It Has begun... "Project Wombat"

[DieselBoy]

I got home from the weekends adventures to find something lurking in one of the sheds


On closer inspection, it definatly was another LJ, with a pretty cool aluminum hard top!!!




I couldn't be bothered to drag it out of the shed for pic's just yet. I will get some soon, as I will be photographing the top and how it all mounts for future referrence

The Wombat now has a proper LJ50 tub that's not a cut and shut special


These are the Canvas doors I rescued from a shed I found while out on a trip down the line a few years ago


The stitching is rotten on one and not far off it on the other so they need recovering. Going to take one in for a quote today. The reason why I suddenly want to use them is that they fit the Aluminium hard top, so I can have a bikini top and canvas doors and then just drop the hard top straight on with out shagging around with swapping doors and hinge's etc etc


Hinge arrangement:

[UBZ]

That hardtop is
Way better than the NZ glass ones , and just about as good as the bling German ones.

[Heath]

Where do you find these lil gems?

Id be keen on one for a project (trailer queen of course), but the wife says they look cute so maybe not...LOL.

[DieselBoy]

Buggered if I can find the camera tonight, so its not going to be an up to date update

As you will have gathered from the previous post, things have taken a major turn for the better, in that I was put onto another LJ50 by my LJ spy network (nzhunter takes credit for this one, lilpigzuk was close second) , and as such, I now have a proper LJ50 tub for Wombat!!!!

So what to do with the tub I have been working on?? I have put a LOT of hours into it, and it feels funny not finishing it, but oh well

After bouncing idea's around people, I decided that the best thing to do was to stop were I was and preserve it. It has all of the rust removed and about 50% repaired/patched. Its never going to be mint due to the trans tunnel patch up.

I drew the line, and covered it industrial epoxy primer to seal it up and preserve it for a while. It will be going on to The50, which was always supposed to have a full tub, I just couldn't find a good one at the time. Sound familiar




Next up was to have a quick clean out of parts that were no longer required. Misc doors, bonnets, windscreens and assorted fiberglass stuff. Dragged it all over and stashed it away for safe keeping



And this is were it sits waiting for its future use.


Right, onto the new Tub. Just incase your under any illusions that I'm taking some kind of short cut, I'm not. Its rusty as fawk, but not as rusty in the sides of the rear guards as the other tub.






The main thing is that its a an LJ50 tub. There are subtle differences between LJ80 and LJ50. Enough differences to make it quite obvious if your into them.

The hard top on this one its Aluminum. Its quite well made, probably by a coach builder outfit maybe??


The door hinges, well what can you say??


Its done a great job of preserving the windscreen!!!!

The dude gave me the original 3 pot screamer. Me thinks this would have been a cool bang Big end seized up.




So the race is on, I want it done for summer, Sandy's booked into the paint shop in weeks time, so I better get moving!!!!!!!

And just to prove I haven't be buggering around, I just went out and grabbed some pic's . This is were its at as of tonight







I wasn't kidding about the rust

[DieselBoy]

Got a little bit further with it all this weekend

The floors looked like this after the rust was cut out:

Now the look like this after its been fixed. Also re-manufacturer the seat mounts on both sides and glued those back on. They were a bit tricky :



Gotta love the stitch pulse setting on the mig for welding in patches

Got busy on the rear of the tub, cleaned it up, rust treated it and epoxy primed it. Looks good



I was going to get the body ready to lift off, but decided to dive in and patch the top of the scuttle panel on the passengers side. I was procrastinating co's it's in a highly visible area, so the pressure was on to do a good job and not fuk it up

Before:

I borrowed a piece of the same panel out of the scrap bin which I had cut off the other tub when I was busy on that. It made it easy as it was already the correct profile, I just needed to get it the correct width and weld it on with out warping the panels to much. Mudsluts good advice



It sort of worked. It was a perfect fit before the welder got near it, then it got tricky. Hey, the rust is gone at least

Also started on fixing up the riviet holes in the windscreen frame. The roof was rivited to it and the outer lip of the frame looks like Swiss cheese


Next up is to get the front clip off and flip the tub upside down and stich in the floor patches from the other side.

[DieselBoy]

Last night the tub came off the chassis and flipped up side down ready for some attention.

It wasn't half as bad under there as what I was expecting. A bit of rust starting in places, but really nothing a good wire brushing and some rust inhibitor wouldn't fix:



The patches looked good, and welding then in from this side was going to be straight forward:


Passengers floor pan:


Drivers floor pan:


So after a few hours with the wire brush and strip disc, and then realising I didn't have must rust treatment left, this is where its stopped. It was looking really good!!!



Tonights missions was to make the last 4 or 5 little patches and blaze them on, and then go round all of the other big patches and weld then in from this side. Then hit the whole thing with rust convertor/inhibitor.

Co's when your welding your in the "zone", and also wearing heavy gloves, a helmet and choking on the fumes of burning suzuki seam sealer mixed with rust killer and weld through primer smoke, I never get pic's

But here it is at the end of play tonight. All welded up and liberally coated with rust convertor stuff.





Couple of mongrel patches that will be visible from the out side. To get those right and looking good is a job for a professional, they got called some ugly names as the everything slowly warped and rippled with the gentle heat as I tacked them on. Grrrr, amature. Just makes for more work dressing it all up to look good.

Passengers side sill patch

Drivers side sill patch


Hopefully do some seam sealing tomorow night and its ready to go!!!

And then its onto the front clip to deal with the passengers side front guard. Its a mess

[UBZ]

f#~£en b*#%}d

Know I really want to take my tub off and do the underneath too

Was chattin with a mate tonight about welding LJ tinfoil . He reaconed brazing would be best for visible stuff as the low heats involved wouldnt warp panels as much.

[DieselBoy]

Yeah, the windscreen frame on The50 had the repairs brazed in. That'l be why!!

I still have the corner panel behind the spare wheel mount to make and put on, and then the spare wheel mount on top of it, plus the bonnet needs some repairs too, so I need to get it sorted.

I'm reckon I just not going slow enough, not letting it cool down enough between bursts and probably should start from the middle and work out, a bit like bolting a head down.

I'm going to go ask Dan

Getting there though

[DieselBoy]

An early night tonight

A quick wip round with some urethane to seal up the seams and along the welds just incase there were any pinholes, a real quick tidy up of the sills following yesterdays repair effort, and finally a coat of epoxy primer to seal it all up

Looks good, I like the visual progress:





Fingers crossed the last step of the underside of the body will be completed tomorrow night!!!

[DieselBoy]

Tonight I got all Jurassic Park on it
This is what I used:


Its a Urethane based 2K sealer called Raptor Liner, by U-Pol.
This is the result:








It was hard to touch after just two hours, you could rub your hand over it comfortably. Hopefully its sets really hard. Should be awesome if it does!!

Lots of pic's because Saturday (tomorrow) will be the last day this side of the tub see's the sun for quite a few years. Hopefully

[tomsoffroad]

Nice work there fella

[monaro427]

where did you pick that raptor up from DB

[DieselBoy]

I asked Dan from Supreme Panel and Paint Works what his recommendation was and he tracked some down and got it in for me. Apparently the 2L he got me was all his rep could get his hands on

I put it on really heavy and used the whole 2L

PM Mudslut, he might be able to put you on the right track to getting some in your area

[DieselBoy]

I got couple of jobs out of the way this weekend.

I fished the recon'd chassis from the storage shed were it had been stashed for the last month or so, and squeezed it into the carport along with another parts chassis so I could rob a few bits and finish up fitting the T.Case and drive shafts etc.




The donor parts truck had the factor expansion chamber and it was in good condition, so am going to run that untill I can get someone to make me a nice stainless chamber

Broke two bolts.

Tried welding nuts to them, but they broke too.

Ended up just drilling them out and fitting new bolts:


Expansion chamber


Splashed a bit of black paint around as well, and that was Saturday gone.

Today, I braved the biggest repair challenge to date. I rebuilt the rear corner including the spare wheel carrier.

This is what I started with. I had cut the whole oputerskin and spare wheel carrier mount off as the steel it was mounted to was pretty well gone:

Whats left of it after I cut it off:



Flat piece of plate, gotta start some where:

Carefully folded round to get the correct radius:

Ready to be welded, clamps holding it exactly in the right place to it can't move until its suitably tacked into place:

Repaired rear corner:



Spare wheel carrier reattached:



Looks like its in the right spot as it seems to work alright:



Next up was to repair the left front guard, there were a few nasty bits on it.


The tricky top stuff repaired:

New battery tray:

So its just the bonnet to go now as far as repairs go

People came round for a BBQ, so before they got comfy they quickly got roped into lifting the Tub off the horses and onto the chassis.

Its a big deal






And just for UBZ:

[niblik]

veddy good veddy noice...

so whats the colour plan on the outer tub to be fella?

[DieselBoy]

I dunno yet, I'm having a real hard time with it

I quite like this, but not sure I could actually own one that colour

I really like these, and a slightly darker green was the original plan:



And this is pretty cool:


But don't want it to EVER be mistaken for one of these:


Something that goes with black anyway

I got a fare bit of prep to do while I make up my mind

[nzhunter]

dude that rear corner repair..... wicked man

heck heapsa work done since I last saw it on Monday


*cough* paint it matt green *cough*

[MNC]

Mate, that tub is coming up very nice! Body back on the chassie already - now that is impressive.

PS. My vote is for this one:

Very cool

[UBZ]

I still like this one . green is just to Jeep IMHO

[UBZ]

That's some fat offset with the 80 diffs. even on the skinny rims.
Have you got a stock SJ rim to chuck on and compare the difference for me.

[Heath]

probably telling ya to suck eggs but when I did thin stuff at work we used a lump of brass behind the welded spot to absosrb the heat from the weld and stop the steel warping. Of course you gotta get it into the gap first

Looking good mate, I vote for the olive drab one too MNC suggested.

Heath

[pjb]

Considered white? Some pretty cool looking white ones on google images.

[DieselBoy]

Standard LJ rim and 600 16


Standard SJ rim and 215 15


Standard SJ rim and L78 15 (katikati LJ tyres)


Oh crap, how much are they gonna scrub the guards


Might need to create some kind of quick release flare to make the standard rims legal. Maybe garden edging again

[Sketchy_Racer]

Awesome build have enjoyed watching the progress, I notice earlier that you mentioned getting a Stainless steel chamber made, going from my experience in two stroke road race bikes, I would advise against it, SS is a basterd of a thing for work hardening from the vibrations and cracking it may not be as bad on the Zuk but will not out live a mild steel equivalent.

I do know that there are some heat resistant Stainless steels out there (cant remember the specs) but even they failed on the bikes.

It would be good fun to build 3 chambers for each cylinder as the 3 into 1 wont be doing a great deal.

Do you know the port timing, RPM range, head volume and cylinder CC?

Cheers,

-Sketchy

[IcedJohnno]

f#~£en b*#%}d


Was chattin with a mate tonight about welding LJ tinfoil . He reaconed brazing would be best for visible stuff as the low heats involved wouldnt warp panels as much.

Best not to braze any sheet metalwork on vehicles especially anywhere that is not really rigid.
What happens is that the steel fatigue cracks along the edge of the bronze at the heat effected zone. It is something to do with the chemical reaction between bronze and steel. Any panel that has the slightest ability to flex will fatigue crack.

I learnt this on a 100E Prefect rallycar that I have. (The Hungry E) It has twincam Escort flares on the front. One had been brazed and the other steel welded also with gas, before I owned it. The steel welded one was always fine and the bronze welded one continually cracked. Still is to date!

Also once bronzed the only option is to cut the bronze out and replace with steel as you can't arc, mig or gas weld steel over an existing bronze weld.

I think pretty much anything other than a mig set up with fine wire will put more heat into the panels. The only other option would be a TIG set up pulsing or foot controlled using fine mig wire for filler.

Hey DB, I've just read all 10 pages today. A great read and some awesome work. Keep up the detailed commentary, it is inspiring.

Hmm..... Maybe it's time to venture forth to my own garage! Plenty to do out there!

[Cleary]

I dunno yet, I'm having a real hard time with it

I quite like this, but not sure I could actually own one that colour

Orange is coolio!!! just doooo eeeeeeet!

[Dr_PC]

Got to agree with Cleary, really should be the Orange one

[suzukisport]

Paint it bright green

[zukmeista]

RED!!!!!! Like my samurai

[muddyhilux]

just checked out the last few pages,very nice work mate,i agree with a couple of comments,bronze or copper under whatever your welding really helps or a tig is what i use,also the brassing comment was good and correct.id also agree in that getting the wrong green will end up looking jeepish,good luck choosing,i'm sure it'll look mint with whatever you choose