37 Build 2003
| The cowl is looking a lot better and cleaner now all the hole are filled and the EMS patch panels are welded on.. That's a lousy picture on the right..I think that was taken at the end of the day..probably after a few rewarding beers. |
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Looks a lot more solid now. The toe panels were actually brazed in. Took a bit of work to get them off. Most of the flange was either rusted or destroyed in the process. |
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| Its a shame I had to heat up the cowl again when I welded in the toe panels and trans cover but that's just primer...easily fixed. Time to get serious with the door. I have converted them to bear claw latches, now I have to make up some sort of operating mechanism. While I was at it, I started to get it real smooth..I keep telling myself.."It's gunna be black...it has to be perfect." !!! |
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| Time to start fitting the floor and get this car back into one piece. |
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| Getting the doors lines back up was quite a feat. Sometime back in its life, some lead was used to even up the door gaps. I removed all that and made the gaps up with beads of weld, then ground to shape. |
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The second picture shows the rear seat back in. Seeing I cut the
windscreen down a bit I thought I'll also lower the seating. In this case just
the swab...Taking note that I cleaned up again?
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| How about "The Bin Of Sin"...all the little bits of rusted metal I cut out. There's part of the chassis , the inner rear guards and bit from all over the place. The second picture is of my trusty Henrob torch...made life a lot easier with it ( no I don't get sponsorship from them ..in fact I payed through the nose for everything!!!) |
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| Here was a dilemma. When I bought the floor, I also got the sills to match. All this from that Aussie company who gave me grief earlier. The first thing you will notice is they said the floor is as original....Well I got news for them.They originally didn't have that dip, but aside from that you would have expected their own sill to follow the contour wouldn't you.Well, no it doesn't. It's straight, just like the original. I wished they would have made a decision either way. That's not the end of it. Luckily I just tek screwed them in, cause when I went to close the door, it hit in the centre of the sill. The arc was too much. Those heat spots were where I had to cut slots in the sill and shape it to follow the door ( I clamped them to the inside of the door while I welded them). The second picture is the driver's side, same thing. I also added a few more welds to their job. |
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| You may have noticed a lot more pictures showing a bit more definition. Well I had a present from Santa Wife..a you beaut digital camera. So now be prepared for whole lot more stuff....like this. The first picture is what I found when I got the glove box open. That's a wasps nest. Frightened the hell out of me when I grabbed it. Luckily they left a long time ago. The second picture is the toe plates I made out of an old brownbuilt shelve. The smaller plate is a removable piece so I can fit the pedal with the body on and have a rubber seal under it. I also resurected the original trans cover. Much patching and welding to fill up 60 odd years of changes, stress cracks and attachments. |
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| Before I took these to the tip I'd thought a comparrison would look good.....just to keep me inspired to remember what it was like. |
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Just a bit more......
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The final pictures of 2003 is the brake master cylinder inspection cover. The second one is the glass running boards from Rods North. They bought them down to Valla from Cairns and I somehow found room in the camper to get them home. They are a very well made..I suppose I can't say its an all steel car now.!!! I have placed an order with Yogis in the US for some stuff, including the moulded covers...but alas..its been a while. Still plenty more stuff to do I guess. |
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Well that's it for 2003....still on target for September 2005....( Oh yeah...!!! )
HOME Wanna see 2004? Click here
