as you can see the clean up has started.my aim is for a ratrod type shorty with short pickup bed but a bit more refined.to acheive this i cut off all body mounts and pushed cab back to where i thought it looked good.
the body has now been dipped in mepholene i think thats it which desolves
the rust and leaves clean holes where the rust was,and boy do you find more than you thought you had. where the rust is not cleaned up it is sand blasted then the whole thing etched primed
the plan from here is a 3 inch chop and 4-6 inch channel not sure on that one yet
Damn Joe,
That's pristine compared to what I started with. It would've saved a few hundred hours of cutting and welding, but I'd have lost the experience and satisfaction of fixing it.
Keep the pics coming mate. Cheers.
gidday g.s
the body was a hell of alot of surface rust and also more serious rust than i was aware of till i started cleaning it up,but most of my problems became easy cause my plan was always to chop, channel,new flat firewall and new floor,so this got rid of the worst of it,then the dipping and blasting got the rest to what i'm comfortable to work with,i know i will have to come back and reprime it again but that suits me
cheers joe
this is the start of the roof chop----going to be 3 inches,but first square up and adjust all the gaps and then some bracing.
now we cut around the perimiter of the roof skin,i had previously cut and removed the rear window as i want to retain it the same size
with the roof skin removed my mate leon{the brains in this outfit}starts cutting the 3" out of the vertical height
convertible anyone??
jumped forward abit
front and rear have been tacked in now the roofskin has been tacked on
the roofskin has been stretched by flattening the curves this way you don't need a filler strip and also pancakes the roof above the driprail
Joe,
You can get a lot of the lower patch panels from the US. They make the job easier and I wish I'd found that out earlier as it would have saved some time, and the prices are excellent. I put a link somewhere in here, but sing out if you can't find it. Cheers.
thanx gojeep,theres more on the way.thanx sandy i already have the front lower cab corners and they are very nice,should be able to make the rest of what i need(hopefully)
your right kiwipaul we'll start our own j/bar run enough on this site.
here's a few before and after shot to keep you amused.
after a crash course on oxy welding from my mate leon i was able to wire weld everything together with no distortion at all sort off but still needed a few shrinks
this is the gun turret(military model)tacked in
o/k now for some chassis pic's,an original 3/4 ton pickup,i have kicked it up in the rear and am using EA falcon disc brake rear end and holden HG
front end HQdiscs comm,gemini under floor brakebooster,xb m/cyl
this is the where i cut the wedge out for the kickup
this is the 6mm fishplate that i welded inside the chassis,the captive nuts are for the spring hangers,the hangers are mounted outboard so as not to shorten diff
fishplate inside chassis
sorry pic's not in sequence,we have a roller