Builds FJ55V : This little piggy came home. (3 Viewers)

[PabloCruise]

The tricky A pillars

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Dayum! You da master!!!

 

[fre55h]

Chassis bracing all measured out ready to be welded in.

 

[fre55h]

.dxf level up.
Ready to laser cut.

 

[scrapdaddy]

Man, I cut my fish plates out with a torch and welded them in, sloppy and quick. State of the art, right there!

 

[fre55h]

Man, I cut my fish plates out with a torch and welded them in, sloppy and quick. State of the art, right there!

Vehicle engineering in NSW Australia are very strict on any vehicle modifications. Lots of hoops but It's helpful for anybody else who's wishing to 80 chassis swap their 55.

 

[PabloCruise]

.dxf level up.
Ready to laser cut.

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Beautiful work!!!

 

[PabloCruise]

Vehicle engineering in NSW Australia are very strict on any vehicle modifications. Lots of hoops but It's helpful for anybody else who's wishing to 80 chassis swap their 55.

Yep, I am wondering if there is a market for those?
Or too much variability...

You did some nice work on those...

 

[fre55h]

A Pillars 85% template completed.
Almost ready to be stitched into place.

 

[fre55h]

Zipped together.

 

[WarDamnEagle]

You Sir have some serious fabrication skills.

 

[SNLC]

Cut is at the rear lower control arm mount section. Australia has pretty high standards with engineering.

This is a straight section of the chassis which my engineer was happy to approve of.

Needed to be braced and fish plated. Also means I only need to source a new tailshaft and not have to find any other specific parts. The type of touring I was to do make take me 12-20 days in the desert unassisted. Pays to have easy to replace parts.

It's also where the two C Channels meet at the factory as stated.

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We have been doing the cut at the same place since the first one I did in 2016.

Only the first one got external fish plates though. For a cleaner look we have had frame rail sections bent up, frame rails are an oddballs size. So we insert an internal section first before plating over it and then welding on the RLCA mount. We finish it off with a DOM crossmember that goes through all rails both sides at the front cut.

This is how we have done the last four or five, out of six we have done only one was a shorten, all the rest have been extensions. We also offset the cut for more strength and less stress.

Here is the DOM crossmember added when we did the 7” stretch for my 80-series UTE build.

Cheers

 

[fre55h]

A Pillar looking like the Mona Lisa.

 

[RUSH55]

That IS a masterpiece!