MikeyRobbo

First thread in here so here goes!

We wanted a recovery truck for the garage, make us look a little more professional instead of towing all the time, and also maybe make a little money on the side scrapping/recovering cars

Searched for a good few months to no avail, either out the budget, a proper shed or on the other side of the country. Through a few cheeky bids here and there, made a few phone calls, nothing. Then a seller rang us back, said £1300 today, so off we went and brought home this;











Taxed for 5, mot'd for 11, 2.5 banana engine, power steering, ramps, beacons and wireless winch included. Had it 3 hours then the phone rang "Do you know anyone who can recover, had 4 blow outs"

Both arches fell to bits when we had a poke, bad clutch judder and a blow on the exhaust, so got to work!

Bought a set off ebay consisting of 2 new wings, arches and sills for £100, pattern parts but went on no problem










Gave the bed a quick going over, still got to give another few coats



Undersealed, primered and through it outside, then got a call for a recovery Sat outside looking rather sorry for itself




Cracked on today and got it painted, this is how it looks now.



Just waiting on clear LED side repeaters, i think the clears give it a cleaner look, then its going to get stickered up to match the garage, will update whenever that happens.

Dan j

Like that Quick turn around

MikeyRobbo

took us a week altogether cause theres fuck all in!

lukesaddy

looks bang tidy mate, im wanting to get one similar (same base van) as my daily driver and to transport my track car about, what they like reliability wise and on fuel etc?

dug112y

iTrader: (1)

i liked it in orange...but with bed painted.my ducato alko thing is fookin bright yellow.

Silver'Scort

Call me daft (you wouldn't be the first!) but whats a 'banana engine?!

MikeyRobbo

The 2.5 Di engines are apparently the most reliable, this had been converted to this and pulls like a train even with something on the back, fuel wise does about 80-120 on £20, depending how much the fuel is. If your going transit check chassis rot aswell as wings and sills!!

Orange shows up the dirt at least i dont have to clean it

If you look at the engine, the top is curved, like a banana, so i was told and no im not being a gullable twat, the name is commonly used, but im not so sure if thats deffo the reason im sure someone will be along to correct me quickly if not

clarke5700

I have a truck same shape as this very good work horses alltho mines fitted with a petroal pinto as i live in london drove it to leeds and back with no issues what so ever on saturday

taz1787

iTrader: (8)

banana engine refers to the shape of the inlet of them

boothy

iTrader: (14)

A just sold a k reg truck good "banana" engine good solid back decent tyres,but cab was like a siv only prob with trannys they rot like fuck

botters

iTrader: (2)

as above called banana engines as the inlet manifold looks like a bunch of bananas

Chip

iTrader: (3)

looked good in orange

Fordmad!

Smart that!

Banana engine is probably one of the most reliable engines ever made, they go forever! If you can get hold of a half decent smiley face transit with banana engine it will serve you well!

lukesaddy

cheers mate, i think i might have just bought a mk2 xr2 instead of something sensible ... oops

MikeyRobbo

So i stand corrected and made myself sound like a tool oh well at least it wasnt a complete lie!

Thing with the orange is, its not part of the garage, and we wanted it to literally match it, the side rail which is blue is what colour the side of the shutters are, and the black is literally what the rest of the front of the garage is with silver writing, so the van will be getting stickered in silver on the black, and black on the blue.

kev 3dr

iTrader: (1)

Looks good mate the place you got it from does odd MOT's for me when I fall out with my regular tester and looked half decent then

Chip

iTrader: (3)

Post some more pics up when the stickers are on, transporters kind of need stickers really to look right I reckon

MikeyRobbo

Their garage makes ours look like a chop shop its massive

Will do, got the side repeaters on just pricing around now

MikeyRobbo

Well she's stickered up!

Rang a guy 2 days ago, came out same day, took the measurements, turned up today and fitted them in the snow! Half an hour and £60 quid gets us this;







Excuse the quality of the photos, as Blackberry owners will know, the cameras are shite

syko2005

Massive improvement. Looks 10 times better now its got some graphics on it.
It looked to black before.

BRIGSPORT

iTrader: (2)

I had a sprinter 310d recovery that had done 325000 miles a few months back, went like fook. Borrowed my mates transit recovery the other day, have to say it was gutless, too short gearing, but got the job done.
Nice job on the makeover though!

one_nineRS

Impressive turn around..in winter too....

Hats off...

MikeyRobbo

Thanks guys, just need to make it more visable at night deciding whether or not to get little circle reflectors or lights to go between the words on the bed then chevron the whole of the back of the cab

Chip

iTrader: (3)

Looks a lot better now than plain black, but I must confess I still prefered the orange paintscheme

Am sure its in a lot better condition up close now though which is the main thing.

MikeyRobbo

The whole chevron/reflector idea never happened, couldn't be arsed spending anymore money on it in the end.

BUT, some poor woman, failed to see the truck, stopped at a red light, in broad daylight.







She hit us at around 20-25MPH, and moved the truck a good few feet! Her car sustained quite a bit of damage as you can see and her airbags didnt even deploy

Got her out of her car and to the side of the road and pushed her car onto the kerb as to not hold up traffic, swapped details, double checked she was okay and left her onto the phone onto recovery.

Quite ironic really writing her car off into something that could have recovered her

SMILER258

love transits, keep us updated

Andy Tucker

you should offered to recover her

MikeyRobbo

The bit with the lights on folds down and the ramps slide out, we couldn't even open the thing Insurance assessors are out 'as soon as' to have a nosy.

She will live again!

markk

iTrader: (2)

Very un-canny to crash into a recovery truck !

One thing I always found with the transits, especially the ones with steel beds is the payload was very low, so much so legally all you could carry was a small car like a clio etc.
As the transits where only a 3500kg van, they ended up in the late 2 tonnes once converted to recovery.

BRIGSPORT

iTrader: (2)

My sprinter weighed 1850kg empty, so a bit more useful! Lol!

MikeyRobbo

Think this weighs about 2100/2200kg unloaded. Not the best thing to hit anyway

0150carmac

Reminds me of a few year back i was driving a 7.5 ton iveco tilt and slide recovery truck and was up lifiting a car that had broken down on a motorway slip road at night .
Had my amber beacons flashing magenta flashing lights hazard lights on as welll as truck lights on once i had loaded it up straped it on went to talk to the police that were in attence then bang a cherokee jeep rammed rite up its arse and into the spec frame dozy git police breathalized him and guess what he was pissed but i got another recovery out it lol

Glenn_

iTrader: (1)

Nice pickup matey.

MikeyRobbo

Hammered the tail board straight(ish) today and got some new lights, will get some pics when i can.

MikeyRobbo

All fixed! Tail board is straight enough and got the new lens on now,







Back to recovering