NEW PROJECT FC UTE

[Not Happy Jan]

Oh my... your skills are amazing. What is your trade?
Nick

[my8thholden]

Hey Clay ..Free board in Willunga hey Well he's gotta go thru Sydney , North West in particular to get there , he will get the penthouse at back of workshop , Uber eats , fridge of XXXX , we don't touch the stuff "much" ...multiple test drives , he just has to run a 3 month multi skills workshop for us ..Vern

[Mal W]

Thanks guys.
Nick, when I left school all I wanted to be was a panelbeater, couldn't get an apprenticeship anywhere. Ended up getting  a trade as a wood machinist and did that for 10 years. In that time I did paint and panel work on the side.
Then I got a job in a major smash shop in Brisbane as a painter, did that for about a year or so then moved to Redcliffe in a small panel shop as a painter.
Buy this time I had built up enough equipment and moved to Hervey Bay and started up my own smash repair shop. Ended up with 6 staff, and a tow truck doing everything from major smash work to full resto's. Did that for 13 years, in that time I got my papers for trade qualified for painter.
Ended  up getting the shits with it all as it took up all my time leaving  nothing for my own projects and family.
I went back to night college and studied, got myself fit, learned how to touch type, this was all while running my panel shop.

Then got out of the panel shop and  joined the Qld Police and have been there in Highway Patrol ever since, 19 years.
Now I enjoy playing with cars again, building my own stuff in the back yard with less than 12 months before I retire from QPS.

Mal

[Not Happy Jan]

Awesome Mal,

Shit how old are you 100?? .

[Longman]

I hate seeing stuff like this, makes me feel bad about my dodgy work! Lol, awesome build.

[Mal W]

Ok so I’m still cruising along slowly.
I had a bit of trouble with the tailgate and tail light area, being that they sold me the wrong primer so to be on the safe side I ended up blocking it all off and respraying it.
They said the primer I had on it would be OK but as I had to get more primer I thought I’d put the right stuff on everything.








Also I cleaned up the bonnet skin and the front and rear inner pieces and got them primed.






I welded up the seam on the rear inner support and straightening that up.










And now it was time to turn it around and start on the other end, firewall.















Nothing a skim of filler can’t fix.







Now just started on the door openings, getting them tidied up, any dints, spot weld indentations ect.


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[Billy Blackarrow]

Mal W
      How is the progress on your ute going been a while 

[Mal W]

Been tinkering with a lot of little stuff for a while now.

Recessed electric aerial in the rear quarter.
Along with a polished stainless surround trim.













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[Mal W]

Next was adding a bit of bling to the rear wheel arches.
Stainless stone protectors, these are off a HR Holden.
Took a lot of hammering to modify to fit the FC.



They are quite difficult to work as they are only thin stainless.







These are the originals, the crease half way up is what I had to flatten out.




Pretty happy with how these turned out.


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[Mal W]

Next was the cover for the tailgate latch. Was going to get an original and chrome it, but I thought I’d have a go at making one out of stainless.



Once again a lot of hammering. All done by hand



Polishing took just as long to do as it did to make it.




The end result was quite pleasing



I’m thinking I will attach it with heavy duty velcro so I don’t have to drill holes in it.




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[FireKraka]

I love your work Mal this is going to turn out to be one really nice Ute.

[Mal W]

Also done a modification to the original bench seat by converting it to full electric.
I used the seat bases from a commodore Calais.

Firstly I stripped the seat and cleaned up the frame







I cut one of the seat runners in half and extended it





Had to make up some new feet





I then mounted the side hinges before cutting the seat frame



Next the back motor





Then cut the frame













And it all works great. Electric slide forward and back, height adjustment and back tilt.


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[Billy Blackarrow]

I think you must have a engineering degree as well as all the other qualifications you mentioned in a earlier post great work Mal keep it coming

[ardiesse]

As an engineer I beg to differ - an engineering degree doesn't teach you practical skills like this.  Mal's work is more in the realm of genius.

Rob

[Billy Blackarrow]

As an engineer I beg to differ - an engineering degree doesn't teach you practical skills like this.  Mal's work is more in the realm of genius.

Rob

I will agree to that in my working life time i have meet so called professionals that didn't know shit from clay as i'am sure a lot of you know there isn't anything like hands on  to get it done

[FireKraka]

Very clever Mal

[Mal W]

Thanks for the comments guys.

Ok a bit more catching up.
I made the opening and closing of the air vent electric by use of an actuator I had.

Tha actuator was 100mm stroke and I needed to reduce that movement to 30mm.
So that meant pulling it apart, cutting it down in length and moving the micro cut off switches. A fair bit of messing around.






I made up a bracket to mount the actuator to and fitted that in the original position of the old opening handle



The wiring was a real pain as I didn’t have a diagram for it.







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[Errol62]

Agree with the others Mal. And Billy, I’ve known plenty of graduate engineers in my day and still have trouble telling them from shit.
Cheers,
Clay 8 )


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[graham_fuller]

Congratulations on your skills fantastic stuff. Have you considered selling the Wheel arch covers and the Vent actuator?
Cheers
Graham

[Mal W]

Maybe when I’m finisher the Ute, I might look at making a few things.

Latest thing I’ve been working on is my under dash panel.
This will house AC vents and a few switches.

As usual one thing leads to another. With what I was wanting to do the glove box when open would hit on the lower dash panel.

So I had to change the hinge position of the glovebox. This was done with stainless butt hinges and remade stainless side brackets.





All polished up, just needing to be bent to shape.








 
Then with that done I remade the radio surround so the sides were a bit deeper and would fit flush with the under dash panel.

I made this out of stainless and polished it. I like making these smaller bits out of stainless as it saves on the chrome plating.





Just welded up the corners by using stainless wire in the mig, linishing it back and polishing it.







Original and remade






 
Now onto making the lower panel.
As usual I made a cardboard pattern of what I was going to make.









With the two bits made it was just a matter of welding it together.









All welded up and smoothed off.
Fits like a glove










Really happy with the look.
As you can see now the glove box lid is no where near the lower section.



While I was around the dash I made a panel to house a couple of speakers behind the speaker grill.





Last of all I made a surround to go around the remote reservoirs hiding under the ash tray lid.







That’s all for now, thanks for looking.


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