Giving the Jimny a birthday

I'm dreading the wire wheel now. There's a lot of previous underseal to come off and it takes forever!

Monday 15th March

Jobs done:

• Welded on another sil plate and reenforced two rear points where the body gets jacked up
• removed front wings
• braced up the front and cut out the old slam panel
• cut back the rusty mess at the front and test fitted the new panel
• pressed in new poly bushes to the radius arms and a panhard rod
• put new ball-joints in steering and tracking rods.  Cleaned up threads as these were shockingly bad.

Think I just needed a break from welding today, so I decided to get a start on the slam panel.  I removed the front wings, then braced the front of the vehicle using a flat bar, drilled and bolted to the wings and proceeded to drill out the spot welds.  Most of the old panel came off quite easily (with a 12 inch petrol grinder), but then again, it was mostly rust.  A test fit of the new panel looked promising, but I'm not going to commit to it's position until I've seen the body back on the chassis and how all the lights and wing panels look, not to mention the body mounts lining up. 

I'll have to think about getting a bunch of new fasteners for the suspension components as it's about time I got that in a rolling state again.  I also tried to remove the grease nipple from the drive shaft that slides on splines, but gave up on it as it was like warm chocolate...and as the shaft has already been painted, I didn't want to heat it up to remove it, bit close to the UJ bearings anyway.  I decided to pack the splines with grease and put a new cover over it, but I made a boo boo and seperated both parts when of the driveshaft when cleaning it without marking its position first.  Looks like I'll be removing and refitting the driveshaft at least 15 times now to find the correct balanced position   Ah well, that will teach me for switching off my brain.

Jobs for tomorrow:
get back on the grinder and start prepping up the underneath of the body for its first coat of primer.
maybe put some paint on some parts

It's an amazing amount of work in a very short time. You appear to have tackled a Jimny with every conceivable rust spot in full swing, it's going to be amazing when it starts to come together. 
Cant be that far from this turning point.
It's made me feel worn out just looking at the pictures. Good work.

Mike G wrote: Monday 15th March

... I'll have to think about getting a bunch of new fasteners for the suspension components as it's about time I got that in a rolling state again. ...

If you're short of anything I try and stock all the nuts'n'bolts needed for suspension rebuilds -  www.zookbob.com/bolts

 

Thanks Scimike,

I'm about worn out myself working 7 days a week for 2 weeks now. Mind you, its been better than sitting around the house sedentary all day like I have been doing recently.

I'm starting to see some results from my labour. Hopefully within the week, I should have it back to a rolling (starting?) vehicle again. I didn't fancy buying another jimny as I've grown attached to this one, plus I passed the point of no return when I said yes to the rental of the shed. It was 'all in' or nothing once I'd started.

thanks,

If I get stuck, I'll give you a shout. I think I have most stuff on order arriving. I've tried to be proactive along the way.

Tuesday 16th March,

Jobs done today:

• found out correct orientation for driveshaft and corrected it
• fitted new boot to driveshaft and filled with grease
• found two holes on underside, welded patches on them
• wire wheeled whole of underneath from rear of engine bay to rear of vehicle including arch areas
• washed underneath down with white spirit ('didn't have cellulose thinners)
• seam sealed all welds
• brush primed whole of underneath with QD primer

With regards to the boo boo I made yesterday with the driveshaft, I remembered that some of the earlier pictures I took were of the driveshaft before I started painting.  Luckily, the angle of shot I'd taken allowed me to see what orientation the balance weights were. So that was an easy fix.  I was set on gettting at least one coat of protection on the underside of the vehicle, but found a few more holes that I'd missed, so I patched them up, washed down the underneath and seam sealed all welds.  At that point, I went for my dinner and left the seam sealer to dry.  When I came back I chucked on a coat of QD primer.  

Jobs for tomorrow
Unfortunately, I have a course to go on all day, for work, so I'm losing a day.  But if I get home at a decent time, I will set about prepping my rusty old rear springs for painting so that they match the new front springs and maybe get a coat of plasticote primer on them.  If anyone has a pair of rear 2" lift orange trailmaster springs, let me know as they will make my motor look nice, at least for a little while until the paint decided to fall off.

Wednesday 17th March

Jobs done:

• finished off priming by painting the front arches area
• plasticote primed panhard rods
• tidied up workbench area
• went to get argon for the welder as the gas ran out

Didn't get much done today after the course.  Had to pack and post something i'd sold on ebay and get argon for the welder, so a lot of the evening was spent driving about.  Managed to get to the stage where I can now stonechip the underneath, which should give it a bit of time to dry before I rejoin the body to the chassis in a few days.

Jobs for tomorrow:
build suspension and get the chassis rolling
look out more metal to use for the last of the welding
plasticote panhard rods
start polishing exhaust pipe

Thursday 18th March

Jobs done:

• looked out some more metal for repairs on the slam panel fitting areas
• painted gearbox area on body with some left over black hammerite
• removed rear springs from hydrochloric acid (I'd left them in overnight) and cleaned them off
• painted rear springs with plasticote primer and paint
• masked off and painted panhard rods with plasticote primer and paint
• polished exhaust pipe with scotchbrite then wool pads and stainless steel polish
• polished exhaust back box with wool pads and stainless steel polish
• coated underneath of car body and all wheel arches with upol gravitex
• started fitting suspension to chassis

Managed to get quite a bit of paint coating done today.  Wanted to give the paint a few days to dry before I did anything, so I polished the exhaust in between coating components and the car body.  The hydrochloric acid brought the springs up nicely, I really didn't fancy messing around with a grinder on them, so I'm glad it did all the hard work.  Think I'll chuck another load of gravitex on the underside tomorrow as I bought far too much.  I'll also take in the areas covered by the sil trims as i'm done welding on there now.  I had to take a few hours off today as it was my grans birthday, so went round there for a couple of hours and then headed back to the shed to start putting some suspension parts back on the chassis.  Just hope everything fits back together now.  Everything is all manky and dusty now and will need a good clean up before the interior starts being build up again.   I'll probably take it to a professional cleaner once I'm done as they will do a much better job than i ever would.

Jobs for tomorrow:
clean up the metal I found and make up some templates for the last few welding jobs
seal the boot floor with tiger seal
put another coat of gravitex on the bottom
carry on with getting the chassis rolling again

Friday 19th March,

Jobs done:

• test fitted new rear bumper to see how far stonechip could be sprayed
• fitted rear suspension components and axle
• ran in brake lines on rear axle
• fitted front suspension components and axle
• cut templates and then metal shapes for 4 welding jobs
• welded in 2 of the plates and partially did 3rd

Took the new rear bumper out of the box to have a look at how far the stone chip needs to be sprayed.  It looks quite good, but not sure whether I should get it colour coded to match the car or black to match the new arches that are arriving next month. 

I really wanted to get the chassis rolling today, however, I was short on a few washers, so I thought it best to just wait until tomorrow when the shop opens and get them first before progressing.  So I decided to cut out some metal for the welding jobs that I have left to do and started welding again.  Finished quite late today 0130 Sat morning.

Jobs for tomorrow
get the washers and finish the chassis, so that it's ready to roll under the body
put some seam sealer and primer on the newly welded areas
finish off some of the welding jobs if time permits
start moving some of the stuff I'm not going to be able to fit at the shed, back to my garage.

Saturday 20th March

Jobs done:

• cleaned up fuel tank in prep for painting
• finished welding back bumper plates in
• finished welding hole in rear wheel arch near bumper plate
• seam sealed all new welds

Totally forgot to update the thread yesterday.  Another late one at 0100 and I fell asleep not long after I came in.  A couple more days in the shed and I'll have the jimny back on my driveway in a rolling condition.  Once the chassis and body are mated and a handbrake cable is connected up, I can happily park it outside, clean it up and fit the interior.

Last night, I finished off the welding that I'd planned to do when the chassis was back on the body.  As welding takes up a lot of time, I decided just to get it done as soon as possible rather than later.  I also found out that the fuel QD connectors that I'd ordered were both 8mm and the tank requires 1x 8mm and 1x 6mm(?), so it will be a while until I get the engine started now.  Luckily the trailer I'm taking it back home with has a winch.

Jobs for tomorrow
get the second coat of gravitex on the bottom
wheel the chassis under the body and try to line it up
once lined up, test fit body so that slam panel boy mounts can be lined up correctly
weld up slam panel

Monday 22nd March

I missed a trick when naming the thread.  I should have called it from 'Rusty Bin' to 'Metal Mickey' with all the welding that needed done.

Jobs done:

• second coat of gravitex applied to vehicle
• all car parts removed from shed and transported to my garage
• vehicle lined up and body dropped onto chassis
• missed sill hole welded up (oops, apparently a hole in the sil would have been an mot failure)
• handbrake attached and working
• headlights and bonnet catch fitted to align slam panel
• slam panel alignment good

Last day in the shed tomorrow.  So hope to get the slam panel spot welded in and the bits I cut out behind the headlights filled in.  Hopefully it's not been to boring updating everyone, but it has been good motivationally for me to be accountable and updating the thread has kept me productive.  Once the jimny is out of the shed and back at my driveway, I don't think the updates will be so frequent as its mostly just putting back all the engine bay components I'd disconnected, putting the interior back in and reconnecting all the connectors to the engine, gearbox and drivers console and lots and lots of cleaning. The body work can't continue until my wheel arches from China arrive, which will probably be next month and I will most likely be back at sea working.  But I'll be sure to post some more updates tomorrow and then only significant ones down the line until I get my (nearly) new jimny MOT'd and back on the road.

Jobs for tomorrow
finish the slam panel
seam seal sil weld done today (prime and stonechip if time permits)
transport vehicle on trailer to home
have a few cups of tea and catch up on some sleep