AJ's 79 series Cruiser Ute

[AJ]

Bloody hell thats a huge improvement.
You got the skills

I haven't done the hard bit yet, welding it in. It's more a case of learning the skills as I go rather than having them.

How'd it go with the cancer in the frame AJ.?

I am glad you asked Obviously the frame needed some attention before I weld on the outer patch panel, so that was tonight's job.

When I removed the bog there was a big rust hole, you can see in the first picture where I drilled that out and attempted some spot weld repairs which it was pretty obvious was not going to work. So time to make a patch panel for the inner frame and weld it in. the start of the panel (cut to shape) is in the first picture.



Time to start shaping, a small V shaped gutter was the first spot to get the hammer treatment.



Add some curves, a return and a return folded edge and its starting to look something like the piece to be cut out.



Then cut the rusty section out and do the final trim and fit.



Then weld it in and clean up the welds. I have a bit more cleaning up to do on the outer edge. The welds in the top recess I will leave as they are. Its quite difficult to get in and grind them and they will never be seen and wont interfere with the outer panel, so they will stay as is.



After I finish the cleaning up I will sand blast that section and give it a few coats of primer before welding on the outer patch.

Cheers Andrew

[Cruiser105Tvan]

Yep, going really well, should be finished just in time for Christmas Day.
Be able to give the kids a ride around the paddock as a treat before lunch.

[AJ]

Yeah the Ute will definitely be going before Christmas, maybe not this one, but definitely before Christmas one year

Finishing of the rust repair on the guard. I wasn't happy with the patch panel so I made another one that fitted a bit better and then clamped it in place before tacking it in.





Then it is just a matter of tacking in between each of the tacks, and where I could planish the welds (try and flatten them with a hammer and dolly to counteract the shrinkage from the weld) and grinding down each spot weld before going again. Heat control is critical so lots of stopping to do other things while the welds and grinding cooled.



Once fully welded it was time to smooth up the welds, lots more hammer and dolly working bumping the metal as I ground down the welds to get everything as smooth as possible. It wasn't much further than the ground section showed before I could no longer access the back due to the frame, so the next section of grinding didn't come out quite as well.





A view of the back side of the repair, that just needs some tidying up before priming and painting,remembering that area can not be seen once assembled.



And to save people going back a page, what I started out with.



And the end result of the repair.



A skim of body filler over the repair area and it should be as good as new

Cheers Andrew

[Cruiser105Tvan]

Luv ya work.

[OffRoadDave]

Excellent Andrew!

[AJ]

So after the success of the last rust repair I thought this afternoon I would tackle the only other little bit of rust I have found (other than surface rust) in the left sill panel. Just a couple of small spots so should be a quick and easy fix



After a bit of trimming it's no longer looking like a quick or easy fix Great design putting a double skinned panel as low in the cab as possible NOT!



Now to work out how to tackle this one

Cheers Andrew

[Nick74]

Good to see the work continuing AJ.
Bummer about that rust tho!

[AJ]

Good to see the work continuing AJ.
Bummer about that rust tho!

Well the rust is all gone Its just that there is now a big hole in its place

First step was to make a profile template for when its time to make the outer patch panel.



Then cut out some more panel to expose the nastiness. There was around a 2mm gap between inner and outer panels, just perfect for collecting dust and water.



Outer panel trimmed enough to removed all the dirt and see how much inner panel needed removing.





I have 2 main objectives here, firstly repair the rust, but secondly stop it from happening again. In order to prevent this re-occurring I plan to reshape the inner panel to give a gap closer to 10mm between panels to stop dirt accumulating. Part 2 of the plan is to improve drainage from the inner panel so dirt will either fall out or can be washed out effectively.
First step to improve drainage was to add 3 drain flutes along the bottom of the sill panel, I used the tooling I post a few pages back that I made for the beads in my toolbox, it was pretty easy to get the drains shaped.





Now to see how I go shaping the repair panels.

Cheers Andrew

[mudduck]

You are a serious talent AJ

[barnsey]

well done AJ, I found treating the rusted areas with deoxidine before i undercoated and repaired rusty areas worked great when playing with my old hotrods, they probably have newer improved products these days though
your repairs look great & should last a lifetime