A mixed day today on Vanfit B759852, best summed up by a great morning of progress followed by a frustrating afternoon with little achieved. The plan today was to replace the two planks in the top right-hand panel, and paint the bare metal bolts and wood with primer. In the event, I didn't even manage to get the second plank out despite my best efforts.
Meet 'The Persuaders' - invaluable tools for this job.
The first plank starts to slide out with a bit of leverage and bashing it with a hammer.
First plank halfway out, I was now able to grab it and wriggle it free - hooray!
The first plank removed and propped up against the scaffolding. It can be seen I left the interior 'second skin' in situ this time round.
The new board was cut, shaped, inserted, and fully bolted in place with little trouble. Lunch time!
Oh dear - things aren't going so well. This is the result of two or more hours spent on sliding the second plank out by about four inches, fighting for every millimeter. The wood was too soft and kept disintegrating when I tried to get a hold of it. In the end I lost patience and smashed it up with a big hammer - obviously with the intention of shortening the plank and therefore reducing the amount of friction acting upon it...
Close of play, I need to find a way of removing the remaining half of the broken plank next time. I suspect I'll need to somehow split the plank and also remove as much of the interior skin as possible - not easy when the van is chock full of stuff that is too heavy to shift. Mind you, half the interior planks eventually fell off due to the repeated heavy hammer blows. Frustratingly, I still have no idea why this plank is so firmly wedged in place!
Meet 'The Persuaders' - invaluable tools for this job.
The first plank starts to slide out with a bit of leverage and bashing it with a hammer.
First plank halfway out, I was now able to grab it and wriggle it free - hooray!
The first plank removed and propped up against the scaffolding. It can be seen I left the interior 'second skin' in situ this time round.
The new board was cut, shaped, inserted, and fully bolted in place with little trouble. Lunch time!
Oh dear - things aren't going so well. This is the result of two or more hours spent on sliding the second plank out by about four inches, fighting for every millimeter. The wood was too soft and kept disintegrating when I tried to get a hold of it. In the end I lost patience and smashed it up with a big hammer - obviously with the intention of shortening the plank and therefore reducing the amount of friction acting upon it...
Close of play, I need to find a way of removing the remaining half of the broken plank next time. I suspect I'll need to somehow split the plank and also remove as much of the interior skin as possible - not easy when the van is chock full of stuff that is too heavy to shift. Mind you, half the interior planks eventually fell off due to the repeated heavy hammer blows. Frustratingly, I still have no idea why this plank is so firmly wedged in place!
