The Bedford Truck Restoration
Building The Base Vehicle for Our Home-on-Wheels
How, When & Why
The Story of How All This Madness got Started
2019 - 2021
When Tim sold Albacore/May Queen, the boat project he had been working on for 7 years, in spring 2019, sensible minds might have expected that he’d be taking a well earned rest. A holiday, perhaps, or maybe some light gardening. Well, sensible minds would be wrong, because this is Tim, and Tim likes to imagine Big Things, spend approximately 2.3 seconds considering the risks, and then do The Thing anyway.
Of course, it wasn’t quite as simple as that. Almost. But not quite.
In 2019, with the boat sold, we did indeed spend some time exploring the options of what we might do next. We had an opportunity to go and live in France, so we took our little T4 van across on the ferry and considered what that might look like for us, but the timing wasn’t right and so we turned it down. We then spent quite a long time looking at the possibility of living on a narrowboat and travelling the UK waterways. Indeed, we spent such a long time looking in to this that we even priced up the cost of buying a narrowboat ‘shell’ and building the rest of the boat ourselves. Ultimately, the logistics of this proved too much for even Tim to figure out, and when the double blow of Brexit (steel prices increased massively) and a certain global pandemic hit in 2020, our dream of narrowboat living was shelved.
That summer, with nothing much else to do except walk the coastal paths near our home, Tim started tinkering with his old 1941 Ford Truck, and one fine day in June or July that year, he said to Lisa … “Why don’t we just stick a camper on the back of the truck and live in that?” To which Lisa, of course, replied “Okay.”
Video snippet of Tim working on his beloved Old Truck in the summer of 2020
Ah, well, wouldn’t that have been a brilliant project, turning that ancient Ford in to a House Truck? We did consider it, but very quickly decided it wasn’t the right truck for the job.
And so began the search for the right truck …
We looked at Dafs, but decided they were too modern for our tastes. We looked at some really old trucks: For a while, Fodens were a favourite and a strong contender, and we looked at older Bedfords. We would have loved a Bedford S Type, but they were just a little out of our preferred price range and we felt the S Type was just a little too old for our needs. And so, eventually, we turned to the Bedfords of the 70s and 80s …
So it was, that this beauty came to our attention …
Advertised for £2k on eBay, she had at this point been stripped back to just a bare chassis cab and was most likely in The Last Chance Saloon before being sent to The Great Truck Heaven in the sky.
So, as is our way … Sight unseen and feeling the pull to get going on our new Big Project, we bought her.
Our Bedford is a 1975 HCB Angus former airfield crash tender. She’s a 4 wheel drive, Bedford M Series, built on the internationally used commercial and military 4x4 chassis. In other words … She’s BUILT!
But … Why?
It’s a simple enough answer to a simple question …
In Tim’s own words: “I’ve never been normal.”
And in Lisa’s words: “Life is a daring adventure or nothing at all.” … Actually, those are the words of Helen Keller, but she does love a good literary quote, that one.
Restoring The Cab
2020 - 2021
We were fortunate enough to find a ‘workshop’ to rent just a couple of miles from where we were living, a huge barn on a former farm which belonged to the local estate. We were doubly fortunate that the family renting the farmhouse right next to the barn would soon become really good friends who would go on to keep us supplied with cake and much moral support over the coming months and years.
The Bedford was delivered to us in November 2020, just in time for the long, dark, cold winter where we would struggle without mains electric for the whole of the following year. But … spirits were high as we inspected our new toy and contemplated the task ahead. After all, compared to the boat, this restoration project would surely be a breeze?
It was always our intention to do a full nut and bolt restoration so the first task was to strip down the cab and remove it from the chassis. Our budget was going to be tight … very tight … so we had to do everything ourselves. Indeed, the challenge to ourselves was to carry out a meticulous restoration using only the tools we had at our disposal or the tools we could make, and after taking the cab apart, the first thing we had to do was to figure our how we could make a big sandblasting set-up which would enable us to remove all the old paint and layers of rust ourselves.
Our sandblasting tent / paint booth was initially a flimsy thing which ended up in rags after a storm took it out, but tent mark 2 really stood the test of time and saw us through the next 5 years of sandblasting and painting
Despite its rudimentary nature, our sandblasting set-up became the greatest tool at our disposal. It was tough, dirty work inside that tent, but the results were amazing, and although there would later be times when we questioned our sanity doing the sandblasting ourselves, it did become a bit of a badge of honour to ourselves that we never resorted to outsourcing any of the work.
That first year, with only a generator supplying our power, we focused solely on restoring the cab and learning as we went. After the sandblasting, Tim fabricated and welded and repaired. Later came the priming, more sanding and more priming. There was so much sanding it felt endless, but every layer of primer gradually improved on the last until we were finally left with a beautifully smooth surface on which to apply the top coat.
We gave a lot of thought to the colour we wanted to paint this old Bedford. It was a little sad seeing the red fire engine colour gradually disappear but she was never going to be restored as a fire truck, those days were gone before she even came to us and we wanted to give her a new life, albeit with a few nods to her history. We decided on the combination of brown, black and white mostly because somehow these had become the signature colours of Old Rope Salvage: Albacore / May Queen went from red to brown, and the Old Ford Truck was also brown and black. We also thought that brown was fitting for a vehicle from the 1970s: Anyone who lived through that decade might remember fondly how popular brown was as a colour back then! Mostly though, we have a longer term plan of how she will look when the accommodation box is built and she is given those final touches with some sign-writing.
So, brown it was. And mighty happy with the results we were …
This little film of the cab restoration condenses the pain of the first year in to a (relatively) pain free 20 minutes …
Just enough time for a cuppa and maybe even a biscuit while you watch!
Plating, Powder-Coating, Panels …
& The World’s GREATEST Headliner!
2021 -2022
It wasn’t until the beginning of December 2021, an entire year after starting the project, that mains electric was finally installed in our workshop, but with our second winter closing in, the jobs we were able to get on with in the low temperatures and high humidity, were limited.
Fortunately, we were learning and had planned ahead …
Earlier that year, Tim had salvaged an old industrial gas oven from one of the many disused farm buildings, and having cleaned it up he had then converted it to electric, with the intention of using it as a powder coating oven later on down the line. That Christmas, whilst taking a ‘break’ from the bitterly cold workshop, we had also managed to build - in true Mad Inventor style - a powder coating gun!
It took some tweaking, but after a number of only slightly painful but highly amusing static ‘shocks’, we were able to get it working and the results, much to our amazement, were actually incredible. Not only did the powder coated parts look fantastic, it was also an incredibly simple process with no drying time and there was the added bonus of having the oven to keep us warm during the cold days of winter. So, for the next few months, anything that could be powder coated was powder coated!
Anything we could fit in the oven got powder coated, even a random rusty spanner which got the full gold disco treatment! Having a brown and black paint combo on the truck meant we could start getting a little more playful with our colours, so there was suddenly a lot of gold and silver bling happening!
A little stop motion of some of the parts in their fancy new powder coated colours
During that winter we also soundproofed and insulated the cab.
We also spent some time making a new name badge for the truck, as the old HCB Angus badge was in a sorry state. We designed a new badge in metal based on the same design style as the original and we created it by electro etching the letters in a salt bath, a surprisingly simple DIY method which can be used to etch various metals. Our intention was to enamel the badge at some point, but until we could decide on a colour, it remained for now in grey metal. We decided on the name ‘The Siren’, firstly as a nod to her fire engine history, and secondly because ‘The Siren’ is, of course, a figure of beauty and temptation … (Leading us to our doom? Let’s hope not!)
As spring rolled around again, the pressure was back on, as we had a lot that we needed to achieve before the following winter …
We started by setting up a whole electro plating operation as we wanted to metal plate as many of the original nuts, bolts and washers as we could save. We bought a metal plating kit from Gateros Plating LTD, a small company in the UK, and set to work cleaning up the thousands of tiny parts which held the truck together. It was a massive undertaking and a task we would be continually chipping away at for the next few years, but once again we were surprised by how good the results were.
Of course, by the time summer arrived, we found ourselves getting a bit bored of zinc and nickel plating a bazillion tiny nuts and so it was that we got ourselves a little distracted by The Side Quest of The World’s Greatest Headliner …
This was a quest we had actually begun a few months earlier when Tim had had the idea to build a wooden headliner using the salvaged oak from the keel of an old boat. The idea quickly escalated in to quite a big creative project of its own and as was the case with many of our side quests, we did find ourselves questioning our life choices on more than one occasion!
It was a big project. A big, complicated project.
The wooden headliner took far too many weeks of our precious summer from us, but looking back we can honestly say that it was also one of the most creative, unique and enjoyable things we did during the entire restoration, and both of us absolutely love the outcome.
It also gave us many photo opportunities and even became the image we would use for most of our promotional material, so it was worth it in the end!
IS this indeed The World’s Greatest Headliner? …
We obviously seem to think so!
We then had what little remained of the summer to fully restore the panels; all 12 of them, including the very difficult task of restoring the doors which were completely rusted through at the bottom and in a pretty bad state. Could we do it? We didn’t know, but we really needed to get it done so we could begin work on the chassis before winter stopped play again.
We compiled a big tick list on our blackboard with the panels down one side and the tasks (welding, sandblasting, epoxy primer, bodywork, high build primer, colour block sanding and painting) along the top, and slowly, methodically, we plodded our way through it.
Working through those panels was a grind and it felt like every day was Groundhog Day, but somehow, somehow, by the end of July 2022, we’d done it. We were exhausted, the workshop was a mess of dusty sand, we’d used more goggles, respirators and sandblasting nozzles than we could count, but we’d done it!
The Big Back Bones
Taking it all Apart, Six Weeks of Sandblasting
& Painting The Chassis Frame
2022
2022 was probably one of the hardest years of the project, particularly because at the time it seemed like progress was slow and we were getting nowhere fast, but looking back now we can appreciate just how much we did get done that year and just how hard we grafted away at some of the more tedious and physically challenging tasks.
With the cab and all the panels fully restored it was time to turn our attention to The Big Back Bones: The massive chassis, the 6 huge wheels, the giant axles, the drive shafts, the gearbox, the transfer case, the engine, the air lines, the brake lines, the wiring and everything else. It all had to come apart. Every last bit.
It was a seriously daunting task.
We began with some easy (ish) wins, unbolting and removing one thing at a time, bagging, labelling and photographing as we went along. We used ropes and pulleys and trolleys to lower and remove some of the heavier parts such as the transfer case and the gearbox, but when it finally came down to lifting the massive engine, we had to rig up our block and tackle to the iron beams overhead and use our ingenuity as much as our manpower. Even so, we’re pretty sure it was Engine Lift Day which gave Tim his double matching hernias!
“We’re going to need a bigger spanner!”
With the engine removed and ‘resting’ on its very own custom made trolley, we then continued stripping down the chassis. Absolutely everything was removed right down to the very last nut and bolt, including the huge wheels, the massive leaf springs and the front and back axles, until we were finally left with the bare chassis frame which we propped up on another custom made trolley in the middle and re-enforced with breeze blocks at either end. Just the frame by itself was incredibly heavy and, of course, very long, so manoeuvring it in and out of the sandblasting tent was going to be a challenge.
It was way too long to fit in the tent so we were faced with the task of sandblasting it one half, and of course one side, at a time …
Six weeks it took us to sandblast that massive rusted up chassis frame! It was all a bit bonkers really, and probably completely inadvisable with our small sandblasting kit, but we were determined to do it ourselves and being the way we both are (ADHD perfectionists!) we found it easier than having to go through the whole stress of arranging to have it taken away and done off site. Still, it remains probably the hardest and most tedious job of the entire project … But we did it.
Lisa sandblasting the chassis frame and then ‘flipping it’ using our block and tackle so we could do both sides
Finally, with the sandblasting mercifully behind us, Tim was able to get the chassis frame into paint. We chose to go with the rather standard ‘chassis black’, albeit a little reluctantly, for the simple reason that it would be easier to repair in the future, and with the rusty, crusty old frame now a distant memory, it did indeed look absolutely pristine.
There was still so much to do and with the entire truck - cab and chassis - now in pieces, it felt like the most nerve wracking point of the project so far but also, we hoped, the turning point, because everything we did from now on would mean another restored piece getting bolted back on.
In other words, from now on we were rebuilding.
We started with the petrol tank, cleaning it out, painting it, repairing the brackets etc. Then a few smaller pieces such as the cross bars and the shock absorbers which, in a moment of mischief, we spray painted bright gold. Tim then decided to tackle one of the 4 sets of leaf springs, taking them apart leaf by leaf, sandblasting each piece, giving them some rust protection, then bolting them together and painting the set black. It felt amazing to see the first signs of the finished chassis getting rebuilt …
but then something happened at the end of 2022 which brought the project to a skidding to an abrupt halt …
Evicted
… & Another Home-on-Wheels Rolls in to Our Life
2022 - 2023
One of the big reasons we decided to undertake this project in the first place was the limited housing options available to us. We weren’t in a position to buy a house and for 8 years Lisa had been renting a tiny cottage whilst Tim worked on converting the boat. Living on the boat long term was never something we wanted to do, as due to its sheer size it was essentially a floating house and not easily moved. As for renting …
The cottage was very old, very damp and very cold. It also had a habit of flooding due to a design flaw in the guttering which periodically sent a waterfall in through the ceiling. The landlord was largely unsympathetic and although some work had been done to improve the problem, every autumn a ton of leaves and moss and debris would back up on the roof and water would fill up before unceremoniously depositing itself in to the house.
It was after one particular nasty evening of flooding that we decided enough was enough. Unfortunately, taking the landlord and letting agent to task swiftly and predictably resulted in a Section 21 eviction notice. We considered ignoring it and going in to battle, but after a few weeks of wrangling we made the decision, in the middle of winter, to buy a caravan and get out of the nightmare of this dystopian housing system altogether. We reasoned that this was what we were planning anyway. Why not get ahead of ourselves and find out if tiny home living really was what we wanted?
It meant putting the truck restoration on hold for around 3 months whilst we went caravan hunting and searched for a place which would allow us to live on site. We found both within a few weeks and after arranging for our new abode to be delivered to the workshop, we then spent another frantic month cleaning, repairing and renovating the caravan to transform it into our cosy new home before the eviction notice ran out at the end of March.
It was an incredibly stressful time, sorting through all of our belongings, deciding what to keep and what to store, selling most of Lisa’s furniture and trying to make sure we had everything we needed for us and our little elderly cat, Elsie, to live comfortably.
In the end, we pulled it all off perfectly. It had been a rough ride but we were so relieved to finally escape from the cold, damp house and the difficult landlord. The caravan, by contrast, was warm, bright and sunny. And most importantly, it was ours. The only negative in the end was the realisation that we should have done this years ago and saved ourselves a world of both rent and stress. But you live and learn. And we learned that living in a caravan was infinitely preferable than living in a substandard rental property by a very long country mile.
But now, it was time to get back to work …
Grease, Grime & Grafting
Working our way Through The BIG, HEAVY Back Bones Takes its Toll
2023 - 2024
The events of that winter; the eviction, moving in to the caravan and an unfortunate dose of Covid, had depleted our savings and left us further behind ‘schedule’ than ever, so when we returned to the workshop in April 2023 it was with a renewed sense of urgency and with the spring and summer ahead we committed ourselves to tackling all of the big, heavy, hard and dirty work of restoring all of the massive parts of this old Bedford …
We sandblasted our way through the endless ‘leaves’ of the leaf springs; 9 for each of the front ones and 15 for each of the back, before protecting them with Owetrol oil and painting them black. Hoisting those back springs back into place on the truck took some careful planning, as did much of this whole stage of the restoration, as the sheer weight involved was far more than the two of us could safely lift. Incredibly (apart from Tim’s unfortunate hernias!) we survived injury free, which seems like a minor miracle in hindsight.
The arrival of this industrial sized compressor, bought at a bargain price thanks to a tip off from our friend and long time supporter, Nick, was an absolute game-changer when it came to sandblasting
The old radiator appeared to be in reasonable condition, and although it would give us some trouble a little later down the road, the decision was made to keep it, at least for now, do what repairs we could, and see how it got on. This thinking really was at the heart of everything, at least for this stage of the project, which was essentially to restore the truck to its original working order using all of the existing parts where reasonably possible. Any upgrades or modernisations would come later, after the restoration, when we knew more about what we and the truck might need in the future, including the engine … (More on that behemoth later).
As the summer of 2023 wore on, the huge pile of filthy, greasy, rusted up truck parts on the workshop floor gradually, gradually started to shrink: The transfer box, the air tank, the drive shafts, the rear axle, all taken apart, cleaned, repaired, restored, painted and bolted back on to the truck. It got so confusing keeping track of everything that Lisa attempted to make a ‘chart’ of it all on our blackboard, but even her neat lists became a tangled mess in the end.
Probably the biggest part we tackled that summer, however, was the front drive shaft. Just removing it from the truck and getting it in to the sandblasting tent was a feat of engineering.
Tim wheeling the front axle in to the sandblasting tent ready to be dismantled and then wheeling it out again minus all of its parts with just the central part restored and painted and ready to be reassembled
Then began the laborious task of prising apart all of the rusted, seized parts, draining the oil, and cleaning, cleaning, cleaning. Taking it apart and laying all of its dozens if not hundreds of separate pieces out on the workbench made us really appreciate just how much work we were putting in to this restoration, and maybe not for the first time questioning our life choices. Would it be worth it? We weren’t sure, but at this point we just had to keep going …
We sandblasted (of course), repaired, plated nuts and bolts, powder coated where possible, painted and then painstakingly rebuilt it piece by tiny piece. By the time the axle was finished and bolted back on to the truck, it looked incredible, an absolutely mammoth achievement by Tim. But it was also November, winter was closing in once again and we now had to turn our attention to the six massive wheels …
Slowly working through the many, many parts, large and small, of the front axle made us appreciate just how much work we had put in to this restoration
The front axle looked incredible bolted back in to place and the truck was finally beginning to take shape
Oh, the wheels. Who would have imagined, after all this time, after all we’d achieved, that it would be the wheels that would Do Her In? … Lisa, that is.
By the beginning of 2024, we had been at this for over 3 years. Not just the challenge of the restoration itself, but documenting the process on You Tube, filming and editing, as well as working our day jobs to try and keep our heads above water financially. The strain was beginning to show and various other personal challenges were adding extra pressure, including the loss of both of our dear cats during this time.
At the start of the year, Tim was working on the intricate parts of the ‘hubs’, doing a magnificent job with the nickel plating in particular and basically making everything look beautiful, whilst Lisa, in her infinite wisdom, felt up to the challenge of single-handedly sandblasting all six of the wheels. Having extensive experience of sandblasting by this point, she thought she knew what she was letting herself in for, but alas, it would soon go quite horribly wrong …
Tim with 2 of the partially restored wheel ‘hubs’. The idea was to have them imitate old silver hubcaps, but at this point they were looking suspiciously like cakes!
We had some thoughts about what we might do with the wheels in the future, including updating the tyres and altering the ‘dual’ wheels on the rear to singles but as with everything at this stage, we wanted to restore the truck to its ‘factory’ setting before making changes or upgrades so we had decided to ‘lightly’ restore the wheels, including the rims, of course, and the tyres to an extent, which came up lovely with just a light sandblast restoring the rubber to deep black.
Lisa started the challenge of the six wheels optimistically enough, but it became clear quite quickly that it was a really, really hard job. Not only were the wheels incredibly heavy to manoeuvre, it was now winter and freezing cold, so sitting or standing still with the sandblaster going for hours on end was an arduous task in the extreme. The paint on the wheels was also thick and rubbery and almost impossible to remove without the aid of a grinder. The only ‘easy’ part were the tyres themselves, but the sheer size of these meant it still took a very long time to clean up each one.
Lisa confidently eyeballs Tyre Mountain without yet knowing it would indeed be the hill she would quit on!
It was a cold day in February 2024 that Lisa finally exited the tent, took off her mask, and declared herself done. She was burned out physically and mentally and needed a break. A long break, as it happened. And no more sandblasting.
Ever.
Tim Goes it Alone
Untangling The Tangled Mess of Air & Brake Lines
& Bringing The Engine Back to Life
2024
With Lisa off the project, the first half of 2024 was a bit of a boring time for Tim who now found himself having to tackle some of the less exciting parts of the truck restoration by himself, the biggest and most challenging of which was the replacement of the entire air and brake pipe systems, all 125ft of it.
It would have been all too easy to replace the old and corroded metal pipes with modern plastic, but aesthetically it would not have been in keeping with this historic vehicle, so the challenge was to replicate the old pipes in metal … which was exactly what he did.
Tim used pipes made of cupronickel to replace the existing worn and broken lines which he initially laid out on our workbench to try and figure out what he was dealing with.
It was a bit of an intimidating tangled mess but having fabricated air and brake lines on previous projects it didn’t take him too long to figure out how to tackle it. Apart from an unfortunate incident with an adjustable spanner which nearly took out his front teeth he was soon, with the aid of some fancy new tools (pipe benders and a flaring kit) creating the new metal lines without too much difficulty. In the end, he even claimed to have enjoyed the process.
There were several sizes of pipes for the 125ft of lines, from 5/16 to 5/8 (all old imperial sizes)
With the brake and air lines finished, installed and looking great, Tim was now at that point in the project where he had to face one of the bigger challenges: The engine.
We had given a lot of thought about what we were going to do with the engine and it was, without a doubt, the thing we got the most questions (and criticisms!) on during the course of the restoration. It was/is a pretty basic, Bedford built, six cylinder, twin carb, petrol engine and the main criticism was that, being petrol, it was going to cost a lot of money to run. Now we were, of course, aware of this, but as we said many times, our intention was always to restore first and modify later, so that was exactly what Tim did.
First, he stripped down all of the ancillary parts, inspected, cleaned and fixed. He did a compression check, put a bore scope down the spark plugs to check the condition, checked the fuel pump, alternator and clutch, removed the oil pan and the big end bearing clips, replaced gaskets and did a full service. Tim even managed to contact a previous owner who confirmed what he suspected; that the engine had had a recent full restoration.
So we decided at this point that the quickest and simplest way to get this truck back on the road was to take apart only as much as was needed, clean it up, make sure everything was in working order, give it all a nice paint job to prevent it from going rusty, and get it back in the truck.
Sticking with the petrol engine for now was controversial and in an ideal world we would have liked to have replaced it with the diesel … But, crucially, we didn’t have a diesel engine to hand and we needed to crack on, which is exactly what we did …
With all of the necessary checks and repairs finished, Tim then made another controversial move by painting the engine white (He does enjoy a little mischief making!) and along with the silver and gold detailing, it looked proper vintage. We still intend to either replace it with a diesel or convert it to run on a hybrid of petrol and LPG but that decision will be made much later down the road when we’ve finished building the accommodation box.
Re-installing the engine back in to the truck was a big day for Tim who somehow managed to carry out the whole operation by himself
By now it was August 2024 and Lisa was feeling keen to return to the workshop and to the project. There was just one last task for Tim to carry out before she came back and that was the very last bit of sandblasting …
It felt like it would never be done. Every time we thought we’d finished it, more parts would seemingly turn up out of nowhere demanding to be sandblasted. But, of course, one day it really does get done for one last time and then, suddenly, it’s all over for good.
We hope.
Tim’s very last moments of sandblasting were a cause of much celebration. No regrets. Sandblasting was an amazing tool and enabled us to restore the truck to an incredibly high standard. But still, the last day was a good day. A really, really good day
The Sticking List
Working Through A Massive ‘Still-to-Do’ List &
Starting Up The Engine
2024
By the autumn of 2024 it really did seem that we had turned a massive corner with the truck project. All of the really hard, dirty work was finally behind us and on some days we even thought there were glimpses of that elusive light at the end of the tunnel. As with all massive projects of this nature, however, there was a very long tail attached to this beast …
With Lisa tentatively back on board, our goal for 2024 was to re-unite the cab with the chassis, so the first thing we did was to drag the cab out from its corner and give it a really, really good clean, as despite our efforts to keep it protected, it turns out that sand dust really does get absolutely everywhere.
The orange overalls were back but the expression suggested a lingering suspicion towards the sand blasting tent!
We were then finally able to carpet the inside of the cab. Soft furnishings? Whatever next? After much deliberation, we chose to keep it simple with a black carpet, our reasoning being that it was a hard wearing colour, easy to keep clean, and it was neutral. We would undoubtedly be adding much more detail to the interior in the future so the carpet would simply act as a backdrop for that.
We then had to go through the process of flatting and polishing the cab paintwork. This was something we had always planned to do but it was a nerve wracking business taking yet another piece of sandpaper and rubbing back the paint … again. Seeing that shiny brown paint reduced to a dull, rough surface was mildly terrifying, but as soon as the polisher was applied it came back smoother and more beautiful than ever and (mostly) free of the orange peel effect which had been haunting Tim’s perfectionism for the past 3 years.
And so we came to what we called ‘The Sticking List’, that long list of fiddly things which seem small but prove incredibly difficult to resolve. One of the biggest ‘small’ things on that list was the master cylinder which needed replacing. Finding parts for a 50 year old vehicle can be challenging and doesn’t generally come cheap, but Tim found a vintage lorry expert based in Manchester called Cliff Fletcher who would prove to be an incredible resource in helping us track down many of the parts we needed, including the master cylinder. It took some time but eventually a package arrived from Cliff containing almost all of the things we had been missing. Unpacking that box was a very good day indeed!
Eventually, with the list shrinking daily and the gear box back together and re-installed (another exceptionally tricky task!), we were able to try starting up the engine for the first time since she drove in to the workshop almost 4 years earlier. We really needed to make sure that everything was working properly before we lifted the cab back on, so we were nervous but excited to have finally reached this day.
Much to our surprise and delight, things went well to begin with, with the engine firing up first time and no obvious issues, but the days which followed proved to be a real challenge as Tim struggled with radiator leaks, oil leaks, misfires, no-fires and even actual fires, as well as a myriad of other head scratching problems. He took apart the carbs for testing, fitted a new fuel pump and new spark plugs and adjusted the timing.
Starting up the engine gave us a week of headaches and confusion as we struggled to resolve a few unexpected issues
With all of those issues resolved one by one and an unexpected eleventh hour adjustment to one of the carbs, the day finally came when the engine started up and ran perfectly. It felt like an amazing achievement and of course, it meant that we were finally, after all these years, ready to re-unite the cab with the chassis.
Getting the engine running perfectly felt like an enormous milestone for us
and meant we could now re-unite the cab and the chassis at long last
When Everything Came Together
After 5 Years of Restoration
The Siren Leaves The Workshop
2024 - 2025
With the engine up and running we were finally able to do what everyone, especially us, had been waiting for: Re-unite the cab and the chassis. Of course, the stakes were a lot higher than they had been 4 years earlier when we lifted the cab. Back then, a few knocks and scuffs weren’t that big a deal but now, with our beautifully restored paintwork, we were going to have to be a lot more careful.
It was a big operation which took a lot of forward planning, a winch, some perfectly balanced framework and a generous amount of padding. It went … almost perfectly …
Lining up the cab with the chassis and lowering it in to place was a precise and delicate operation which almost ended in disaster as our winch, which had the unfortunate habit of making sudden drops, decided that now was the perfect time to miss a couple of links …
So, with the cab safely bolted and secured back in to position on the chassis, casual observers could have been forgiven for thinking we were almost done, but there was still a lot to get through before this restoration would be fully finished.
There was the wiring and all of the electrics, including the lights and the horn. There was sanding and polishing all of the panels and bolting everything back together, including the rebuild of the doors and the old door mechanisms. The wheels and wheel drums had to come off, again, to fit the new brake cylinders and oil seals. There was the interior, including the old seats which were in a terrible state. There was the re-installation of the windows, in particular the rear window and the huge front window which took Tim and our friend, Nick, a lot of elbow grease and effort to get safely back in to place, particularly with the old, unyielding, rubber seals. There were the number plates and the name badge and an absolute myriad of small, unseen jobs which went on and on and on and on …
It took until the following summer, July 2025 to be exact, before we were ready to drive the fully restored and completed truck out of the workshop and in to the sunlight at last.
On the very morning we drove her outside, we named her “The Siren” and attached her new name badge, now enamelled in fiery red. It had been the first thing we removed and it was now the last thing we re-instated, and then the moment had arrived at last …
After almost 5 years, we were ready to drive the Bedford truck.
After 5 years of intensely hard work and so many highs and lows along the way,
tentatively driving “The Siren” for the first time was an emotional experience
It’s difficult to put in to words how it felt to drive her out of the workshop for the first time that day. Having never seen the truck in the daylight we weren’t even entirely sure what she would look like. But, we needn’t have worried …
It was actually an unexpectedly emotional experience, at least it was once we lost our fear. Seeing her gleaming in the sunlight, looking absolutely beautiful and vintage … Well, it was just such an incredibly proud moment.
Those 5 years had been a massive undertaking. Probably not a 5 years either of us would wish to repeat, but so rewarding nonetheless. There had been many ups and downs along the way. Many highs and lows. Our relationship had been tested and we had grown as people and with each other, learning so much along the way. There had even been times when we thought of quitting. But somehow we always kept going. And now, here we were. Finally. Done.
… Except for 1 windscreen wiper.
There’s always something, isn’t there?
We plan to return to the project in the near future when we will be building the accommodation box on the back and hopefully converting this vintage beauty in to the rolling home-on-wheels we’ve been dreaming of …
Stay tuned.
Lisa & Tim - Spring 2026
5 years restoring our 1975 Bedford, former fire truck, soon-to-be our Home-on-Wheels,
and we could not have been prouder of our achievement
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