Thread: V8 county ute

Thanks Skiboy, today was hard the motivation wasn't there. A tray for the back , and i have been thinking lately i may keep the floor and wheel tubs, and build the tray around that with the height of the wheel tubs the top of the tray.
In the recess i can store spare wheel , tools and recovery gear.

Using between the wheel tubs/boxes as a recess for tools and spare is a great idea.

Top of the wheel boxes is a good tray height so if you put a tray on it you would have a void under the tray of wasted space between the fuel tank and tray bottom.

We have this void in the Orange Rangie Ute (see my sig pictures). And I am thinking about putting the spare and tool box sunken into the tray to free up the tray.

In the Yellow series/on rangie chassis truck we have (see avatar) the spare - 35" - sits in the space between the wheel arches so there is definitely room.

The tricky bit for you is how to finish the sides/rear of the tray/tub?

Also the tyre might be slightly taller than the wheel arch height - see out 35x12.5 spare in the 109 front and rear shortened tub in this pic
Tent set up (1) sml.jpg

One of the main reasons for going to a tray is no panels to damage, so the side panels i will drill out the spotwelds leaving just the floor and wheel tubs, put on the 35's drop the springs and cycle the suspension and see what size shs steel i can fit in under the wheel tub sheet at just slightly wider than the body to form the two side rails.

Ok I see - agree no tub side is the objective - nothing to damage off road then.

Might be worth considering the frame going on top of the wheel wells so the gap from top of old tub floor to bottom of tray is large enough for a spare wheel.

or could tilt wheel wells up at outside edge as this the angle tyre will be in for full articulation anyway.

BTW my 35s just touch the outside edge of wheel well on extreme hard articulation and tub is sitting just above height of top of Spring mounts - of a rangie chassis.

skiboy

We'll primed

Starting paint prep

As per the Rolling Stones instructions
paint it Black
That's the first bit of top coat I've done in about 6 years and I may need to apply some WD40 to myself to eliminate any corrosion
Bottoms up

All is not well, the paint is not drying. I took the paint I was going to use as well as a few different hardeners that I had accumulated over the years down to the paint shop who is making up the colour and they told me which hardener to use but something has gone wrong.