Surprise BJ42 strip down and rebuild!

[Pommy]

Pommy I read through this build and the work you're doing is great. Inspiring really. Makes me think I have a chance of doing a lot of fixes myself. What are you using to spray the paint? As you can see in my avatar I have a top and doors from a mustard yellow 40 that it came with but I would someday like to fix and paint it properly.

Cheers mate, glad the posts are inspiring you, knowing that it's helping others helps me to keep my progress pushing on!
As for the paint I have access to an air fed paint gun at my work which I have been using for things like the doors and side panels as they fit in my other car. But for the remainder of the body I am going to use paint cans of 2 pack paint from an automotive paint shop (panel beater supplies). They are as good a finish as a proper gun in my opinion if it's done right and you make your spraying environment as dust free as possible. Painting is definitely something that can be done yourself with a relatively good finish if you take your time and practice on something first to get a feel for it. Plenty of videos on YouTube these days which helps a lot. All up my paint has cost me less than 200 (with a ton of sandpaper) just cost me a lot of free time haha!

 

[Pommy]

Aaaaaaurrrrgh still in limbo no progress with the steering box, this is the problem when you have to outsource repairs on the cheap but will save about $800 bucks which I can put into the bits & bobs fund still Aaaaauuuuurgh

Hang in there mate will be worth it when you can get it all up and going again and shop for some 'extras'

 

[Pommy]

nice looking rig! and nice to see a fellow mudder on the younger side with a getting involved! mine has been instrumental in alot of the work thats gone into mine

Cheers dude. Definitely in deeper than I wanted to be but it will all be more satisfying when it's out on the road!

 

[Strategic1]

Hi Pommy, well Steering box rebuilt, had sourced a NOS heater/control box , fan motor & resistor that worked so now have Air Conditioning
new lines & re-gassed. Just waiting for the steering box to go back in get a front end & see how we go with the steering issues. Need to see some new pics of your handy work, Seeing how others have solved probs makes me feel there is hope Cheers

 

[Pommy]

Been a long time since updating the thread, but I have been hard at it and too busy to sit down and upload some pics. So lets crack on.
The no return stage of cutting out a considerable section of floor! There was a small section of the body mount brace that was mostly Ok but I decided to cut and weld in a new section whilst I had the access.

Not exactly a perfect patch panel as it was hard to shape the thicker gauge steel I used for the floor armed with only a hammer and a dolly, but the 90 degree bend was added to tack weld the rocker panel to it for more strength.

Welded in before grinding and cleaning up. I didn't grind much off the welds as I wanted to keep the strength there.

Rocker panel with holes drilled for tack welding along the inside panel to hopefully strengthen it. Terribly drilled I must admit but soon to be hidden with body filler and paint so all good! Probably way more tacks than necessary too.

Welded in place before grinding, if you're wondering the other weld above was from where I had originally tried to cut out the rocker panel before deciding to cut a smaller section. I have unfortunately lost the factory seam look down this side of the car because of my lack of foresight in where to cut and I should have taken the time to locate the factory tack welds to keep the original edges. I should have taken more time between my welds too as the left corner warped on me right at the end which I never managed to fully remove. Just a few examples of how not to do this repair if you are going to try!

Despite the imperfect looks of my extensive repair on this section it has held up well in strength which is more important to me at this stage.

 

[Pommy]

Here is the floor patch after a paint and heavy handed smear of seam sealer.

So with the welding work complete I set about finishing the bodywork with filler and priming ready to paint. I had considered renting a booth to spray the body, however the logistics of getting it to a booth were just too costly for my budget so I had to make a makeshift spray booth in the garage which was less than ideal. The plastic drop sheet covered garage had a few neighbours poking around to see what was happening!

All primed and ready for painting and I was pretty with the look and progress of this stage until disaster struck here...

I had family and friends coming from overseas to stay at our house for my wedding which was coming up so I was trying to rush too much to have the car painted and back together in time for their arrival (car parts were currently taking up 2 spare bedrooms!). I also committed to using an air compressor that I had not used very often which was a big mistake... Oil and water came through the paint gun about halfway through leaving drips and this mess all over. (I was too annoyed to take any better pics of the mess).

Deflated and disappointed with myself I threw my toys out of the cot, I gave up on having it finished before my wedding and gave the compressor away.

 

[Pommy]

So after some much needed downtime, time with family, plenty of beer and the wedding jitters all over I started to get back into it.

Here was attempt number 2 ready to paint; after sanding down the first layer of disaster and armed with a new air compressor and spray gun.
I was confident in my ability to get a better finish than my first attempt having done a fair amount of spraying at work. BUT... my brand spanking new compressor was just not up to the demand of spraying this volume. It just kept dying on me and leaving me waiting for the tank to fill halfway through panels which led to some pretty dry looking areas whilst painting. Once again I finished up feeling pretty lousy for the effort I had put in!

The paint settled in better than I thought but I am still pretty disappointed in the finished paint job as I know in myself that I could have achieved a better result! I needed to be more patient here and spend many more hours on the paint prep rather than trying to get it across the line too soon! The only upside is it still looks 100% better than what I started with and that is at least one positive!

I had my wifes grandpa staying with us who is handy around the garage and was keen to lend a hand so we got all the windows and seals back into the panels. We used the string method with some dish washing liquid and eventually got them all in including the windscreen which actually turned out to be the easiest of the lot.

I was unable to get hold of any full window seals for the rear doors so I took a sample to an automotive rubber store and got an exact match for about $3 a metre. It was more work to make these windows fit, and they may not look 100% genuine but they are perfectly sealed and cost next to nothing, just for anyone who may be interested in this kind of option.

With all the glass done we also started to put the panels back on. Safe to say these things almost fell off the vehicle on disassembly but getting them back on and lined up nicely was a bloody nightmare at times! Im grateful to have had assistance for this job as it most certainly is a 2 man job if you value your mental wellbeing! Here is the truck after starting to put some panels back on. Starting to look cool but still a long way from home yet...

 

[Pommy]

A few more pics of panels/doors going on and painting a few other smaller parts

Rear panels and doors all on and solid, also a box with some new lights for the rear is in prime position there

I gave the inside a quick respray of this grey colour because I had not originally planned to repaint the inside at all so this was more of a cosmetic touch up than a proper respray of the interior.

I think I sprayed these earlier in the thread but the new colour scheme did not suit it so black it was!

 

[Pommy]

Making use of some left over black paint

Anyone else who has refitted door seals may know this scene all too well... Its a tricky job and one which I once again did not succeed the first time, second time or any time after that so hats off to anyone who can get a perfect finish with this!!

I used contact adhesive on both the door and seal and attempted to line them up together once the glue had set... I at least have door seals for now although I am not sure how long they will stay on!!

This was one of many hiccups I found whilst refitting doors the mechanism had seen better days thats for sure. Assuming that this would be an easily replaceable part I almost threw it away upon seeing its lack of life...

Thankfully I didn't because I couldn't locate one here in OZ at all and it had me stumped for a while until I realised that the pin shaft unscrewed from the lock head and I was able to take it all apart and clean out the grease and grime. I didn't have any springs of a suitable size so I packed a few washers under one end of the spring to give it some tension again, and I welded some more material back onto the lock head and re ground it to its original shape. I lost the pic I had of the finished product but it works a treat. Its probably not worth the effort if you can source one for a few bucks but when you have no option its well worth it!

Here it is finally looking somewhat like a car again for the first time in about 12 months! Snorkel on, mirrors, doors, glass, seat belts, side steps, new rear lights, at this stage of the project I no longer had to avoid entering my garage and I even started to enjoy looking at the old rig again...