Builds 1982 Desert Troopy - Glutton for Punishment (2 Viewers)

jgeoffr · Jan 19, 2018

Sandblasted the floor/bed to get an idea of the damage. Lots of pitting and outright rot. Poor patches by PO and a couple of intentional holes for water tanks through the floor. Primed the blasted area afterwards to prevent rust.

-Geoff

JuanJ · Jan 19, 2018

Hello,

It is good to see another Troopie being brought back to life.

Please keep us posted.

Juan

tucker74 · Jan 19, 2018

Doesn’t look too bad considering. Going to be fun to watch this come back to life -

Tucker

jgeoffr · Jan 20, 2018

As I said, lots of majoon in the truck. Only good thing about so much previous bodywork is that it provides lots of holes to get the torch in to cut bolts. :rofl:

-Geoff

jgeoffr · Jan 22, 2018

One of the first areas to tackle is the rear sill. Copious amounts of rot. Purchased a new one from @Awl_TEQ . Awesome workmanship!

-Geoff

jgeoffr · Jan 23, 2018

Installing the replacement rear sill.

-Geoff

jgeoffr · Jan 24, 2018

Upper hardtop repair. New metal for the rot areas. I think this truck will be almost all new metal once done...

-Geoff

jgeoffr · Jan 25, 2018

Rear bed forming. No one makes a replacement stamped bed for the troopys, so the next best thing is to form our own. Used 1.5mm galvanized steel (equivalent to 16ga). Nice thing is that it's one piece the full length and it matches up well to the original floor profile.

-Geoff

jgeoffr · Jan 26, 2018

Body repair and alignment ongoing. Temporary turnbuckles installed to square up the body.

-Geoff

jgeoffr · Jan 27, 2018

Open heart surgery on the doors. New lower patch panels added.

-Geoff

jgeoffr · Jan 29, 2018

Installing the new rear floor bed. Lots of spot welds drilled to separate ridge members.

-Geoff

Bleizbreizh · Jan 29, 2018

Looking good! Nice floor, did you heat up and flatten the back edge? I hate welding galvanised myself but this should last for ever now

jgeoffr · Jan 30, 2018

Bleizbreizh said:
Looking good! Nice floor, did you heat up and flatten the back edge? I hate welding galvanised myself but this should last for ever now

Yep, exactly as you said. Only way to flatten it after bending the floor with the brake.

I don't know about galvanizing elsewhere, but here it has a tendency to give off a powder on the surface which makes paint adhesion down the road problematic. So we're blasting back to bare metal before epoxy priming. The galvanizing does a good job preventing rust until we're ready to move forward.

-Geoff

Bleizbreizh · Jan 30, 2018

jgeoffr said:
Yep, exactly as you said. Only way to flatten it after bending the floor with the brake.

I don't know about galvanizing elsewhere, but here it has a tendency to give off a powder on the surface which makes paint adhesion down the road problematic. So we're blasting back to bare metal before epoxy priming. The galvanizing does a good job preventing rust until we're ready to move forward.

-Geoff

I learnt to weld using scaps of galvanised metal and remember it being difficult to get perfectly clean for welding edges. When I finished that vehicle we sandblasted the whole body and hot zinc sprayed both body and chassis. Etch primed before paint and as far as I know it is still pretty good after 35 years

Watching your 45 project with interest as I am looking to get one asap