Shion Scudamore – contributor
The sun has been beating down in North Wales and so there has been little excuse not to get on with sorting the TM for its MoT. I started well and the lower cab panels have been removed, revealing even more rust, I have exposed even more daylight through the cab floor.
The problem is June is also a good month to do several other things that are considerably more fun than grinding rust and welding. The start of the month saw a trip to France on the bikes with a crowd of my ex overland driving buddies, some enjoyable miles spent in the Alsace region meant I needed some tyres and brake pads to get home so that blew the vehicle budget for the month. A landmark birthday party meant a great weekend of camping at our place and rerunning some of the old stories over a few drinks (well, a lot of drinks really). The Bedford was present which seemed fitting as many of us had driven them all over the globe but not yet fit for active duty. Finally, I failed to get her ready for Glastonbury but taking a VW camper instead meant the budget looked better, it would be cheaper just to charter a jet these days rather than drive her to Somerset; 300 quids-worth of fuel is a very conservative estimate.
So now it’s back to work on her, the panels are off to be shot-blasted and repaired before spraying – KTM orange is the general idea but watch this space. The cab rear mounts are in need of some work, a common MoT problem with TMs. I would like to graft on a mid ’90s’ MAN cab to get around the rot and comfort problems, but not working in the truck business these days makes this impractical to achieve. Once the MoT is out of the way I have a pressure water system to fit and the Propex heater needs a better mounting. I have some 160-amp AGM batteries to fit to the camper pod which should deal with the fridge better over long weekends – a common complaint with overland vehicles using Engel or similar fridges. Above all, I hope some major progress happens soon as the MoT date is looming fast.
SPECS
Model: Bedford TM 4-4
Spec: 8.2-litre turbodiesel
Mileage: 19,000
Test mpg: 11mpg
Recent Costs: none
Arrived: June 2004
