FC PMG Van Resto Project

[GMHwagoon]

gman
          yes thats him ,physically recovered but mentally still shaken
           
          will catchup soon   am looking at putting trimatic in the wagon
         
           keep an eye out for me

            greg

[mcl1959]

I can't make sense of the mirror. It's on the drivers side at the very back yes?
I can't imagine what you could see in it even if you could see it from the drivers seat?
Does it fold out somehow?
Maybe if the van was decked out with a mattress and used as home for someone the mirror may have been for a more domestic use.

Do you have the fuel tank?  If so does it have a coiled spring inside the neck?
Ken

[Gman]

Hello Ken, no the mirror doesn't fold out, it is at the back on the rhs, I don't have a fuel tank at all ( so if someone has one they would part with... ) and no neck either, why do you ask?

Cheers.

P.s hey Greg, i've got a couple of trimatics and assoctiated parts, we need to catch up soon, you around on the week end?

[hsv-001]

Just a thought , on page one ,Ken's picture shows a van with the passenger front door removed and if this was originally like that ,then if you were unloading from the rear you could use the mirror to check no one gets in the front and drives off . Never seen this sort of mirror placement even in a panel van [on the roof ,yes]. Haydn

[mcl1959]

These were usually fitted to PMG or post vehicles. The spring is an anti theft device (a siphoning tube cannot be put into the tank) the chain was edged under the spring and attached to the petrol cap so that the cap would not get lost.  These came from an FE PMG van which was rusted out.
 


Ken

[Gman]

Wow, Ken those are a fantastic find, thankyou for sharing, is there any certainty that these where fitted by gmh for pmg? Are there any rpo's specific to pmg? Don't suppose you'd part with them Ken?

[GMHwagoon]

gman
        lvd got an old inner spring mattress here me and the misses have worn out
        maybe you could take a spring out of that   

         

[mcl1959]

Absolutely GMH
The spring is RPO 415 and the chain for the cap is RPO 297. Unfortunately the cap was missing!!!!
So I don't know exactly how the chain was attached to the cap. I presume a single self tapper into the centre section near the vent hole.

RPO stamping seems a little inconsistent.
The PMG van in the Bendigo wrecking yard had these RPO's stamped on the ID plate, but yours doesn't. This does not mean that they were not on your van. That's why I was keen to know whether the tank was there.
For example your van has door pull handles and they are RPO 292. The RPO is not on the ID plate but the handles are fitted.  It seems GMH sometimes stamped the plate with the RPO and other times didn't. The Bendigo van has door pull handles and has the RPO on the ID plate as well.

It's all part of my research (affliction ) lol
These parts are for sale. I've been wating for someone who might use them rather than just look at them as I have done for the time I have had them.


Ken

[Gman]

Why haven't you written a book yet Ken? That info is amazing, could you please pm me with payment details, etc.. Is there or have you a list of rpo's relevent to this van?

Greg, if the springs are worn out, what good are they to me....

[hsv-001]

I have a filler neck with anti-theft strainer chain and cap from an early 50's Hillman that I kept as a donor piece and the chain seems to be the folded link type common to cabinet making and sink plugs in the day[I think you can still get it at hardware] . The links are small enough that this one is held onto the cap with a single pop rivet .Haydn 

[mcl1959]

Yes, this is the same, folded over brass links to form a chain.
Back to RPO codes,
The other code on the Bendigo PMG van is 293 which is for Ryco oil filter
Those 4 codes would be typical of what would have been on your van, but so few exist that it is hard to be definitive.
Here is a pic of the Bendigo van (it got worse as the years went by)
You can see the red colour on the upper tailgate after the glass was removed.



Ken
I can't figure out why it's upside down, when I click on it it goes the right way up!

[Gman]

I'll add some text to these photo's tonight at home

[Gman]

So I spent some time on the van yesterday, got all the hang on panels off ready for the blaster, got the front floors fitted and ready to weld, removed the extreme rats nest from above the roof lining (have a good look at the underside of the lining and see what turned out to be about a quarter of the ancient rat shit that was up there!) and did battle and won with the tail gate bolts

I have been pondering about that mirror, the whole inside of the van has been painted purple with a brush at some stage, at first glance there was no red paint visable, so I was assuming that it had in fact been added by someone who was using it for vanity while possibly living in the van. But as the new photos show there is infact red paint back there, the screws seem period correct, the bracket has many 'adjustment' holes in it (I don't think anyone who knocked this up for vanity would bother with that) but the bracket still seems, well, a bit rough and unfinished on the ends... Its got me buggered why its there.

If anyone has any ideas, please share them.

[mcl1959]

I'm tending to agree with you. The multi adjustment points don't line up with a quick home made bracket.

Ken

[DJ]

The van probably carried some hefty telephone exchange gear at times. Some PMG depots were well enough equipped to make their own mods & they had the PMG paint too. My guess is that the mirror has something to do with backing up to a loading dock, although it doesn't look to have enough free movement to use from the driver position. Does it move enough to use with the regular cab mirror?  i.e. back up using both mirrors instead of turning to look out the rear.

[Gman]

Thanks DJ,
Not sure if they had outside mirrors, the mirror in the rear does move through a large movement arc, I do understand your theory but the fact that its behind the driver is still odd, any angle that you look at the mirror from the drivers seat shows inside the rear of the van only...

[DJ]

It's an interesting fixture. I knew some PMG techs & I've run into some of them at times over the years. I'll be sure to ask about this whenever I see anyone again from that vintage.

[Gman]

Hi all, have some more questions -

What colour rims?, black?

Dash colour? Top, face and guage surround.

QC marks? location and colour

Springs and shock colours?

Im thinking that the engine bay on this one was black?...

any thoughts or ideas welcomed

[mcl1959]

Rims, could be your choice I think, in one of the photos of the ute, the rims are red. Black in all the other photos.
The dash face and instrument cluster would be red.
The top of the dash is Cinder Grey. A dark grey colour.
QC marks are very inconsistent. Have a chat to Graeme Pryce (Canberra club) about this. His FC has all QC marks faithfully reproduced. I have never felt it necessary to add these but I appreciate the work.
Shockers are black, springs were most likely oil blacked rather than painted, but black paint is fine.
Black engine bay is also fine but it is chassis black, not gloss. The paint colour engine bays are gloss.

Regards.  Ken

[Gman]

Thanks again Ken, thats great

Another question, assuming that being a government vehicle it wasn't optioned with a radio, what would be fitted behind the speaker grill to hide the wiper linkages from view?

Also i have noticed that there is some writing in wax on the fire wall on the lhs, I seem to remember that was where they wrote the colour the body was to be painted? Mine is a little hard to work out, what should it say?

Cheers