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This may belong more properly in chat, so mods feel free to move if you prefer.
I have an HJ47 utility, which, as most of you know, has a tub very similar to a FJ45 utility.
When i got the truck from Australia, it required extensive rust repair, and i ended up putting something like 600 hours of welding into the tub, including the swap of firewall and cowl over to LHD.
Unfortunately, 7 years later, the cancer has returned, and while I've managed to keep it somewhat at bay, the writing is on the wall.
The basic choice is:
-obtain, scavenge or make some patch panels, strip the tub. obtain a welder and a place to do the work and engage in another marathon session of welding, followed of course by body prep work and getting it painted.
-obtain an after market tub
There is of course no option to obtain an OEM tub, and if there were, I imagine the price would be well north of $10,000.00
So, I've been exploring the aftermarket tub supplier avenue for quite a while, and my experience so far has not been what you might call scintillating. Let's run through the options and what I have found....
Pacol Online.
Their product looks pretty good and is a fairly close reproduction in steel. I emailed them, explained i was looking for a tub and wondered if they could get back to me on price. No response. Emailed again a couple of weeks later .The owner's wife got back to me saying that the owner would be in touch shortly. He did finally drop me a line. Did he give me an answer to my question? No. He basically just touched base. I emailed him again, asking for the price on a complete tub. I phoned and left messages. I emailed again a few months later. No response.
Teseven.
These guys in France make some awesome stuff and they have tub options in steel, stainless steel, aluminum and even brass it would appear. Their reproduction is incredibly close to OEM and they are craftsmen. I emailed them last year, using Google translate for French, and weeks later got a reply with some general brochures from them attached. I then wrote back with a couple of questions about dash configuration and steering column options, and time frame to build, cost to ship. I haven't been able to get a reply from them since, and I've sent half a dozen emails to various email addresses associated to the company. Nothing.
CCOT.
I looked at their patch panels, and they are lacking in some basic correspondences to the factory units, like the inner sills having no drain holes punched, simple metalworking processes like that. Seems they were obtaining complete tubs from Paul Pilgrim at one time and we know he ran off with a bunch of customer's money.... Have bought other CCOT stuff and found it lacking, so I'm not inclined in that direction. I just checked their site and tubs are no longer available, so the point is moot.
Malotte.
No thanks. Quality not there from what I have gathered. Bad reputation perhaps. The 'wood reinforcement' does not appeal.
Gozzard.
Seem to be very stoutly built, but also seem to require a lot of tweaking to get doors, windshield, etc., to fit. Not sure about the insurance ramifications of having a road collision with one. Not keen to work with gel and mat to do repairs or customizations. Body no an electrical ground. Like the removable dash panel though. I'm kinda meh on these, but still considering. Gozzard is in the yacht business and these tubs are a hobby/sideline, so getting a tub produced might take a while, depending upon his schedule.
There also a German supplier of fiberglass 40 panels.
Aqualu.
They make an aluminum tub as most of you know. The tubs are fairly stout but suffer a bit on details. The '79 and later tubs have a raised floor and the Aqualu version has squared up corners so the factory floor mat is not going to fit. I wonder what else might be a PITA to fit? The dash lacks the stamped profile of the original. They state on their website that they don't include gas tank mounts because they "aren't sure where they are located" (!). Does not inspire confidence I guess. They do at least respond to emails and the pricing on their product is reasonable. Not sure how aluminum is going to hold up here on the east coast with the corrosive salts used on the roads. I had some aluminum wheel spacers and they corroded enough in 5 years such that they needed to be chiseled off the rear hubs. That leads me to worry about fasteners getting stuck in the aluminum and bonding in there, breaking upon removal. I wish their product was as well-detailed as Teseven's, but it isn't.
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Feel like I've gotten nowhere in this search. I wish their was a supplier out there, but I'm not so sure. Many of them won't even return emails. Maybe I should go into business doing this myself - there can't be a shortage of demand.
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