_Matt

Thankyou very much!!

Have been slack at doing updates and thought I'd better post one soon so the posts don't get too long. Made a stainless steel frame that those hinges lift up. It works well, need to figure out some sort of latch for it now. Fixed the rust at the front of the tray. Took awhile trying to decide how to go about it, the best/easiest was was to just cut it out and spot weld a new piece on. The wood will sit above it and so it won't be visible. Dug out the old heater that came out of this originally. Will restore it, needs a new 12v motor which can be bought new and a heater core which I'll probably need to find and modify something to work. Made up a stainless steel transition to take the air up to the front windscreen since the window vents have round inlets and the heater outlet is square. Ages ago I made another fuel tank since I wasn't 100% happy with the other. This time made the top out of 6mm so it could be tapped without needing to weld on doublers. Also modified a holden fuel pump unit to suit, with a new Walbro pump. The parts from America also included a new window wiper motor. Thought I'd have to make some mounts for it since the dash brackets are mixed up between LHD and RHD but the RHD dash had both the mounts on the dash, whereas the LHD ones have them one on the bracket and one on the dash. Will make something to support the other end though as it's fairly heavy. The original wiper linkages are correct just need to bend them a bit so they sit a bit nicer. Another thing I remade is the airbag tray thing. This time I centered the holes and used a proper dimple die and then folded it after to straighten it out. Looks heaps better!

The passengers door lock actuator seized at some point, only noticed it last week. When I was pulling the door apart I noticed there was a bit of rust coming through the front inside of the door, and since the door was basically half in bits I thought I may as well fix it now. Looks like there may of been a previous repair done here. Now I just need enough courage to fix the rust that will most likely result in a respray haha

Swapped the 175/50/13 yokohamas onto the starsharks. It's so slammed now haha. It's also nicer to drive in most ways because it sits at slightly higher revs, apart from high speed cruising which still isn't too bad. Speedo is waaaay out now though!

Gave the hinges a bit of a polish and made some nylon washers, it all should work well I hope. Need to find some wood for the bed now. Decided I should go back and finish mounting the front sway bar. Started by making some new mounts since the ones that came with the rubbers weren't very nice. Bolted it all down in the right place and stole the sway bar links off the rear since they need to be changed anyway. Needed to cut out the side of that gusset sorta thing on the front end that I made ages ago since the sway bar hit it when the front raises up. Another thing that my parents picked up in America was an ashtray that goes in the middle dash panel, since neither of the RHD dashes came with one. Could of used the LHD one but wanted to keep that dash complete to hang on the wall or something haha. Had to get a second hand one since they don't sell them separate from the whole dash panel, and they were never made in stainless so it will need to be painted or chromed.

Apart from the poor palmy turnout, it was good! More same pics

My parents arrived back from America with all the bits I ordered. It was a little less exciting as I thought it would be, it's basically just a bunch of rubbers and screw/bolt sets haha. I also got them to pick up a pair of Classic Instrument gauges whilst they were over there. They were so expensive, but definitely way better looking and higher quality than most of the other types out there. Folded up a bit of sheet for the c-notch cover And also laser cut out the hinges for the back of the bed. Then decided how to make them pivot and turned up some bosses and sleeves. Need to get a better tap, a couple bolts and a some nylon washers to finish it off.

Made a start on the bed over the past week, first thing was to remove all the old brackets and supports. They were a bitch to remove since they were spot welded ever 150mm or so and you couldn't see where the spot welds were, eventually got there after doing 1/4 of them each day after work. Decided to put the c-notch up through the deck because I think they look terrible with a raised deck with hardly any depth. After that I made up a frame out of 40x40 box section that fits on top of where the original wood would of sat. That means the deck will be about 40mm higher than standard, which is good because it will hide all the rust/corrosion behind where the old brackets were removed. Need to sandblast/paint where those brackets were and everywhere below the box section and fix the rust up the front of the tray. Was thinking of making the whole deck lift up so you can access stuff underneath it, but I couldn't figure an easy way to do the hinges. Then I realised I only really need to access the airbag stuff and the fuel tank so I'll just make the back third lift up. Made a mock-up in Solidworks to test how the hinging works. The pivot point needs to be above the wooden boards so that they clear the c-notch panel when it lifts up. Seems like it works well, can lift up to 60 degrees before it hits.

My parents spotted this in their travels in the USA, so sweet!

Have finished the majority of the rust in the doors, just one little hole on the side of one to go. I have welded on a new folded over flangey bit and painted all in there on the photo below. Has come out pretty good. The other door was pretty much the same deal. Another thing I did was make the cowl vent bracket fit this dash. Since it's changed to the RHD dash and I'm still using the LHD vent bracket it ended up mounting in the same place the glove box hinge was, so cut it up and drilled some new holes. That's the vent fully opened, can also be set to be slightly opened. Needs a different seal as the current one is too stiff and doesn't allow the vent to pull down flush, otherwise it operates pretty well. Filled up the two holes that were left at the top of the firewall as well, probably should do the same to those other two. Hooked up the accelerator cable. Then did some average panel beating and bogging to fix where the panel warped when I welded the bracket to the back of the firewall. Might need a bit more work one day. The part that clips in to the firewall for the accelerator cable was a bit loose and needed some sort of spacer, so laser cut out some circlip sort of things. Cable ties are sweet to hook the cable to the pedal right?! It does work well though, has good travel, feel etc. Received the seatbelt mounts back from getting passivated. Today I made up this after work. It is to mount the steering column to the firewall. Making a cone that small out of 2mm stainless without using rollers isn't very fun! Pretty happy with how it turned out though. Don't think I could make the steering column any shinier if I tried! Haha Borrowed a wheel off the Mercury to see what whitewalls look like. They're a bit wider and higher profile than what I'll be using, looks so sweet though!

Not a lot has happened to this thing, still drive it as a daily. Bought some 13x6.5" and 7" Hayashi Streets from Japan a year ago. They were fully powdercoated black so I stripped that off and gave them a polish. Only recently purchased some tires and fitted them. They're too wide for the guards without pulling them out, which I don't want to do. So I'm selling them if anyone is interested. Also after another pair of starsharks in 13x6.5" if anyone knows of any.

I might attend. Should probably change the thread title to something a bit more informative/definite now

Redone the gusset on the front end because I wasn't happy with how it looked, should be much stronger now. Made a start on the handbrake linkage thing. Used some $2.50 block bearings from aliexpress, as I was not keen on paying over $100 for two in NZ that weren't even the right size (needed 12mm ID ones and apparently 12mm is a very uncommon bearing size) so would of had to sleeve 20mm ones to fit. The china ones seem decent enough for what they're being used for. My dad had an aluminium air bag tank that he was planning on using for another car, but it fits this perfectly apart from the mounts being on the back instead of the bottom. So might buy it off him, cut off the mounts and re-weld them in the correct place. Made up some more plates for seat belt mounts, this time for the floor. The retractor bolts onto the back and then the lap belt bolts on to the part sticking out. Also has a doubler plate underneath the floor with some captive nuts. Stripped everything off the doors to see if they needed any repairs. Yes they did. This is the worst of the two. Was hidden under a rubber seal and the strip that holds it in place. Left side door isn't as bad but still needs some patches as there was a few rust holes. Found some on the outside skin which is a bit annoying, but the patch shouldn't be too visible anyway. My parents are heading off to America soon so I made up a list of all the parts I need. Everything is so cheap but it adds up quickly. Hopefully it will all fit in their suitcases.

Exhaust is finally all finished fab wise. Got around to doing the rear most mounts. It's pretty rigid now and hopefully shouldn't hit anywhere as there's some quite close clearances. Pulled the cab off again to do some stuff. Started by scraping off the remainder of underseal, that took quite a few hours. Then finally got around to finishing the trans tunnel. Made the holes in the corners bigger so some patches could be welded in and then just gave all the welds a sand to tidy them up. No idea why the firewall rusts so quickly where the etch primer has been sanded off. Nothing else seems to rust much. Crappy primer maybe? Will sand it all back to metal one day anyway and use some better stuff. Fixed the rust holes in the rear cab corners. It's in pretty good condition compared to most! Seemed to be missing some photos of those rust repairs but it's all done now. Whilst the cab was off it was a good opportunity to pull off the shackles that mount the back of the cab to the chassis and give them a tidy up with new bushes. Pretty surprised at how well they've survived, the shafts that the rubber bushes go over were still shiny steel! Gave everything a sandblast and then sanded off all the edges so they're a bit nicer. They made some cool looking sparks! They're all painted now, photos to come soon.

Nothing too exciting has happened, just lots of little things, hence why there hasn't been many updates, but I thought I'd better do one before I get too many more photos. Rust killed and painted the back of the dash today. I'm tempted to weld it in to the cab but I know that I will regret it when I need to fit the wiper motor, heater etc behind it. Pressed the holes in on the airbag tray, looks heaps better! Needed to weld some box section behind it as it warped quite abit. I'm thinking I might paint it with some black crinkle paint. Had the certifier come and have a look at how to mount the seat belts, since the upper back of the cab is a thin double skin. Came to the conclusion that we needed to slide in and weld some plates in behind the skin and door frame. Hard to see in the photos but the inner skin has quite a weird shape to it; curves out and then back in and around to the rear window. It also slants down at an angle, so that's where these brackets come in. Took awhile to figure out how to make them as I started off trying to shape them to fit the curved profile but that was a fail, then realised that they could just be flat plate at the two angles. Drilled some holes, hoped they were in the right place. The plates fit through a gap up by the headlining. I could only just fit my hand in there, caused a lot of pain trying to get them fitting right. They were perfectly in the right place so plug welded them in. Also another two plugs above and below the nut. Scored a handbrake for a few dollars from the vintage car club Cleaned it up and cut some holes in the floor Because the dash has been swapped from LHD to RHD there wasn't any holes in the firewall for the support brackets. Instead of drilling holes and having some horrible looking threads and nuts sticking through, I made up a mount and shorted the bracket to suit. Need to do the same on the other side now. Welded in the cowl vent pivot/gutter thing as well. Gave it all some decent coats of paint so hopefully it doesn't rust again. Put the rubber seal in but it's too thick and hard so the vent sits a little high, will have to sort a new seal one day.

The dash now has all the rust fixed, really happy with how it turned out. Took maybe close to 10 hours to just weld it all up though. Should only need bog in a few places, the rest a few coats of primer will fill nicely.

Had to make another steering column tube since the first one was too long and the spline didn't stick out from the end. Also made the slot for the shifter longer so it has more gear selection. Laser cut a mount out of 12mm Ali for the steering column, needs a little bit ground out of the main mounting hole as it's a bit small and the triangles could also be polished more. Have also polished the shifter/indicator part of the column, looks heaps better than the silver paint. The steering columns going to be the flashest part of the whole truck haha. Done a bit more to the dash, has come out really well, very happy with it. Wasn't sure how well this would turn out, but so far it's turned out mint. Can't really see from the photos but I also fixed the left gauge surround, as it was terribly deformed, the front face was flared out a bit/not flat and out of round so the gauges didn't fit. It's pretty good now, just has a small rust hole that needs fixing. Not looking forward to welding it as there's so much!

Haven't done much more to the dash apart from fit it into the cab, as I am undecided how to approach the rusty holes under the gauges yet, a bit too many complex shapes! My Dad had a 55 Chevy steering column laying around, so we started to mock it up. The shaft out of that column had been welded in multiple places so we found another column that had a mint shaft and it was also longer so didn't need an extra universal joint added. The outer tube of the column was pretty average, had lots of extra holes, cutouts and had been shortened, so drew a new one up in Solidworks and got it put through the Tube laser at work. It's now made from 2 inch stainless tube.

Thanks! At home it's the complete opposite actually, just a cheap non-branded single phase welder, ain't the greatest for heavier stuff. Otherwise the ones I have at work are big 3 phase Lincoln ones

Made some brackets to mount the valves. For some reason the holes ended up too far out so had to slot them a little. They're held in with countersunk screws so it's all still flush underneath (not that anyone will be able to see underneath anyway haha). Played around a bit with the location for a while and decided this was the best. Wasn't really enough room for the compressor to fit in between. Will mount a compressor on each side of the bed, just above the exhaust area. Back to fitting and fixing the rust in the dash now. Cut out the good/un-butchered section of the dash that some idiot tried fitting a commodore cluster in. Glad to finally throw this shit out! Pic for motivation

Finished another patch of rust. Hate trying to do them when you can't get in behind with a dolly, makes it difficult. Made up some strap sort of things to mount the fuel tank. Spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to mount it and decided that adding another bar between the chassis rails was the best. The straps pull the tank up against the top brackets, should hopefully hold it in place well enough. Made up a aluminium tray to mount the air tank and compressor in. Being able to draw stuff up in cad, program it, laser cut and use a CNC press-brake is pretty great! It's pretty tight but fits. Will swap the tank to the back as the tank will look better being visible through those holes than the compressor. I'm sure I'll paint it black so it's a bit more subtle. Got the rest of the exhaust tacked together as well. Not sure if I'll change where it exits, because at the moment it sort of comes out between the tailgate and bumper or just leave it as is. I think the whole exhaust has 10-12 u-bends in it now haha.

I use one of these and they're amazing. The bigger view is great, especially if you're trying to weld stuff while looking straight down or over the top of something

Yeah it's one of the Mercs my parents own. Currently just have the two but have also owned another couple over the recent years. That one was imported from America with the roof chopped off and Junior's in Wellington finished it off. Hasn't had much done to it since, Dad wants to start on the Model A Tudor before that one.

Nearly done the transmission tunnel. This piece of the firewall has always annoyed me by how it isn't symmetrical, so cut it out and fixed that. Just need to do something with the little hole on either side where the tunnel, floor and firewall meet. Also built the fuel tank. Drew it up in Solidworks and then lasercut it. Added a couple of baffles that located and slotted into the top. Here it's fully welded, will give it a polish or something one day. The big flange is for the pump, the smaller one is for a sender unit and the small holes are for the return line and breather. I think it's just under 60 litres. Now to figure out how to mount it.

Done the floor patch, just need to do the bit up the side and then there's a few little patches of rust, where the top of the guards bolt to the cab on both sides and a pin hole in the rear cab corner. That'll hopefully be all the rust in the cab done, then I can start on the transmission tunnel.