Extra cab Ute on 80 chassis HDJ40/80 (1 Viewer)

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Joined
Jul 8, 2009
Threads
8
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226
Location
Melbourne, Australia
So, I have a 4 door build going on and I got tired of waiting for the panel shop and auto electrician to sort their crap out so I looked at the bits I had lying around after the build fabrication was pretty much complete. Thought I could either sell all these bits and get $10 for them or I could get a chassis and a body and engine and make something else.

I decided on the something else route and ended up doing this.

I had the parts from the following cars in this build.

HDJ80 1995 rolling chassis with body
BJ42LX body and chassis that was stuffed as well as 3B engine
FJ45 ute rear wall lower and steel roof
FJ40 1976 side walls - used on the rear
FJ40 1982 side uppers used for the small windows
FJ40 1972 rear tube used for the front 1/2 of the tub.
VDJ79 gearbox
HDJ100 transfer case

So I could call this a HDJ40/42/45/79/80/100 but reckong its a HDJ40/80

Donor chassis

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Mate had a 1984 BJ42LX that was sitting around in a few bits so some beers and the deal was done. delivery was very unceremoniously tie it to the 80 chassis and drive forward.

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Was a pretty good body with only a few small patches of rust.

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So I set to work stripping both chassis's of the bits. Sold some parts but ploughed on with measuring what I needed to measure to suit me. I'm 6ft 4ins so dont fit in a ute nicely. I have a few SWB and a MWB so I measured where I sit on those and set about adding 11 1/4" into the body.


Drop the body on the chassis for storage for a few months while I sort stuff out.
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Some of the rust areas cut out very early in the piece.

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11 1/4" added into the side. Rear part of the swb cut off and the rear panel of the fj45 welded on. The rear part of the swb will make a comeback later on.


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some bracing to ensure that things didn't go too out of control during the build.

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the drive line was an easy decision. I went with a 1HD-FT engine. 4.2L of factory turbo diesel with little of no electrics. As for the gearbox, after the 4 door build I had a H151F gearbox left over sitting on the floor. So a new input shaft to suit and gearbox sorted. Had to source a transfer case and ended up with a 100 series non viscous coupling one. Funny thing was that I needed to swap out the speedo drive to a mechanical unit from an early 80. I purchased an early 80 viscous coupling transfer and swapped the speedo drive and voila, mechanical drive speedo.

1HD-FT engine and H151F gearbox and HF2A transfer that I put a part time kit through.

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I wanted a tacho and found these units on mud via mopdog. The holes were slightly off for the screws but nothing that a welder cant fix

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Down under everyone raves about the Ford XR seats. SO I grabbed a pair and made an adaptor for them to suit the 40 sliders.

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After hunting around the web looking for peoples comments on how much extra they put into their cabin I settled on 11 1/4" and set about doing this. As I had some left over floors from a SWB I used them to fill in the floor of the body. Gave it a factory look.

As I was going to have an under body fuel tank I needed to remove the corner filler. I would place the filler in the std swb location and run a hose to the fuel tank from there. Used 1.2mm sheet metal here and folded it to match the shape required at the top and bottom.

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Showing the swb floor I welded in place across the back area.

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Underneath I planned on using the braces that are under the rear of the swb floor as a brace for the rear portion. I also plan to use the rubber foot as a mounting or resting point onto brackets on the chassis as I am thinking that there will be a lot of weight of feul and crap in the body behind the mount below the seats and this would provide a flexing point over the many years and corrugated roads I plan on travelling in the ute. An internal roll cage will probably come down and rest on this point as well.

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While all this was going on I started planning the tub/tray that I wanted to build. I have a steel tray here but wanted to utilise the swb rear portion I had and I sourced another rear section as well.

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some photoshop stuff

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the other swb rear that would become the front of the tub. Had a lot of rust and bog in the panels so cut all of it out except the top section and used 2mm sheet metal that I got rolled to suit the corner radius. Also means when I hit stuff it will be stronger and wont dent as easily.

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For the steering column I found a 55 series column. This has the bearing support in the bottom. While I was doing this, I cut 50mm out of the outer sleeve to move the steering wheel further away from me. Being tall I have long arms anyway and didn't want to have them crammed in to my sides.

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Started putting stuff in position to take the body down and be placed with the chassis after the extension was done.

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Next was the tub/tray length working on the wheelbase. Easy to do when the wheels aren't attached and you can just move them around.

Think this is std 112" wheelbase and 5ft 2in tub.

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122" wheelbase I think.

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125" I think
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122" and 5ft 2in tub.
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Body went down to be placed on the extended chassis. Front x-member was moved back to suit the position required for the radiator and the chassis front was cut shorter by 100mm.

We have to angle the cuts to keep the engineers happy and then fish plate the area.

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First real side shot of what it is going to look like.

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Engine in

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Gearbox located in the hole. Had to move the gearbox x member back as well.

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gearbox x-member relocated, cut to make wider and plated to make it strong again.

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Chassis extension plate

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swb front body mount welded onto the 80 chassis.

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rear mount had to be altered a bit.

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Front of the chassis with the x-member moved back and the bull bar holes repositioned.

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