15th January 2014 - The Rear Brakes are now done with new Brake Flexi hoses fitted to new Copper Brake Pipes.
The Urban Myth that H van Brakes have to be poor just isn't true, with our modified parts they can be really good.
We are fitting new Copper Brake pipes throughout and a new master Cylinder to match the rebuilt Slave Cylinders. We can supply a full set of Copper brake pipes and Flexi hoses. If you are not sure what you want just email us the length and size plus age of van and we will source it for you. High quality Flexi Hoses for the front at £25 each.
Note restored and painted Inner rear wheel Arch.
8th January 2014 - The Front Brakes have been assembled using the relined Brake Shoes which have been fitted along with the l rebuilt Slave Cylinders and the new Flexi brake hoses, see photo :
Read our Brakes article on the Technical page to see how to do it yourself and save a day and a half labour on each brake.
12th December 2013 - We have been so busy that finding time to update this has been hard but the front subframe is out.
You can see it has been stripped down, painted and is now partially reassembled.
The Steering rack has been rebuilt using new rubber gaiters (not the Leather ones that you 'sew' together that are prone to letting out Grease and letting in dust). The drive shafts have also been rebuilt with new rubber gaiters. New wheel Bearings have been acquired and they will go in with rebuilt brakes.
We offer a Steering Rack rebuild service we have stocks of rebuilt Racks, Driveshafts, etc or we can rebuild your own.
The Brake Shoes are being reworked.
The Brakes on a H van do tend to seize through corrosion caused when the brake Fluid absorbs moisture, so if you don't want another big Brake bill in a couple of years time, to replace the brake fluid in an H van every 2 years.
Brake fluid is hygroscopic – that is it readily absorbs moisture from the atmosphere, increasing the risk that the water in brake fluid will boil creating a vapour and resultant brake failure. The brakes on a Catering H van will get very, very hot with a risk of very high temperatures inside the brake drums and boiling of the fluid. If you have a big H van changing brake fluid at least every 2 years is a must.
18th October 2013 - Hugo is no longer ours, he has been sold and will become a Coffee van painted Cream and Burgundy.
Hugo now has a Catering opening ready for his new role. Hugos progress and transformation will still be documented here.
We are a little disappointed we never achieved our dream of turning Hugo into a Camper Van, however the sale of Hugo has funded the purchase of a unique 6 wheeler, twin rear axle H van. We think it is the only one in Europe.
We have several potential parallel plans for this van, but not sure yet which path we will go down.
28th September 2013 - We have had so many requests for a catering Citroen H van that we are going to convert Hugo into a Catering unit, he is therefore up for sale. We have recalled him from the Paint shop, where he sat for almost 3 months without much being done, back to our workshop.
In the photo below he can be seen in White Primer between 2 split screen Citroen H vans, one a HY and one a HZ.
The Split Screen HY van in the foreground is also for sale and in the process of being converted back into a Standard van, but with a Hi-Top and 900mm rear extension.
The HZ van in the far background is a Customers in for restoration.
Hugo, now one of the most famous vans in the UK, will be fitted with a Catering hatch ready for full conversion. It is a shame he never made it to conversion as a Camper Van, but we have our eye on another vehicle that will suit us much better. The sale of Hugo will help us fund the new project.
His rebuilt 1,911cc high compression engine and rebuilt Gearbox are waiting to be fitted.
In the foreground can be seen the new Horse box we have acquired, a 1963 split screen, HY, 1,911cc petrol. This is also being converted to a Catering unit. My 3 year old boy has named this vehicle Gaston, after the Ladybird in a CBeebies Ben and Holly's Little Kingdom. Gaston is in much better condition than we thought, having covered just 37,800km. We have removed the Engine and Gearbox ready for rebuild. The Engine and Gearbox have already been stripped and are both in excellent condition, confirming the 34,800km to be genuine!! Despite their good condition the gearbox will still be rebuilt with all new bearings, likewise the Engine plus Pistons/Liners, head rebuild, etc.
The rear floor is rotten, as we expected, and is being removed to make way for a new, light weight, Insulated floor that won't freeze the feet of any workers standing on it, unlike the standard steel floor. When working these vehicles in Winter anyone baking a Pizza in Gaston will have feet as toastie as their face as they peer into the Oven!! We will cut back all the 'Horse Box' bodywork and rebuild it to look more like the Standard van that rolled off the production line.
The very high flat roof roof will be cut away and rebuilt with a steeper curvature than standard to increase height by about 6 inches yet not look it from the outside. We will take the opportunity to extend the rear by about 800mm at the same time.
8th August 2013 - We are still waiting for our van to be painted, in the mean time into the work shop drives a Citroen HZ78 1954 split screen Customer Restoration. The owner Paul wants to do as much work as he can himself, we are going to help with the bits he can't do.
He has already stripped much of the paint and discovered a LOT of filler.
The major issue with buying a van that has been restored is what lies beneath the new paint. When you are buying a H van we would advise that you go for an unmolested example so you can see exactly what you get. It is very easy to hide all many of ills beneath paint on these vehicles so you watch it changing from a smart £12k van to a shabby £4k vehicle in as little as one winter.
Unless the seller can give you DETAILED photographic evidence that the restoration was done properly assume it hasn't.
27th July 2013 - We are working on a rusty, old, slow, creaky, 1970's, cramped Citroen HY Camper conversion when something like this comes in for work and reminds us how good it can be. A fantastic conversion on a 10ton Mercedes chassis with self levelling air suspension and corner jacks.........
Uummm? Now where is that Hydraulic pump and suspension strut off that old Citroen DS we had............
Yes that is a baby Seagull by the rear tyre. It fell off the roof and we made the mistake of putting out water and food. Now we get followed around whenever we venture outside the workshop!!
14th July 2013 - We have demonstrated how we have been able to restore the metalwork on our van at a realistic cost. Our van had rust every where, a totally rotten floor, rusty sides and side top hat sections. It is now solid.
In taking the van apart to replace the metal we had to learn about the structure, the vans strengths and weaknesses. We were lucky that our van was both an extended version and a HiTop. We now know how to both extend and raise a standard van to make it both taller and longer. More importantly, how to make it stronger without incurring a weight penalty.
Following requests from people tracking our vans progress we have decided that we will take on the restoration of Citroen H vans for Customers.
This website will try to stay true to its original aim of providing free information and help to those who want to restore and care for their vehicles. For example the Suppliers page will still list other restorers, and convertors. As we discover more about the vehicles that content will still be added and we hope readers will still contribute to the pages. We will try to keep the commercial pages separate from the general pages, such as Technical, Buyers Guide, etc.
There are some new Pages on Catering Conversions, Restorations/Camper conversions and a HiTop-Extensions page. This same page also covers raising the roof, HiTop conversions.
We will try to offer a commercial service with minimal intrusion.
13th July 2013 - Look at our shiny Engine!!!
The new Cylinder Liners are in place in the rebuilt block ready for the domed High compression pistons. More photos and text on the engine rebuild will be added to the ENGINE WORK page soon
1st July 2013 - Photo below shows offside now rebuilt with new top hats and panels. The spot welds give away the extra bracing inside to locate the 2 bunk beds on this wall. In order that the main bed has sufficient clearance below the lower bunk bed, which sits just above the inner wing, the main bed will need to drop down about 200mm as in converts from a seat. I think this might be as big a challenge as the high level nets which will store the bedding during the day!!
I am not sure we have gone down the right route with spot welding the side panels on as there is noticably heat ripple. We are going to try a different approach when we rebuild the drivers side.
The photo below also shows the rebuilt offside, ready for the door and you can also see through the van that the far side top hats and side panels have been cut out ready for new metal
26th June 2013 - Photo below showing the fitment of the Nose Cone and repair to the joint between the cab roof and main body roof along with a new Cab roof gutter. Removal of the side panelling and mid upper Top Hat is also clear.
Then removal of the upper Top hat and side door runner.:
The above photos clearly show the interior and how little space there is yet we want to try and make this a 6 berth Camper!!
We need to start putting more time into planning the interior. It is this stage of the build the details become important, such as thinking about the location of the Fridge Gas chimney which we want to exit on the roof with less visual impact than side vents. Location of the water tanks, now is a good time to put them in while the floor is still open.
Some thinking has already been done, such as when the above side panel closest to the camera is rebuilt we will be adding additional internal square tube inside to provide extra wall strength for the two fold away bunks beds that will pivot off this wall. This space is about 1.8 metres long from the van rear to the back edge of the side sliding door opening. This will hopefully mean we can create 2 roomy bunks suitable for small adults. This side of the van will be the 'walkway' from the side door through to the rear Veranda so keeping the wall space clear will be important, hence the fold up bunks location here.
Over the next 2 weeks I will sit down with a scale floor plan and draw everything out, from Water tank location to cable runs and document it HERE..
17th June 2013 - Progress on the body restoration moves forward.
We have commisioned a Sheet Metal worker to tackle the body restoration, following an email from a 'Club Member' who said that the approach was significantly less cost than giving the entire job to a Paint Bodyshop. They used the metal worker to restore the body which was then passed to the Paint shop for painting.
Although this first seemed like a strange thing to do, the more we thought the more it made sense. You wouldn't ask a Baker to plumb you bathroom, so why ask a Painter to replace Metal in a van body and weld it together? By employing a Metal worker (at two thirds the hourly rate of a body shop) we get the best skillset and someone who has a full back up of Sheet metal cutting and bending tools to make the body parts.
He started this week, cutting out all the rotten metal, making new panels to fit, then welding them in place.
The photo below shows the restoration work, prior to grinding/finishing to the previously broken Step, the panel above it and the new curved panel that the bottom of the door closes on to and the new O/S Jack Panel.
I think it is interesting to note that it is this work shown here, and the N/S, where the parts alone were billed at £358 and £329 (plus labour) by DeFleet in their quote. The sheet metal worker did both n/s and o/s and charged £26 materials + £165 labour. A saving of £660 + 1/3rd saving on labour, £20 p/h as opposed to £30 p/h.
It really does put the De-Fleet quote into perspective.
Maybe our approach will all go horribly wrong, but I really like the results and savings so far!! We will see.
Next we tackle the Nose Cone restoration.
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Franzose price list UK12 cat.pdf Size : 7849.538 Kb Type : pdf |
20th March 2013 - Not really an item of progress but our latest Club member is a 'Celebrity' in the H van world, John Sobey. John has owned a Citroen HY78 since 1989!. He ran the H van register for about 18 years and started the hvan.co.uk website. There can not be many who know more about Citroen H vans than John Sobey so to have his endorsement of the website is a big milestone.
See pictures of his Camper Van conversion HERE. The pictures look like they were taken, at a H van rally? This years H Van and Friends Rally is being organised by John Sobey at Donnington Park 17th - 19th May. There is a café, BBQ plus the opportunity to drive round the racetrack. Located near the centre of England so within reach for lots of H vans. Contact John Sobey hvan@bigfoot.com This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it 01453 542220. More details HERE.
16th March 2013 - The Engine restorer's findings pretty well confirm the mileage on the speedo is genuine at 61,000km, 41,000 miles.
14th March 2013 - We are asked if we can help supply four, Citroen H vans with Catering conversions for a new Television show to be shot in London during June 2013. So if you have a Citroen H Van with a Catering conversion that you wish to become famous, contact us. See the Events and Activities page for more details. That this site has been contacted to help locate four vans is a very satisfying milestone, and a measure of our position in the Citroen H van community. It makes all the hard work very, very worthwhile.
4th March 2013 - We now have the first Corrugated side repair panel to cover our bady dented one.
As you can see from the photo it is a dual length item that fits both the standard wheel base van and the longer Horse Box. For a standard van the panel would be cut at the end of the first flutes on the right.
The Mold has taken 3 months to make by hand, so a limited production run of panels will be available at £199 each to recoup some of this cost.
The picture above shows the area highlighted in Blue where the panels would be inserted, on top/in place of the damaged items.
More detail will be added to THIS PAGE when available.
OUr Partners/Suppliers on the project :
Citroen HY Engine and Gearbox rebuild and performance Tuning :
Devon Tractions will be stripping down our Engine and Gearbox and rebuilding them to better than new.
These vehicles below are the ones that Mark Harding knows inside out, the Citroen Traction. It was this vehicle that donated the engine and Gearbox for the Citroen H van in 1949.
He has also worked extensively on H vans.
Mark is going to strip and clean the engine, replace the 1,628cc liners and pistons with a 1,911cc domed high compression piston kit that should improve the power by a big margin. A carburettor from a 1,911cc vehicle and a new distributor with a more advanced ignition curve (to take advantage of modern fuel) should see power rise from 45bhp at 4,250 to around 71bhp at 4,550. See the Technical Page for more info on making a Citroen H go faster.
Because all the changes are aimed at improving efficiencey I am hoping that fuel consumption will also improve by about 4 MPG, if we do not use all that extra power.
Citroen HY Paint and Bodywork Repairs and restoration :
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