Thread: Project Dancing Hippo

You would think that now the tray is built it would start lookinglike a real 4WD. But no, I cant have that. I decided that since I still have to pull out the motor to replace it with teh 4.6 I have at the motor rebuilder and since I want to pull out the auto and transfer case to replace seals and gaskets and make sure they are all ok, and then I have to change over the axles.......I decided to remove the body, which would make everything a lot easier.

I already had the motor all disconnected and had teh entire dash and interior removed, so I though that it would not be hard to remove the body. I though all the weight would be gone so I could just lift it off.

How wrong could I be. Even with the doors and bonnet removed, the body weighes a ton. All the weight is in the firewall area.

Anyway, it was not too hard to use the forlift to remove the body and then I just strapped it to a pallet so I could easily move it around with the forklift.






The chasis will be real easy to work on now.

Any further updates on Project Hippo?

Yeah come on walker i built 2 cars in 1 year and 6 days how hard can it be :P

Nah...hes bought a pajero now so hes lost interest in real cars!

Angus

Well it feels like it has been forever since I last posted. The last few months have either been flat out with work or getting the other 4WdD ready for the Madigan's trip.
But I have finally had some time to do more work.
I ended up stripping down to just a bare chassis. I removed everything including diffs, suspension until I was left with a bare chassis.
I gave the chassis a quick spray and then began the rebuild.
I put the maxidrive and ARB lockers from the old Rangie onto this one, changed the front discs to newer vented calipers and installed all new braided brake lines.

The LRA long travel suspension kit went on with Bilsteins at the front and Koni's at the rear.

The auto was in good conditions so I just installed new seals and gaskets in it and the transfer box.
I had the rims re-rolled and then had them zinc plated.



Earlier this year I also had the motor rebuilt with High comp pistons installed into the 4.6. It was also relined with a top hatted liner installed and reonditioned heads from a 3.9 put on.
Today I managed to get the engine back in.

With the warmer weather coming back + the longer days, lots more things can happen.

Get a wriggle on it, Adam!

Looking GOOOOOOOD!

Nice, going to be a beast!