All about Chris Cowdery

My Sherpa Van project

A Sherpa Van looks like this:

For those of you who know nothing about Sherpa Vans, a detailed history can be found here:The Unofficial Austin Rover Web Resource

My plan

My intention is to purchase a fairly old (pre LDV facelift) Sherpa Van with good bodywork but knackered mechanicals. In white.

Then, I plan to severely modify it so it's spec list is something like this:

So what have I done?

The engine / gearbox conversion is detailed here

I have converted the back into a camper

I've also fitted an LPG conversion

How have I done against the plan?

I have managed these:

And I haven't yet done these:

But it does have a microwave, fridge and lots of cupboards! I also fitted power steering

My priority really is to get the engine running really well, which basically means a mapped fuel and ignition system. I might design my own, or I might purchase something. The big issue for me is that I want liquid phase LPG injection, which seems to be slightly tricky....

And how is it?

So now she's back on the road, how does she go?

Well, there's bags of power; before you had to drive it like you'd stolen it, flat oot in every gear. Now a mere glance at the throttle pedal and you're exceeding the speed limit. The trouble is that the power is not matched by traction, so on a wet road you can loose the back end at 50MPH.

She's also returning about 20MPG compared to 40MPG before, but an LPG conversion should help matters here

The LPG conversion is also sapping considerable power, but that should be fixed by the addition of a decent mixer

The ZF4HP22 is supposedly a bulletproof gearbox. Natually mine broke in an amusing way which necessated a gearbox rebuild

All images (C) 2005 - 2017

Last modified on: 25th August 2017 by email the webmaster

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