2 replies to this topic

[ben23]

Well, after nearly 10 years I'm saying goodbye to my 2004 Mitsubishi Express van that I affectionately called "The Vengabus". Bought it late 2015 as a personal runabout (have had a company vehicle as a daily for the last 12 years) and it has been a trusty steed and given me just about no mechanical issues in that time. Taken it interstate and inland a few times with no dramas. Done plenty of house and shed moves for everyone but me, parts hauling and even hauled the Torana on a trailer once. Camped, partied, fornicated in it, all good times!

But I'm getting rid of it, because the rust is at a point that I'm sick of bogging it up for every rego inspection, and I don't want to spend actual money and time on it repairing it. I bought a tin of bog and colour matched spray cans back when I bought it and it lasted me the whole 9 years keeping it looking half presentable

What am I replacing it with? Another Express van

I have been saying for a good 5 or so years that I wanted to find a good bodied van cheap with a blown up motor and swap mine in and scrap the body, and one finally popped up. $1500 got me a registered 2004 Express van, with an engine that was in pieces. The guy who I bought it off, bought it off of an electrical contracting company that had it sitting around in their warehouse as their spare van, so it stayed nice and clean.

The guy I bought it off intended to build it up as a camper. However about 6 months in, it overheated and he blew the head gasket. He had some backyarder have a go at fixing it for him, and replaced everything but the clogged-with-rust radiator

It overheated again, and said backyarder decided to pull the head again and this time strip the head of all its parts, valves, springs, stem seals, rocker gear, for God knows what reason. He then gave up on it, palmed it off to a local mechanic and they didn't want to touch it either, at which point he decided to try and cut his losses and sell it to me.

The cooling system looked like it never had any coolant in it for years so I'm guessing the sparkies committed that sin. You don't get that sort of rust after just 6 months of running straight water.

So I bought the van and dragged it home on a trailer. Took inventory of everything, and decided that the timing belt kit that had been used was cheap rubbish, as well as the gasket kit. So I bought all new service parts, and sent the head and parts away to APM in Smeaton Grange to have it reconditioned and reassembled.

Gave the block, engine bay and surrounding compartments a thorough degrease exposing just how clean this van is.

The body has a few dings but next to no rust that I can see, particularly up in the gutters where they all go bad. My cousin and I bought a few cans of fish oil and some long nozzles and went nuts on every cavity we could get them into.

Once the head came back I got stuck into reassembling the engine, which also involved a lot of elbow grease cleaning up greasy parts like the manifold and timing covers etc.

Upon first start, she fired right into life once fuel pressure arrived and settled down to a gentle idle once I adjusted the throttle stop. The rest of the engine hadn't been hurt and was nice and quiet.

Gave the interior a clean and gave the van a much deserved wash and got it out on the road and she drives like you would expect a van with only 155,000 on it to drive. Beautifully.

Gearbox and clutch feel like new (the latter I was a little worried about initially but found that the pedal free play was non existent so a quick adjustment fixed that)

It does need a wheel alignment, and I also need to gas up the A/C, but other than that, she's perfect.

Only thing I want to add to it is a towbar so I'll get one shortly.



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Edited by ben23, Today, 08:04 AM.

[claysummers]

Economical motoring Ben. What about the old unit?


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[ben23]

I basically gave the old van to my uncle who is painting the Torana for me. He wants to build a camper and he's the right man to fix all the rust, he just wanted something mechanically sound, so that's what he got