Goodbye Whitby
Well that was short lived… I spent all of yesterday and the day before removing the rotten old floors from the Warrior, to get back to the chassis rails and see exactly what I was dealing with.
OMG there are three cross members holding the two main chassis rails in line, none of which are any good. The front cross members which is just ahead of the passenger seat is rotten at each end where the body mounts, to that would need replacing, the middle cross members which is just behind the drivers seat, (the main safety cage support) its not there, its rotten away completely, when I lifted the floor it came out with the wood! The rear crossmember was sort of okay, but split and would need reinforcing if it was saved. the tops of the main chassis rails (hidden by the wood) were also holed in several places.
All this has meant the body shell is now out of alignment with the chassis as its dropped down so much so the rear doors don’t close correctly as the body is twisted.
The only way to save this Warrior is a full, total rebuild from scratch, remove the body panels one by one, (half will need replacing anyways) get back to the chassis frame on its own, cut out the cross members and weld new ones in (custom made) and Jig the chassis to make sure its square.
Then start to rebuild the body from new metal for the frames and use the old panels (that’s one has saved) to recreate the shell.
It would also need a new engine and box, the old engine is too far gone to rescue, (and I think most engines are savable!) I took the rocker cover off to have a look and the valve springs were so rusty, they has cracked and expanded so the engine was seized solid. It also looked like the oil was solidified on the push-rods so its been a while since it started (as I was told)
The rear fuel tank was rotten inside (although looked fine on the outside)and the exhaust was rotten as well.
All in all the only parts of the warrior that would of been saved were the two main chassis rails the rear axle, prop, the top body panels and the seats, its just not worth the money to rebuild this. So its now scrapped, I have weighed it in to get back some of the money spent on it.
I have removed as many serviceable parts from it such as starters manifold, carbs and the odd switchgear, hopefully I can sell those at an auto-jumble and try and cover the loss.
It was bought with every intention to get it up and running as a Van for me, but alas with the weather as it is, my budget and lack of time, I shall just have to save and spend money more wisely on a van with MOT and Tax running and sorted and not do the drunken hangover eBay last minute bid thing!
If anything good came out of this, it was the contact with the Whitby Engineering company, in Crewe, who have agreed to provide information on the vehicle type, I shall put that to good use and get some pages on this site written up.
