flyingbrick

I'm so confused....Is that the motor you are using? Not the one with red valve cover? What's the hole in top of manifold? Waste gate? So.many questions lol

Awesome! Have been googling stuff like this recently (because for some reason I never do things the easy way) Can ya tell me what they are?

Wait a minute.. do you have two batteries in there?

There's a full glass body on FB ..I was trying to get the doors off him but he wasn't keen. Still, for $1600 it's a bargain (if you can be bothered trying to get the cab legal..Would need lots of steel I imagine)..Actually even if ya biff the cabin- for the doors and one piece front it's still cheap I hear there were 20 made in NZ, the one on Faceballs is FG cabin, FG doors and one piece FG front (I can't work out if that is cool or just a pain in the ass)

Not any different to the many glass body rods that are kicking round.

What is the story with fiberglass doors on a vehicle like the HQ? Do you have to frame out the guts? (Simple bar work between hinges and door latch? What's the minimum requirements?)

The rear cab mounts/ front deck mount things had rotted through all along where they were welded to the chassis. Various patches had already been done and the only option was complete replacement. (Lol..Cat added one extra brown hole to this photo.) Probably mentioned these heaps but had them laser cut out of 3mm steel (significantly thicker than factory) and then folded at work during smoko. I cut the old mount off on one side and used it as a template to mark cut and fold lines on my new pieces. Have acquired a TIG welder to use at home. The GOOD body guys use Tig to weld up their panel steel- the benefit being far less material to clean up and a much softer weld that you can hammer (I'm told MIG will crack) The professionals don't even use filler wire- their gaps are so minimal that they can fuse the panels together and planish the seam out so that virtually no grinding is needed! I'm nowhere near that skill level but made my first decent part for the driver's side patch that I stuffed up earlier. This part is a front corner and it is a mirror image of the factory floor on the passenger side (I have nothing on the driver's side left to copy) As I don't have one of those fancy contour tools I used very low tensile bent wire (I think it's gas welding filler wire) to transfer and check shapes.

Gah interesting to hear that.

I get what ur saying. I LOVE retrofitting lipos into shit and do it wherever possible (I had an RC controller that I pulled to bits and fitted a lipo into.. I think I charged it twice in a year, was brilliant, and a 12v floodlamp that I put a big lipo pack onto) You need to make sure things are completely foolproof and easy though. You don't want to accidently plug a lipo pack into a nicad charger With that said- I use a hobby type digital charger with my nicad DeWalt packs (because my charger didn't work on our 240v mains) and don't have any issues.. smash some alligator clips onto the terminals and just press go- the bonus is that I get to see exactly how much juice is going into the cell. You'd probably want to open each tool and wire in a low voltage alarm so you don't bugger the cells but they are cheap and easy.

Couldn't be worse, right? The vid of it driving into the show made my shoddy welds all worthwhile.

New DCA1820 18V to 20V Battery Convertor Adapter for Dewalt Battery http://s.aliexpress.com/3UBNnIbi (from AliExpress Android)

Man I was hoping this thread was about DeWalt stuff... I have exactly the same issue. It turns out DeWalt sell a pole - slide battery converter I hear it's awesome, even AVE uses it.

Needed a small sandbag for going under the corners of my floor patch while hammering.. I love making something from nothing so used an old glove as the cuffs don't wear out. And then Greg did the sewing ( so basically he did 90% of it haha)

Just got home from Greg's- first I did some terrible MiG welding and then helped cover the terrible welding with fibreglass wrap (phew)

Nick you are a bloody champion.

So that last post was fuckin terrible. I have never done any sort of sheet metal like this (just what's in this thread) so it was easy for me to bust out some garbage that filled the hole and sort of ignore how terrible it was. I made the mistake of sharing some of those images on Facebook and got many good comments and I fleas feeling pretty good about things. Nek minnit a friend (an Oldschool rodder who has done thousands of hours of high quality bodywork) was brutally honest about how shit that section of floor is and told me I could do better. It was embarrassing as hell and I remembered what it felt like to be an apprentice.. so started googling. First of all- I need to buy some decent hammers. It's pretty damn obvious but every dent in your hammer is going to leave a mark in the steel. I shouldn't have used my single planishing hammer for driving nails, basically. Secondly- it's not THAT hard to watch some videos and just do things properly. So I polished the face of my only hammer and gave my only dolly a file. Then I made a template of what I thought would be the hardest section to start with, transferred it to MDF and rasped some curves round the perimeter. I can flip this wood over and use it to do the driver's side (which I cut out way too eagerly) I pinned the steel into place with a few nails and started tapping it round...Which didn't last long as it soon became a pretzel. So if you don't have a shrinker stretcher there seems to be really only one way of shrinking things. You have to make a joggle tool..There seem to be quite a few diy solutions online but I just cut a slot into this big old screwdriver. You slip it over the edge of the panel where you need it shrunk and twist then move along and twist in the other direction. Eventually you end up with what looks like a cupcake case. But rather than being twisted like before it will now have a flat bottom ..Like TS The joggle tool is also great for shaping the edge of panels.. you can slip it on and lever the steel up or down in little increments and grandually change things quite nicely. Next you need heat. All I have is a little MAP set but it suits my limited space and does the job. Heat the joggled area cherry red and then tap down quickly and gently over a dolly. This squashes the z's down flat but somehow doesn't spread them back out.. dunno how but it works waaaaaay better than expected. So.. a heap more tapping and adjusting with this new dolly I made and suddenly I have something nearly ready to fit! Now I need a hammer with a pick end and a way of forming the swage in the rear section.

Bloody awesome!

Can everyone else see those images OK?

I'll try this again Pushing myself to get this done. Today I tackled the floor. First I made a template using card stuck down with Ali Express magnets, cut out of 1.2 panel steel, removed the old rusty crap (messily) and am now taking my time to adjust things and get positioning right using clicoes to hold things down temporarily. If you don't have any- GET SOME as they are absolutely invaluable! I beat the beads in with a ballpean..Happy with how it turned out so far as it's far more than I have ever done before!!

What's up with the big hole in ya watch strap? For some reason it puzzles me haha

I have had a few bits electroplated in gold zinc- I have had all the bits sand blasted first and I really dig the resulting finish. I guess it depends entirely on what you want. I'd upload a photo but can't get it to work

Hey thanks man! Have been doing lots to it recently- I'd put up pics if i could make it work

I have been pushing myself to spend more time in the shed... So another 5 patches down.. no more left around the windows!!! A few pics..

55kg! Jesus! Does it still need a flywheel?