The CF Bedford Rebuild Begins

Part 16: The rebuild starts - the old engine bay

I wasn't to sure what to do with the old engine bay, because the engine was mid mounted there wasn't really anything to put in the front, even thought about welding up the bonnet. Good thing I didn't as still need the radiator, windscreen washer bottle and stuff.

This space actually went through a few stages, at one stage I fitted a toyota air conditioning unit and heater under the dash and modified the firewall to suit the pipes but as there isn't a lot of room around the engine it required a drive shaft off the front of the engine (a toyota device) to run the air con pump above the front beam. I had this all in place when I took the van down to the van nationals in 2011. I decided it would block to much air so scraped the idea, plus the idea of this was an 80's style custom (kinda).

In the end I even decided to do away with the heater, rather the heat part of the heater. The engine is right behind the front seats so don't think heating will be a problem. Plus as the old saying goes; if it's hot wind down a window, if it's cold, wind it up.

The final idea filled in the original CF hole and carried the body swage across the panel. Added a Toyota brake booster, recessing slightly to help it clear the bonnet.

I had the firewall all finished then found out I couldn't get a windscreen cut down for under $3,000.00 and thought one little stone and I'd be up for another 3k so cut out the windscreen frame and sunk the original size frame into the firewall (and roof). Everything went well, I even used some wiper spindles to make sure I had clearance over the booster (which I had to lower slighlty), until I fitted the whole wiper motor in, I forgot to allow for the arm between the spindles. So more cutting and adding 10mm of sheet metal to allow for clearance - so simple yet so hard.

From this to that

To the left is before it went back to the sandblasters, to the right is all bare metal awaiting some etch primer. The right photo is also with the full windscreen sunken.

The headlight mounts I originally made were box section, they were kinda bulky so cut them out and redid them as I also needed to lower the radiator a bit. It would of been so easy if I had a plan to work from, but no, me being me, makes it up as I go along. I guess if I didn't it probably wouldn't be what it is today.

I had a whole list of things to go in the front, spare battery, bottles ... but decided to keep it simple, booster, radiator with over flow bottle and windscreen washer bottle. I was going to put the washer bottle inside but could get messy filling it up, plus would still have to put a grommet through the firewall for the hose.

If I do anymore to this area it would be to make a fan surround to meet the tunnel and maybe some vent pipes to the air cleaner. Will have to wait and see, drive it for a while and see if it will need these or not.