honestly, I wish I went to 4:1 as I feel like it could have done with longer in order to 'self level' more. I used a 4" very soft paint brush and applied reasonably thick in straight lines with little to no pressure.

It went on very nice overall considering. With quite high gloss but some runs and some brush marks remained.

This was it after it dried...

Some of the runs and brush marks evident on the pillars where it was more difficult to feather them out.

However, I did some trial sanding with some 1000 grit and they all smoothed out very nicely. I appreciate it isn't easy to see on this colour in a photo, but the finish after sanding was super smooth.

So the plan is to get some 1000 grit wet and dry and block sand the whole roof. I'm then going to apply another, thinner coat with less hardener. I'm hoping then I can sand with 1500 grit by hand, then 2000 grit on the DA and polish to a decent shine. If it comes out well, I may do the whole van using the same method. A bit like the rustoleum paint jobs you see. Might be worth trying with a foam roller actually, but I worry about bubbles.

My thought process here is that I won't be too precious about bumps and scrapes and they can all be rectified here at home if painted in this way.

Anyway, windscreen. As I mentioned previously, I bought a genuine VW windscreen for a T6.1 Transporter which included heating elements. I didn't take many pictures as it was a bit nerve wracking. But we got it in!

I appreciate the paintwork is currently as rough as a badgers a*se, but without the rust on the roof, it already looks a lot tidier.

Now the new windscreen was for a model that would have had ADAS and rain sensing wipers, so we are currently left with this.

As we will eventually be fitting rear windows, and a mirror is handy to keep an eye on the kids if nothing else, I'll be looking for a correct OE trim and mirror to install here. I may even look into retrofitting rain sensing wipers if it's not too much trouble being that the new windscreen came with the sensor.

 

[crashz]

Looks great Bails! What about a clear coat? I like the fact that you were able to do this all at home. Very inspiring.