Ulysses

Really nice

Thanks Guys!

More painting today. Cage and alloy plates. The cage takes a surprisingly long time to get around all of it with the sprayer, hence not as impressive as the main colour going on. Still its done and drying now.

1st coat is buzzweld RE primer (Rust Encapsulation) sprayed on with shultz gun again



Then after an hour or so to flash off its on with the raptor black



Then I also squeezed in primer (acid etch this time for the bare aluminium). Rattle can but does the job.



Still to prime/paint the trailer body and underneath & chassis of the car, getting there tho

Riccy, I find this a fascinating thread. Thank you for your time and effort. It must be a daunting task, just carrying out the work, let alone having to take pictures and document it, for our benefit.

Full marks from me. :ohmy:

As a BOF, I hate to use the word, but your Jimny will be "awesome" when finished.



Steve.

Thanks Steve, yes a bit daunting. It wasnt intended to get this mad!

Havent had the time for much work on it lately, but had managed to get a load of the interior stuff put back in, still to finish there...











and today was fighting with all the rusty old bolts to remove the rear axle. Front is to come off tomorrow and then cleanup them and underbody for spraying on Monday (hopefully!). The axles need the diffs swapped to 3.9 ARB locker's from the parts stash, so will get that done before they are painted and might squeeze in some bracing 'gusset's' if I have time as well

Was up early this morning so decided to take the front axle off first (as it wasnt going to make loads of noise to annoy neighbors, considerate aint I? )

Front was as much of a pain to get off as the back, but it gave up eventually. Some new bolts and anti roll bar links are needed after the grinder was called for at one point, but thats expected.

So axles stripped down and on the bench. First job was to swap out the 4.3 diffs for 3.9 ratio and air lockers. TomDK (forum member) sold me the lockers a while ago and kindly left them in the diffs to make fitting much easier. Last time I fitted ARBs into J999MNY it took a full day just to fit the 2 lockers into the donor diffs, then the swap to do. Much easier this time



The front axle case needed a couple of small grinds to the hole for the diff. This is a VVT casing and the diff is from a non VVT, so its slightly larger than the hole. Maybe 1mm needed to come off in two places for the carrier bearing mount of the diff to slide in. Not much but impossible without it!





Next was to tidy up and tap the breathers for screw in pipe attachments. Didnt take a pic of that, but its just a simple thing to do when its in bits like this.

Gusset :blush: :whistle:

The correct word for the brace fitted. Its basically a bit of heavy 50mm box steel sliced long ways to fit onto the axle at an angle. Its job is to brace over the weld on the longer section from the diff housing. This is the known weak bit on a jimny axle (apart from bearings). So cut and weld. Welding coming along pretty well...









This axle has had an easy life, despite looking manky. Its straight and no cracks. The holes for radius arms, shocks and panhard are all as new so no bracing needed there (yet). Might weld some thick washers on before paint. The rear axle did get some of the jimnybits rear shock guards welded on instead of the usual mounting (or rather as well as, since they just use the radius arm bolts to hold in position).

On the rack for a bit of sandblasting to get rid of loose rust and dirt. nearly ready for paint

You've been a busy boy!

Ready for Summer?