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Good on you mate. If I had to pick one vehicle out of the fleet you had it would almost certainly have been the lorry. So many things I could use it for on and around our rural small holding. All the best.
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Apr 17, 2024 18:44:32 GMT
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Evening all, With the steps and brackets completed, the next panel made its way to work, the drivers door. On first glances, the passenger side 'appears' to be rust free, but once that gets to work, it may well turn out to be a different scenario. So for the time being I focused on what I hope is the worse side. As the photos above show, there has also been some attempts at repairs on the hinges. All I can assume is the stay has potentially broken at some point resulting in the door being forced open too far, or its simply been blown by the wind or backed up and caught on something. Either way, I was not happy to leave that standard of repair on the door. I don't doubt it has worked fine, and although it wont ever be seen, I couldnt let it slide. So I ground it back, welded it again, then flushed it off. The "incident" had also effected the bracing bracket that surrounds the hinge. Its a sort of triangular shape U bracket that goes above and below the bolt holes, then returns to the internal door skin. The spot welds that secures these to the inner skin had all pulled through, so with some clamping and a tiny bit of hammer adjustment, these were manipulated back to the correct positions before being puddle welded again. The two photos above show the finished repairs which came out really nice. The use of a new makita finger file have really helped allow me to clean the lumpy welds back flush. Unfortunately work only tend to use 1.0mm wire, so naturally the welds are a bot larger than I like. To resolve this, I have ordered a few 0.8mm reels, and intend to reserve purely for "personal jobs" While I was at it, I took the inner skin of the door right back to bare metal, as I absolutely despise the blue all over the interior of the truck, so just plan to go satin black for the time being. Moreso as a preservative measure for the tine being. My long term plan with the truck is to try and repair everything rusted on the truck then just paint it myself for the time being. Get the truck roadworthy, use for a while, see what issues come up. And then, after curing these issues, if I'm in a position too, I can send it off for blasting safe in the knowledge the work has been done, and it can off to be professionally painted... as I say, thats the plan...!
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Apr 17, 2024 19:04:59 GMT
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even without the check arms failing vehicles do crack like that, particularly hard used commercials, the hinges react a equal an opposite force to the check arm.
looks good now.
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Really enjoyed reading through this and seeing the quality of the weld repairs, inspirational stuff.
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Hopefully the link below works, but something I forgot to mention last time was that I have actually been able to test the tipping body, and after some jiggery pokery with the various levers on the cab floor, I worked out what was what, and was left with this... The video does go on a bit without a great deal of change, but it works nonetheless! There hasnt been a great deal of progress since the last post. I did paint the inside of the door, with a roller... I was terribly unhappy with the outcome of that, so stripped it back to bare metal and intend to spray it instead now. But in the mean time I have been cleaning up the mechanisms, the chrome, and doing some general tidying of the door components before reassembly. As you can see in the photo below, I did have to repair the "track" the window sits in. I was worried about getting the fold angles on this right, as the window winder arm has to fit into a channel between the window track and the bottom of the frame. But luckily using works electric folder, then a hammer, it rolled to a perfect shape, and operates perfectly. All I need to do now is to order some new rubber for the door. However getting quarter window rubber looks as though it could prove tricky.
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Last Edit: May 2, 2024 23:00:16 GMT by pollystag
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Good move rationalizing your fleet. Working vehicles are the coolest.
Excellent work you do.
John
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