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I've now collected the engine back from my mate, totally rebuilt, new rings,seals berrings,gaskets,points and crankcase half! Hopefully the restoration shouldn't take long to finish now.

Ah well spent all yesterday going over it from top to bottom, just can't find the answer so guess ill have to get rid of it, such a pity as in all other respects the van is absolutely perfect for what I need.

all it really means is I've got a van I can't drive!

Thanks for the suggestions, the clutch/brake fluid is spotless and doesn't drop, parts are genuine vauxhall or direct from the manufacturer who supply vauxhall as genuine. I asked on vauxhall forums, and have only had suggestions for what has been done. I work with hydraulics every day and have a city and guilds in car repairs yet can't come up with a solution, I'm getting desperate as this van is going to be very hard to replace as very few Astra vans have rear seats these days. Probably the truest thing ever said! What's wrong with replacing a cable every 20 years or so and maybe adjusting it every 100k?

Hi can any body please help me. I've a 2008 atra 1.7 turbo diesel van and am having continuos clutch trouble with it. The back ground is I purchased it off a dealer in 2011. The first night the pedal when warm went to the floor. I took back to dealer who could find no fault but bled the system anyway. It was fine for about 3 months, then started happening again. The local garage replace the flywheel and clutch that was only about 5k old. The problem continued happening, about 4 flywheels and clutches later the garage twigged that they where putting the clutch plate in back to front( copying the way the vauxhall dealer had done it), a couple of months later the same problem came back. The master cylinder, slave cylinder etc and loads of pipes where changed. Still the same thing where the clutch pedal suddenly goes to the floor happens. Tried taking it to a different garage who changed the master cylinder again and until last night its been ok for nearly a year, now its gone again. Does anybody have any ideas please before I get the petrol and matches out. In all other respects the van is brilliant, and we've never at any point asked the garage to save money, just spend what is necessary to fix the problem. With older type systems ie clutch cable and solid flywheel I usually get 3-400 k at least out of clutches so am not hard on them.

Repair panels are impossible to gt, but I bought years ago the last set of outer arch repair patches. I don't have any metal fab skills, guess ill have to start learning fast.

The chap on the vauxhall must be very skilled. Here's another pickup that arrived today. Hopefully this one is rust free though.

Well I hope I can save it, most of this was hidden under bathroom sealant and underseal. It did look a very sound truck, with only a bit of bubbling on the outer arch. Has any of our metal work gurus got any tips please on how they would tackle the repair?

Oh dear!

Hi there's one in my storage unit, ill be there on Sunday, and take photos, measurements etc,remind if you haven't heard by Sunday evening.

many thanks for that, it's come through great.

Hi Paul I've got one of those mowers any chance you cold email me a scan of the brochure please?

That's a rare beast as subaru listed a choice of severe rot or terminal rot as part numbers on these trucks when new! It really does seem that every piece you sort just reveals more rust.

It's starting to get a bit out of hand Paul, only managed to drill a few spot welds out tonight, then it started to pee down yet again! I'm so far behind schedule because of nearly 4mths of bloody rain!!!

Haven't been able to make much progress on this recently due to the weather. Have over the last few days been looking at all the near impossible to reach places underneath and have decided to take drastic action and remove the entire floor, due to wanting to try and preserve the ribs I've got to find and drill out about a thousand spot welds. Here's a photo of my mates truck with the floor(that was rotten) hacked out. Should be starting tonight, wish me luck!

Fantastic looking work. I cringe whenever I see one of those carbs though, they used to fit them to wacker bh23 breakers and caused nothing but trouble, apparently the tooling is worn out. All most every machine has to have a walbro conversion kit to get it to run tidy, hopefully being an older one on yours means it should run ok.

I'm not sure but ill see if I can find one. If you look at the throttle lever where the cable attaches, move it to the stop position and you will see a brass(probably now painted over) springy tag, which you push down and pop the wire through the little hole. Hope this makes sense?

The thin wire goes to a spring loaded tag on the throttle mechanism, the idea being when you shut it down it kills the spark.

Try looking on the outside edge of the flywheel, most Villiers from this period had the production date stamped here.

They are just a badged up Chinese copy of a Honda gx390., so you should be able to get one badged up as some Chinese name a lot cheaper. At my work we experimented with them quite a bit a few years back. The actual engines seemed ok, however the recoils are very weak and particuarly on the 200 range the governors were not allways that good, from the symptoms I would say that the washer underneath the governor was the wrong thickness.

Thank you for the compliment.will have to try and find a before shot, its on the computer omewhere. I agree with you a dead gem is a pain to move, but these are much more manageable.

When cleaning up the hard drive on my PC I found this picture taken when I had just finished restoring my howard 200.and also one of the line up I had at much marcle steam rally in 2009.

Also try Hancox engines in Worcester. I usually order mine from the American ebay site(.com) as even with the postage works out a Lot cheaper, can't see to France would be much different?

2561758 was 20/1/1968, yours was probably built end of 63 to early 1964.

The closest number I've got is g48485. Built 3/5/1962. By sometime 1963 the numbering system changed to 251xxx, are you sure the 2 and the 5 aren't the other way around?if so 2511283 was built 3/41963.