Ulysses

Uhh.. I gave up on my old SJ413 for less than this. but as Les say here there will be more than meets the eye at first glance once you start cutting into it.. I got a rotisserie for my SJ project tub now, much easier to get things done properly. But still enough work anyways.

Good luck in the progress!

Thanks for the kind words all, though I sort of knew this was coming at some point. Downsides of the £200 donor car that started all this. Rust was always going to be an ongoing issue. 

Taking the body off the chassis completley is a bit tricky now. Firstly there is the cage, winch, front bumper and rear tipper body to remove. There are many bits of wiring joining it all together too. Rear lights and tipper/cover rams wiring, but also the whole loom has be altered for the ITBs/ECU at the front end and non standard lights at the rear. Theres also airlines and breather pipes running all over the place, CB aerial, etc, etc... none of its impossible or all that hard, but very very time consuming. 

Very kind offer John/Sniper, but an awful long drive for you to come and watch me weld badly   Will think about Terry's shell some more, but it is very tempting at that price. Also tempting is buying another complete Jimny (if I can find a solid one) and transferring all the goodies over. The trayback looks cool, but isnt practical really so would keep it tintop if I go that route. 

So for now its cut into it and see if I can bodge fix in some new metal to keep it all going for a bit longer at least.

Made a start on the rear passenger mount today as it was easiest to get at after stripping out all the interior & carpet. I put a scissor jack and bit of wood under the body from the back onto the chassis rail and removed all the body mount bolts. It jacked back up pretty easily and at least isnt now sitting on the cage and is supported for working on it. 

 

 

I can already see the floor is bulged up a bit where the mount is pushing on it from below  

After some cutting with mr angry and some attacking with a hammer and chisel this was the first layer of nastiness exposed:

 

 

 

Attacked it with everything going (grinder, flap wheel, needle gun, pokey sander thing, etc) to get it cleaned back to half solid metal. Quite a bit more of the side panel cut out below the seatbelt too.

 

Keith you are right about the body mount being done in too. Overall the chassis isnt great, but will last a bit longer yet. The mount needs replaced though, so I will replace them all and make my own version instead of patching them again.

 

Used a bit of Dave's CAD to make a template for the patch piece below the seatbelt. Plate cut from some left over 2mm galv sheet and welded in (galv ground off on welding areas as it gives off chlorine gas when welded apparently ). That bits not going to rust away any time soon at least 

 

And thats as far as I got today. Need more gas for the welder and more time/motivation to get on with it.

Oh, and I had cause to use the fire extinguisher on the car today. I thought i was being clever by spraying some of the buzzweld cavity wax in to the sills while it was open and easy to get at. Totally forgot how flammable the vapors from it are and started tack welding the plate in. Sudden womph noise and lots of flames    Cue fire extinguisher that luckily I had remembered to keep handy. Quickly sorted it out and no damage apart from a singed hair smell from my eyebrows 

More updates when I get somewhere...

It's scary when you have to cut out that much. At least it gives you good access to the outrigger and you know you can build a new floor that can take the loads and won't rot out in a hurry.
By the way, the problem with galvanising is not chlorine. That white smoke is finely powdered zinc oxide. If you breathe it in you basically OD on zinc. From personal experience it's not fun. I was welding up a large roof rack out of galv pipe. I thought it would be fine as I was outside - wrong!

Riccy cheer up mate of all the folk in this cult your well able to fab and weld. If I took it off you in the morning what would you do , only go out and buy one in the same condition and do the same.

Get the kettle on and some cardboard and a scissors.

Ah, not chlorine but zinc then, I stand corrected. Im still avoiding it as likewise I have had a dose of it in the past and its not nice!

Motivation found (and some welder gas) this afternoon. 

Started with the rotten chassis mount. Finally found a use for the empty gas cylinders too  . Turns out the domed end of the cylinder is exactly the right shape for the body mount rubber to sit in and bolt through. Chopped it off and drilled a hole in it:

 

 

 

Drilled out the rot on the chassis mount with a suitable holesaw and welded in the new cup. Not as hard or bad as expected. Most of the mount is solid so I decided against totally replacing it for now. 

 

 

Then onto folding a new bit of sheet to make the outer skin of the rear support. Took a bit of fiddling to get the right shape and weld in but its nice and strong there now, even if the welds look horrible  . 

 

Made a start on the inner skin plate and forgot to take a pic of it. Needs more fettling to get it right yet though. Thats tomorrow's job...

That bottle end looks like a perfect fit. Your welds may not be pretty but they do look like they have reasonable penetration, which is what counts. Try keeping the torch as close as possible to the work. You may find the arc is more stable when you do that.

By the way if you do any amount of welding it's worth getting refillable bottles. I used to use BOC but their rental charges are crazy. Several companies such as SGS gases offer rent free bottles. You pay a deposit then you just pay for refills. A 50L bottle normally lasts me about a year but I do quite a bit of welding. You can also get 20L bottles which are quite a bit cheaper and easier to handle. 20l@200bar is roughly equivalent to 60 disposables. Try asking at your local motor factors. If they can't supply bottles they probably know who can.

wrote:

That bottle end looks like a perfect fit. Your welds may not be pretty but they do look like they have reasonable penetration, which is what counts. Try keeping the torch as close as possible to the work. You may find the arc is more stable when you do that.

By the way if you do any amount of welding it's worth getting refillable bottles. I used to use BOC but their rental charges are crazy. Several companies such as SGS gases offer rent free bottles. You pay a deposit then you just pay for refills. A 50L bottle normally lasts me about a year but I do quite a bit of welding. You can also get 20L bottles which are quite a bit cheaper and easier to handle. 20l@200bar is roughly equivalent to 60 disposables. Try asking at your local motor factors. If they can't supply bottles they probably know who can.

Yeah I'm with BOC and it's €250 a year for oxyacetylene and o2 got a demand letter about 2 weeks ago and I'm bringing it back. Riccy the welds are unreal considering your welding the equivalent of cigarette papers together. Keep going you'll be knee-deep in muck in no time at this rate. 

wrote:

That bottle end looks like a perfect fit. Your welds may not be pretty but they do look like they have reasonable penetration, which is what counts. Try keeping the torch as close as possible to the work. You may find the arc is more stable when you do that.

By the way if you do any amount of welding it's worth getting refillable bottles. I used to use BOC but their rental charges are crazy. Several companies such as SGS gases offer rent free bottles. You pay a deposit then you just pay for refills. A 50L bottle normally lasts me about a year but I do quite a bit of welding. You can also get 20L bottles which are quite a bit cheaper and easier to handle. 20l@200bar is roughly equivalent to 60 disposables. Try asking at your local motor factors. If they can't supply bottles they probably know who can.

Thanks Les. I am a youtube welder (learnt enough to get by watching videos). I dont do enough of it to get good practice in and im usually welding something really rusty!

The welder I have is a clarke 235 which only has a tiny 2mm airline for the gas bottles. All the bigger bottles available use a different hose/regulator that has a much larger hose on the welder. I am in the market for a more professional machine as I find this one gives poor gas flow control as well as the wire feed can be jerky. Power settings are a bit basic too as well as the aforementioned gas bottle issue. Gas is available locally from numerous suppliers. I think it was £80 bottle deposit and then less than £30 for a refill on the 20l bottles so miles cheaper to run than the little disposable bottles at £15 a go. 

They run at the same pressure so it's just a case of adapting the pipe. Your welder probably uses standard 4mm OD pneumatic pipe. If you do a search on eBay for 4mm push fit you'll find a whole range of fittings that can be used to adapt it. The rubber vacuum hoses for Jimny locking hubs should also be the correct bore to fit over it. I used 4mm hose to replace the steel vac lines on my Jimny.

As far as welders are concerned I can recommend the Tecarc/Portamig/Oxford welders (they are all made in the UK by Technical Arc). They aren't cheap but they weld great and are bullet proof. I've had my Portamig for about 7 years and it hasn't missed a beat even though it lives in a damp barn. A friend has an Oxford that was in a flood. After drying it out it worked fine. If you open it up there's still dried mud in there.

Whatever brand you look at, go for the old style transformer based machines. If you can't lift it, its a good one  . The modern inverter machines are smaller, lighter and often weld slightly better but they don't like damp and are difficult and expensive to fix.

Are these the oxford your talking about Les 

 

Big money them welders! Ill be keeping an eye on the second hand market i think. Only restriction is it must be single phase.

Finished off the second skin today. Put in an additional 3mm plate where the mount contacts and also a small diagonal brace beside it. Welded it all in and its awaiting seam sealer and paint now. Ive put a coat of the rust convertor stuff on everywhere that looks crusty and the new welds so it will be dry enough to seal/paint during the week. 

 

 

 

Onto the other two next. They are at the front of the cab and all from underneath so itll be up on the ramps for that one.