Friday 7th August 2015

Shed Of The Week: Leyland Convoy

It it all goes wrong you could actually use it as a shed...

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The man who says he's never fancied a van is not really a man. You can more or less do what you like in one. Drive like a fool, be useful to yourself and your community, or both at once. Enjoy your lofty detachment from the road, from reality, and from most acceptable standards of behaviour. None of it is important because you are protected from public scorn by large expanses of opaque tin and the fact that they have already got you down as a total bounder so you can't go any lower in their eyes.

If white vans are fast what about red ones?

As some PHers may shyly admit, things happen in vans. Exciting, often unseemly and sometimes downright disgusting things. If the walls of this one could talk, what might they say?

Well, the indented back means she was almost certainly a Post Office mule, so it's a fair guess that in her early life at least she carried mainly letters and parcels. This is not difficult work for a van. However, Post Office vans of this age did need to be tough, mostly because of the total disregard PO workers had (and by observation clearly still have) for them. For drivers, no pothole would be left un-dropped into, no kerb left un-mounted. PO mechanics were even worse. In the days of Moggy Minor postie vans, Shed knew a grease monkey with serious attention issues. To create work for himself, he would pop the Moggies in first and then drive them at max revs on full lock in the yard until something broke. A state of affairs which was not long in coming.

Room to swing- actually, let's not go there

The vendor calls it a Leyland, which is romantic but not strictly accurate. Leyland stopped being Leyland in 1993 when it became LDV, which stands for Leyland DAF Vans. The old Peugeot-powered 400 tin box was spruced up and turned into the Convoy you see here, a twin-back-wheeled, 2.5-litre Ford-powered beast.

Legend has it that the Royal Mail liked these LDVs because they were a bit narrower than Transits, making them more agile in tight country lanes. Sounds like a marginal reason for buying eleventy million of them, especially given what we know now about LDV vans which is that they can be a shedload of trouble.

She'll be a feisty mare right enough - we'll get on to that later - but she'll bow her head to a firm and masterful hand. Not so much to a firm foot, though. Most vans are pretty quick these days, but Leyland vans never were. Being an '02 model, this one should have the 'upgrade' of the unturbo'd Ford Duratorq 2.4, a donk that will go on forever. Certainly, every journey will feel like it's taking forever, and the lawnmowerish thud of the leaden pistons will have a Darwinian sense of endurance about it, like a cockroach.

Let your imagination run riot (just don't share it)

This specimen here looks remarkably clean. Sure, her skirts are a bit frilly, but take a squint at much newer, much browner specimens - many of them German, by the way - and you might rethink any of those unworthy thoughts you've just had about this one's structural integrity.

Other plus points? She's fully bulkheaded behind the driver, so you won't hear the slow, ongoing destruction of your precious cargo as you bounce uncaringly along rutted roads. For the weirder ones among you, nor will you hear the screams of unwilling passengers. There's a length of rope in the back to start you off.

On the negative side (this could take a while) the steering box is a well known Convoy weak spot. If for some reason you find yourself having to turn the wheel rather than simply ploughing straight ahead in the usual manner, and the steering feels notchy, your box is kaput. If, when you take your hands off the wheel (which you'll be doing a lot of the time) and she pulls to one side, that's most probably kingpin failure. A whining noise could be someone dying in the back but it's more likely a faulty diff.

Name that donated dash ... anyone?

Engine wise, a lot of folk swear by the dumb ploddability of the Duratorq lump over the more sophisticated but arguably more troublesome common-rail Transit units, but head gaskets do go and injector pumps do fall off. A lot of folk swear by LDVs generally, while many others swear at them, castigating their gearboxes, horribleness to drive and all-round tendency to fall apart, but a good one - as this Shed might well be - should be a useful and cheap tool.

Imagine the feeling of satisfaction upon reaching one's destination with one's special consignment vaguely intact, if not one's eardrums. Transform it into a groovy motorhome or bolt in some seats and set yourself up as a gangmaster delivering cheap labour. When the mechanicals finally do go west, turn it into an actual shed, as PHers are wont to suggest on SOTW threads about cars they hate.

So here it is, your chance to ceremoniously place your folded copy of the Sun on the dash, bare your metaphorical bottom to the world and shout "I'm a van man, and I don't care who knows it".

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Here is the ad.

I've had this van for over 5 years of trouble free motoring.
No nasty rust spots, no dings or knocks.
2 sets of keys.
Van has been well maintained and looked after.
Very low mileage (only used for local runs), long MOT until April 2016.
New front brakes and very recent oil and filter change.(May 2015)
£750
Huge storage inside, can even be converted into a camper van.

[The Boy Lard]

My cousin swapped out of an early noughties Laguna for one of these and has completed much of the work described in the article.

Added a second row of seats for the cherubs and on the way to a camper van conversion - including getting in 180 spin front seats.

He loves it!

TBL