Giving the Jimny a birthday

Amazing pace you ate going at, I just wish I had a quarter of your energy and motivation 

Hi Soeley,

Thanks, I just want to get it done before I get a call to go back to work and I have to pay for the shed another month just for storage.  The pace only looks good because I'm spending at least 9 hours a day, 7 days a week there. 

The good part of the shed is that I can leave it as is and come back to it exactly how I left it, no need to shuffle things around in the garage.   I'm kind of enjoying the work at the same time, so that helps too.

Hi Roger,

I think I have hydrochloric acid in the garage, that should do the trick. I'll mix it 10 to 1 (acid going in last of course).

That will be one of the jobs to do once I'm out of the shed I think. I've got so much welding to do. My boot floor from jimnybits arrived today.

Hi Mike,

Yes, I used hydrochloric acid, but being impatient, I used it neat, but you need to be careful.

If you see smoke rising, your being dissolved.

Roger

Roger, if I see smoke rising, it's probably just all the money I've spent refurbishing my jimny.

Tuesday 9th March,

A lot of time was wasted today.  In between driving back and forth to catch courier deliveries, helping one of the lads in the other sheds and an old friend dropping in past for a chat, I didn't achieve as much as I'd like to have done.

Jobs done today:

• re-done the spacers for the steering. Added in the original 10mm that I forgot to put back, so the total length of the spacers is 30mm (for 2"body lift)
• drilled out spot welds for the splash guards on the rear arches and removed both guards on both sides
• fabricated a spacer for the brake line manifold in preparation for the body lift
• added a front and a rear extended brake line to the chassis from the suspension lift kit
• cleaned up the front of the engine bay to see how much rustiness needs to be cut back when fitting the slam panel
• grinded back the rotten sil on the port side to see where I can stick metal patches to

Didn't do as much as I wanted today really, but in fairness, at least I've done something.  My boot floor arrived from jimnybits today, so I can get stuck into that after the sils and rear arches have been given much needed new metal.  The biggest problem I can see with the boot floor is just being able to take my time and let it cool before the heat warps my work.  The slam panel doesn't look too hard a job either, I'll do that one last as I think it will need a lot of eyeballing to make sure it's on straight.

Jobs tomorrow will be to continue grinding the body to make sure its acceptable for welding and coating once complete.  Really need to get the bottom of the body all sorted out so I can coat it up and give it enough time to dry before I put it back on the chassis.  I can leave the wheel arch areas alone for now (apart from where the front springs will cover).  I've only got a week left in the shed now, so the more I do there, the better as I'll be doing the rest in my driveway after that....weather permitting.