new member from Sydney

[hammondo]

Hello,

My name is Greg. I have just bought a project van, 1980 CF swb.

This is my first bedford although I have liked them sisnce I was a kid growing up in the 80's.

I am an allround car-head with no particular brand loyalty. I drive an F150, have owned many old holdens including an FB ute I restored a couple of years ago. Currently I have just finished building a pick-up hotrod out of a 1924 Dodge tourer which I had kicking around for years.

I am also restoring a VJ charger on the slow cooker.

But back to the bedford:

picked it up sight unseen from ebay a couple of weeks ago. was in Melbourne but had NSW rego and ran on gas so took a punt and flew down. drove it back to Sydney overnight and froze my butt off as the heater didn't work. luckily it only broke down 3 times through the night, but nothing I couldn't deal with in the dark with no tools and no torch (accellorator cable kept falling off the throttle).

have torn it apart, has as much rust as I expected mainly in the gutter over the screen, front floors, and rear beaver panel.









here are some of my other projects in the shed:




anyway, I'm sure I will have plenty of questions, have already found many answers on the forum.

Cheers
Greg

[taggraphx]

Welcome Greg, had my eye on that one too 3-4 weeks ago but wasnt able to see till the weekend, it was a good buy you did well, I am in the same boat as you, never done a beddie before but this community has a vast amount of knowlege and allways helpfull, best site for bedfords hands down, good luck with your project

Graham

[BusyKiwi]

You would of frozen even if the heater had worked

next time take some ear muffs and drive with the engine cover off

[wendyh]

Hey Welcome Greg to beddie world ! 
lucky u wernt in a beddie with sliding doors..brrrrrr...they done seal at all and  u would def have been frozen solid!
enjoy ur  resto..& plz  post plenty of pics for us bedophiles 

[wendyh]

ahhh yeah...forgot to mention about the picture of the back end  of ur beddie with all the orbs in it wow  ....havnt seens as many orbs in a picture like that in ages !!!...looks like u gunna have plenty of devine help with ur beddie......

[John Abbott]

Welcome Greg.....Would you have a better pic of the mags on your van? Looks like
a big shed mate....

[hammondo]

Welcome Greg.....Would you have a better pic of the mags on your van? Looks like
a big shed mate....

they are commodore mags 17" that have been forced onto the HQ pattern studs. so they have to go. looking around for some alternatives. might end up with some 7x14 hotwires if I cant find anything else.

would prefer 15x7 and 15x8 dragways or something similar. will see what comes up on ebay over the next few weeks.

[hammondo]

the basic plan for the van is:

electric column mounted power steer

repair and respray body in 2pac silver (all my work vehicles are moving to this colour)

aftermarket aircon (when I can find some compressor brackets)

VQ statesman seats because I have them lying around (in fact I got these mounted tonight)

pull motor out and pop welch plugs to clean out water jacket, new gaskets and repaint. It has 130psi comp and was reco'c about 5 years and 40,000k's ago. so should be good for a while.

reco trimatic to fix leaks and check over

and I'm looking at fitting a Chrysler dash I have spare from the charger/dodge donor car. at a rough check it looks like it might fit ok. also I have a sports guage cluster out of a UC which should work fine with the 202/trimatic combo.

I have a set of extractors that will go on and a 350 holley/manifold but not sure if thats worth the effort seeing as I'm running LPG. it looks like it will fit in the engine cover if its mounted back to front but will require a 1" spacer.

I have cut away the back and mounted up a HJ wagon rear bumber, will post pics over the next few days.

[Bedfordcrazy]

Welcome greg, are you sure your name is not benny, just seems i have heard the story of driving from state to state and breaking down somewhere b4, sorry ben, could not resist 
On this site we have just one rule, PICS & PICS & MORE PICS, well thats my rule, i am bedford crazy, as the name implys. Would love to see what you do with the aircon though, if you can supply pics and info on what you use and how you do the install. On here we love the dash, so always looking for new ideas for doing the dash, so look forward to seeing the charger dash go in.

george

[SkippyThBushKangeroo]

welcome hammondo.... i have a valiant dash in my 1980 cf one from a VC i think... fits as snug as a bug in a rug an comes completly out with four screws undone .......