Jonnos ute 1st annual report

[Jonno]

Its just about a year now since I bought my first 'project car' so thought I would post a photo or two. The ute was bought from Sydney (sight unseen but after an 'inspection' by a local company) and I have spent much of the last year taking things apart and removing the paint, mostly with 'paint removal disks' on an angle grinder but some dipping (the results of which weren't very inspiring) and a bit of bead blasting in tricky areas.

This whole process was rather depressing as more and more problems came to light. I knew that the car had rusty sills and floorpans but it seems to have been hit on the RHS at some stage and had badly fitting door, stuffed subframe, guard etc on this side too. Also, lots more rust and dinks than I had imagined, and botched repairs in many places.

Anyway, not having the skills myself to fix up the body, I spent a LONG time trying to find someone who could. She's been with the panel beaters for over a month and has now returned home, looking seriously improved!

[Jonno]

can't seem to work out how to attach more than one photo to each post so there are a few of these.

[Jonno]

I found a new subframe and (amazingly) a new floor. Here's the new floor in place with tunnel for Celica 5 speed.

[Jonno]

Cowl vent was replaced with a donor (thank Ken):

[Jonno]

got loads of other photos but don't want to bore the crap out of you all.  Heres a final one of the tailgate which was completely battered but is now recognisable..

Other repairs include rebuilding of fuel tank surround and tank filler area, which had been cut out previosly to make room for a huge (and not very nice) home-made fuel tank, rebuilt shocker mounts at rear, repairs to front guards, doors, correcting accident damage to RHS...the list goes on.

[HARKO]

Great stuff Jonno ,Bare metal looks so bloody awesome hey ,A lot of work gone in so far but your at the top of the hill ,its just a shame to have to cover it up with paint now hehe.
Do me a favour and give us a run down on your thoughts on the paint removal disks, I have written about how great i have found them but it seemed to blow away in the wind so another opinion would be good, cheers

[Effie C]

Jonno
Great work,if you are happy with the beater spread the word as good honest ones are hard to find.

Harko I used the 3M disks to do my whole car backto bare metal a few years ago, found them great except when they self destructed when caught on a panel edge (Very expensive items 5 to 6 years ago).

Jonno keep posting as I love the works in progress shots, they are not boring.

John M

[fc4me]

You've got me droooooolin. Excellent!

[Effie C]

Jonno
Is that the floor that was advertised in Brisbane?
If so how much did it cost to get sent down?
John M

[FC0058]

Jonno
Great stuff, pitty you could not just polish up that finish and put a few coats of clear over it all.

Keep the photo's coming as we all enjoy a little holden voyerism. It gives us an insite into how & what ppl are doing to their cars.

Cheers Jim

[Emu]

Excellent stuff Jonno,

I must say I'm a tad jealous of that pristine looking cowl vent. I aspire to have one that looks like that one day.

Fine work all round. I agree, keep the photos coming!!

Emu

[ChrisB]

Lookin real nice Johnno,
As the others have said, its nice to see work in progress shots cause we all know how the highs and lows feelings (and exspence)  I even think it stirs us along to keep working on our projects.
You must be feeling chuffed right now


ChrisB  

[mickusmickus]

Good to see Jonno

I agree with the others put more work in progress shots on it is always good to see.  Guys I have found that a wire brush wheel on a grinder does a pretty good job on pannels.  Be sure not to use one that is too harsh though otherwise u will put deep marks in the steel which is not the best.

MICK

[Jonno]

thanks for your support guys. Yes I'm now starting to feel a whole lot better about the project (up until now I've felt like everything I did was making things look worse!)..

Harko, you are right. The paint removal or 'rip disks'  as some folk call them were great.  I did a bit of research on paint stripper and decided that I would probably live a bit longer if I did not use it (can't help it for small items but anything I can get an angle grinder on I now use rip disks). The down side is that they produce a lot of dust, especially when you hit filler. I ended up covering the garage walls with plastic sheet to make a dust 'tent', and went through plenty of dust filters in my mask. But they are very efficient and remarkably controllable...you can almost remove paint layer by layer. Also they are now fairly cheap, $15 or so each at a hardware store.  I guess I didn't count them but each one would do a square metre or so, what do you think?

John, yes the floor came down from Brisbane. It was sent by a mob called 'Pack and Send' (I think) and only cost $100 or so.

Re. panel beaters, after advice from a post last year, I concentrated my search on the outer suburbs since this was likely to be cheaper. After I had the car back to metal it was clear to me that I needed some serious help, not just the odd bit of rusty metal replaced, so this eliminated the usual panel shops. In the end I found two guys who call themselves Performance Coachworks, they are in Berwick (far SE Melbourne). They just do metal-work restorations and rods (steel and aluminium) and have a shed with about half a dozen cars they are working on. They are real craftsmen, did a top job, and there was absolutely no bullshit (I got a phone call every week telling me how many hours they had worked, what they had done, any problems, and what was up next, then I generally went round there every Sat morning to see the progress).

I'm not sure that they will be all that interested in just doing odd little jobs but for something like my ute (or if you want a car 're-creating' from just a few rusty bits of metal), it was great.

Jonno

[Glenn 'Stinky' Stankevicius]

Crikey, what's wrong with your panel beaters??   weekly updates? telling you what's next? quality work with no bullshit? Dream come true, by the sounds and looks of it.

I reckon hitting the panels now with a clear coat is a good idea too.

[HARKO]

bloody hell ive been back four times looking at the bare pics now and yeah i am certain that my porn is very different from the mainstream and hehe i wanna visit.