oftensideways

Yeah as above, wish I knew the brake fluid trick! Excited to see where you go with this thing mate.

Love seeing how fast you're ripping into the Starlet mate! It looks like it's going to be awesome.

Damn Matt...You really are doing a hell of a job on this bro, good shit!

looking great bro! You will love the j160 swap

looking good man. I hope you keep all that body damage as is!

looking awesome mate! I feel your pain on the welder, I have the same..

oh man! this is going to be wild, excited to see progress

The little things that can mean a lot!

Long time no update! Well after my last post i'll be honest and say the van pretty much sat outside the shed for a good 6 months. Summer was basically over and motivation was low to carry on with the work needed to get it road legal. But wind back a couple of months ago and I cracked back into it, finishing off little things, getting the pop top attached properly and repairing the front brakes (now new parts throughout). Trailered it down to VTNZ and Restorations Unlimited for the repair cert, back another time for recheck and as of yesterday the Hiace is now 100% road legal! managed to retain the original black plates which i'm real stoked about to. Now that it's legal i'll be getting stuck into the rear fit out which so far the plan is to have the kitchen out the back door and seat/table/bed all accessed through the slider door. Also need to wet sand and buff the paint job, few spots I got a little hazy over spray and a couple bits have a bit to much orange peel.

damn! this entire build is just so bloody good! love your work mate.

Sorry about the lack of assembly photos and updates. Been way to busy getting it back together. Anyway, it happened! Got it all back together and drove it out to the venue for our wedding, air mattress in the back and that was us for the night! heres a quick phone photo but once I’ve sorted my life out I’ll take some better photos of the whole thing and do a bit of a run down how the last month went

Have been full noise assembling, 5 days and I need to drive it out of the shed. Sleep is slim

Neither can I! Just waiting for all the nuts,bolts and screws to come back from the electroplater then will go hard assembling it. No we haven't yet, on the look out all the time but hard to decide on whether we just get an industrial pain sewer or splash out for a walking foot.

Pretty bloody happy right now!

Finally spraying some colour around! Real happy with the colour. Will have all bar two doors done by the end of the weekend

Final prime is done, I have the week to block it back then will Paint next weekend! It's definitely not factory straight but it'll do. Also made a start on the bolt on panels, which don't need to much work, so hopefully get those in primer ASAP.

ooooooo wee!

A bit of inspiration!

I've been cranking along on the bog work, getting in a few hours every night after work, kids, dinner, partner etc and most of the weekend. deadline to have it back together is looming. I guess people are usually a bit worried about showing how much bog has gone onto a car but if I want this to be even reasonably straight it just is what it is. two big tins down at this stage. Another night or two filling some of the lows and pinholes then i'll high fill prime all the repaired areas and give it a good block back and see how it's sitting. Decided on a colour. I was leaning towards more of a chocolate brown but found a few pictures of Hiaces dark browns and I wasn't a fan, the Brown i've chosen is a factory KE30 colour and was actually the colour of my KE30 when I first bought it as a 17 year old, which I then proceeded to ruin it by painting it satin black.

man how good does that look! Get it done greg then we can go on vanning missions

All etch primed and ready to body fill! It really was a struggle to stretch the weld shrinkage back out due do it being to hard to get to the back of the panels, but its solid steel so i'm happy. I think a real quality metal finished job would have the entire panels un picked and beaten into shape before being stitched back on, far beyond the scope of this build I feel.

Thank you! I'm self employed and do a lot of repair and Fabrication work, mainly for agriculture/horticulture guys but I do dable in cars for customers. Not qualified in anything tho! The internet is a great tool for learning.

Nearly a year to the day I started the rust repairs and today the van found its way into the temporary spray booth! Laid on some Brunox and epoxy primer this evening so once we are back from our little NY camp mission i'll be able to get stuck into getting some filler on in prep for some top coat. Can't wait!

Yes im a tad impatient at times and do big long runs of welding haha. Most of the warped areas I can get behind so once all the repairs are done, i'll do my best at panel beating some straightness back into it. I've never heard of a shrinking disc? will do some reasearch

cheers mate! I've still got a long way to go with controlling warpage so will be all hidden in some lovely layers of T bucket bog