MS51HT's RS56 Crown Ute

[MS51HT]

Had another successful weekend in the shed working on the ute. I'm pushing hard to get the two car halves stitched together as soon as possible so that the car can be condensed into one - the space that the chassis, front hand, rear half and OE RS56 front half consumes is getting out of hand.

My shed is starting to look like a hoarders den - with small passages and alleyways providing access to the various troves of parts and tools hidden within the workshop.

As a family, the upcoming year is going to be massive - a couple of overseas trips within the next 8 months combined with plans to renovate the house is giving sufficient motivation to free up some space in the only domain I have total control.

Fortunately, my wife is an absolute champion - and after a quick chat over the morning coffee she gave me her blessing to abandon her and the kids for most of the weekend and the promise of allocated time on the upcoming Anzac day public holiday.

So I got into the shed and tried my best to stay on target - which was resolving the rusty spots that would later be difficult to work on once the two halves were merged.

The inner structure panels were fully welded in and the weld penetration to the inside ground back. Not aiming for a file finish - but close would be nice!

Once that was done, I moved onto the lower section of the rear firewall. I slipped the upper firewall section back in to help establish where the missing metal was. Folded up a small template to show where steel should be.

Made a paper template up to pick up the key fold lines and general shape based on the best guesswork I had to offer.

After tweaking the template, I marked out two pieces of steel to make a patch for each side.

 

Replacement panels then folded, trimmed and spotted into place.

Once I got those situated, I moved onto the next big piece which was continuing the upper lip to which the upper rear firewall section spot welds to.

[MS51HT]

Not having a sheet metal folder (anymore.... I did have one, but sold it for lack of use / annoyance it presented by always being in the way) or any sheets of suitable steel that I could use to bend a continual replacement piece - I had to find another immediate solution. Looking at the pile of scrap metal cut from the sedan revealed the middle roof support (which had the sedan interior light bracket attached)

Seemed to be close to the right length - however the step wasn't quite right. Carried on and drilled the interior light bracket off. Photo below shows the variation in step heights.

Figured I could just beat the panel into submission to achieve the required profile. After marking a line for where the bend needed to be, I set a couple of pieces of flat bar in the vice and had at it.

After much hammering the desired profile was achieved.

After cutting the required piece away, I spent more time hammering the panel to remove the epic bow it had taken on (from having metal stretched in one area, but not the other) before moving on to matching it up with the ute body.

The panel still had quite a bow to it - but knowing that welding it in was going to require follow up hammer and dolly work I wasn't too stressed.

The Mrs suggested that a 5pm knock off and a walk around the block with the kids would be a good idea, so I quickly tacked the panel onto the body in a 'close enough = good enough' fashion before stumps.

A few gaps were filled (including a 50mm gap at the other end as a result of the panel not being quite long enough) before I switched off the welder and headed out to get some fresh air.

Also of note - I ground back the welds on the back side of the panel I welded in at the start of the day (although no one will see the welds when the rear 1/4's are back on) purely to allow me to planish the welds.

Planishing the welds stretched the material that had shrunk during the welding process and flattened the panel substantially - a quick pass over with a flap wheel saw the welds almost disappear (as per above photo). Happy with that!

[MS51HT]

Hectic days since last update - but still alive to tell the tale, so that's good.

Got stuck in and welded out the replacement steel - then spent a FUCKING ETERNITY grinding back the excess.

Yet another spot that no one will see (but I will know about) so whatever.

Inserted replacement steel into the lower sections that were rotted out too.

Decided to drag the TIG out and have a crack - the idea of ending up with a flat weld that would require minimal grinding made me all tingly downstairs. The welder I have is an Everlast 256 something something - TIG + STICK + PLASMA.

It came shipped with a 15A plug - which promptly melted once I tried dialing the plasma cutter up to 11 (60A) to cut some 16mm plate - which resulted in an upgrade to a 32A socket and dedicated circuit.

The issue with that is there is only one 32A socket in the shed - and it's never where I need it to be.

Found some heavy 3phase cable that I was saving for a rainy day (hoarding) and used it to extend the lead on the welder.

After putting my electrical ticket away, I got my welding ticket back out and jumped straight in.

No warm up.

No test piece.

Can you tell?

In all fairness - the small torch I used at the start had an issue (seems like it's drawing air in somewhere causing a shitty arc / oxidized the tungsten) so after changing out to the ultra large hand piece that came with the welder I got stuck in.

Turns out the only thing rustier than this ute is my TIG welding skills.

Anywhoo - one massively distorted (but flat-ish) weld later;

Planished the weld and gained some flatness back.

 

Called it good enough and moved on with my life (which meant packing everything away until the next available time slot)

5 days later - operation 'clean up the backyard which looks like a fuckin junkyard' was put into play.

With the tray section on the trolley, the cab section on the hoist and the chassis sitting outside ruining the aesthetics of the backyard - there was a whole heap of car spread out everywhere.

So I slipped it all back together.

It's amazing how much room you get back when you put a car back together.

Added hanging panels for maximum AWW FUCK YEAHS.

The wife has scheduled me some shed time on the weekend - that will hopefully give me the opportunity to do the final line up before welding the two pieces together.

[MS51HT]

Heckin' long time since my last update.

Lazy?

Maybe....

Busy?

Yes.

In between the normal fatherly / husbandly duties, a family trip to the UK / Europe and work being generally mental - there has been very little time available to get at this thing. Thrown into the mix is home renovations which is undergoing planning / pre work - work. Not that I'm complaining - I acknowledge I'm in a very privileged position.

In amongst the craziness, I managed to obtain a 4M with a 4 speed that will find it's way into the Ute to replace the 5R that's currently in it. It's unfortunate that the mounting points on the chassis are different between R and M powered vehicles - even more unfortunate is the donor chassis I did have access to is no longer accessible to me  It's not ideal - it just means it's going to consume some time replicating the M style chassis mounts.

Anyway - Father's day saw me presented with a ~2 hour window where I could get something done, so I headed out into the shed, shuffled all the shit around so I could drop the hoist down to get a good look at where I'd left everything.

The last time I had a play I stalled at the point of establishing the cabin position in relation to the tray - whilst the jig I made up to locate everything seemed like a good idea, it turned out to be totally good for fuck all.

It helped locate the 'B' pillar in relation to the 'A' pillar - but didn't account for levelness of the overall body - which was leading to headaches-a-plenty. The last thing I wanted was to situate everything where I THOUGHT it should go, only to find out later on it definitely wasn't where it SHOULD be.

2 beers in I realized I had both OE doors from the sedan - so figured I could bolt them on (using the witness marks from the original hinge installation points) and align the gaps between the window frame / sill panel to get a better idea on where everything needed to go.

Initial fitment looked promising (apart from the general condition of the doors....)

There was a fair amount of adjustment that occurred after these photos were taken - mainly to adjust the align the window frame.

Managed to get the driver's side pretty well spot on (when compared against the MS55) but the passenger side was totally up to shit.

Then I remembered that passenger side had a history of collision damage (the plenum side cover was cut out by me as it had been replaced at some stage with a piece of sheet metal) which meant there was a good chance the OE door position was not going to be original.

Case in point - the top section of the door was tucked right in at the top.

Witness marks on the upper hinge show adjustment suspected to cause the upper adjustment issue.

Spent some more time playing with the adjustment before the sounds of war started coming from the house which signaled the end of play.

So overall;

1. I'm happy to make SOME progress.

2. I think it looks super cool with more blue panels on it.

3. Although rusty, I'm digging the patina / rough look, so will carry that look on with the rest of the build.

[MS51HT]

Long weekend in WA gave me the opportunity to spend some time in the shed.

I considered working on mating the two halves together - unfortunately by brain couldn't see enough dopamine in doing that.

My brain suggested we do something cool, like work towards putting the M engine in between the front rails.

Issue the first - the damn R engine mounts and totally wrong for the M engine.

Luckily I have a partially disassembled MS55 to use as a comparison to see just how different they are.

To preface this, I had known about the discrepancy for some time - so I put the word out on the internets that I was chasing some mounts, with the hope that someone out there would have an old chassis that they could sacrifice for my greater good.

A few people reached out, but ultimately no one was able to help.

So after measuring up the material thickness of the OE mounts I dug through the steel pile to find some square tube that was close to the correct size.

Then I made up some paper templates from the OE mounts so I could transfer the shapes onto the material.

These mounts are made up of two separate components which aren't immediately obvious - paper templating the lower section was more difficult that I would have liked with the disadvantage that I was taking an inside measurement which I then used as an outside measurement - which kind of fucked things up a bit.

Anyway - I needed to do the lower pieces in two halves due to the material I had on hand not being exactly right;

Meh. Close enough.

Then I templated the upper pieces, marked out and cut from the stock;

I then proceeded to FLATTERZIZE them on the anvil;

 

[MS51HT]

More hammering into shape had me a pair of things that looked like the thing they needed to look like;

More hammering, tweaking and drilling had something that looked even closer to what they needed to look like;

Got stuck in and pulled the boat anchor and transmission - then cut the R mounts off the chassis.

Swung the engine in and then fucked around for a few hours to try and get everything into the correct orientation.

Image to show mount + mounting components.

 

 

[MS51HT]

Tacked the lower mounts in and confirmed for the final time that they were in the right spots.

Fully glued them in.

Gave the frame a wire wheel and threw some primer at it.

Then got the 'used car overhaul' spray gun out and blended it all in.

Happy with that.

While the paint was drying I fitted a new clutch slave cylinder and made up a fluid hard line that located the flexible line on the RH side of the cylinder head as per MS55.

Weekend done - hopefully I'll get a change to sling the engine in during the week so I can feel a little more accomplished.