My Vans

I'm always on the lookout for more Bedford Rascal vans in particular - see here.

04/01/2017 - Rascal Window Van (G304FSW)

I found this little van for sale on Gumtree. It was much more local to me than the red one - only about 25 miles away. At first glance it doesn't look like much. Someone has started to restore it at some point but obviously gave up. I thought the brown areas in the photos were painted brown but they're actually just bare metal that has surface rusted over the years. This is a much better shell than my red one in the upper areas. The roof on the red van is hardly attached at all - neither is the front panel.

I am planning on cutting the rear quarter panels out of the red van and welding them into this shell to turn it back into a panel van. I have other outrageous plans for the remains of the red van - it won't be scrapped either ;-) I do have the side window glass if anyone needs any - I won't be using this when I restore it. This van was last on the road around 2012 so it hasn't really been off the road for that long and the speedo is showing 46k miles which, going by the condition of the front seats, I believe could be genuine.

After the above photo was taken we put a battery on the van for a laugh to see if it would start. Sure enough after two attempts (second time I let the fuel pump prime for about 20 seconds) it fired straight into life. It also moved around under its own power. I didn't expect it to start at all - I didn't even know if there was any petrol in the tank.

Stage one will be to tear the van down to a completely bare shell for sand blasting to see exactly what I'm dealing with. I plan to rebuld the engine, clean the gearbox and paint/replace every component underneath the van so it is as good as new.

Keep tuned for future updates.