New SJ owner - couple of q’s

  Cut the tail mount out in many many pieces and freed the floor. Once that was out the shell went some what lozenge shaped. 
With the promise of beer and bbq I got the boys over to chuck the shell back on the chassis. 
I could then turn my attention to the inner cross member and getting the back aligned. 

The shell was pretty easy to move around with a ratchet strap to get the tail gate sitting well. Then spotted and fully welded in.

Next job was test fitting the wings. Well they kinda fit…. More on this in the week. Think Martin got off easy with just one spot weld to break. 
I’ve got the bonnet on for alignment and the door.  Both wings are cock eyed in different ways and the top and bottom rails for the grill are just garbage. 

Still a few evenings tapping will get that sorted…

She’s sitting pretty well tho on the new OME suspension, nothing too crazy but should be a bit more capable than the stock jimmy we’ve been using for competition. 

Taking inspiration from the somewhat wild 1980’s graphics these seem to wear… a graphics package has been ordered!

We had more than one spot weld to adjust. There is a vertical brace towards the back that had to be released at the base and a spot at the front inner corner

Martin

I think I’m probably going to split all the spots round the headlight rim. One is 10mm further set back than the other one…. I think loosening it all up and pulling it back to shape is the way forward.

Popped the hood on and the doors. Damn it looks good. Can’t wait to get it into paint and graphics. Then see if it’s any good in the muck

Popped the spots at on the passenger side wing last night. It’s pulled in nicely.

The drivers side is getting closer. Think I’m going to have to re-drill where the grill pins pop in. It’s a right old fiddle.

I’ve got pattern parts for the grill bars top and bottom. They are absolutely shockingly bad.
I need to make a choice between them and the rusted originals with all lots of sheared off bolts.
In the favour of the re-pops none of the threads are any where close so I could just put them in the right places….

The problem side!

Hmmm hmmm hmm so now the grill fits in the hole. However… the head light bowls are substantially offset from the grill holes. This might be because it’s rhd. But I suspect it’s because the brackets are in the wrong place.

Are all after market wings garbage?

Ok, the joy of part finished projects! I have a couple of H4 lens. I have some mystery chunky black plastic circles that don’t seem to relate the headlamp mounts or the lights and have a big spring clip at the top.

I think I need to order up a sealed beam to H4 conversion kit and the jobs a good un.

Did a couple of hours work tonight, split all the head lamp fittings out and tossed them in the laterz pile. 

Then took the top and bottom mount and had a play. Cleco’d the top one in. Using the grill brackets it seems the holes on the bottom one are a full 10mm out… I’ve ordered a nut sert tool. We’ll put nuts in the right places over the weekend….

 

  No proper work on it today… but the livery did break cover for a try on. 

 

Looking forward to seeing this finished.

I hate saying this but when you are setting your gaps and fits you have established that the frame is level in both directions and not tweaked anywhere? Only I had a terrano many years ago that cracked it's windscreen when I collected it because it was set in with the car on uneven ground and caused stress in the window opening. It's just talk of the shell being 10mm out in places seems like a lot.

Appreciate the thoughts, I’ll be back on the panels in a coupla weeks.
I reckon the chassis is straight. I’ll show the panel issues once I’ve starting to finalise locations. Luckily I’ve got some tired old panels, so I can compare the fitting locations. The new ones aint great!