Stirlsilver's Disco Ute Project

**stirlsilver** · 31st May 2009, 10:54 AM

Spent a couple of nights finishing up gutting out the back end of the car.

Pulled down the headliner and found HEAPS of dust, I had to whip out the vaccuum cleaner and suck it all off because it was getting everywhere:

Once that was all done I moved on to the rear doors and removed everything from them except the latches.

I also got under the car and disconnected everything that would have gotten caught up when pulling the back part of the body off. So the car is pretty much ready to be cut. All the lines are marked so i'm aiming to do it next weekend.

**dullbird** · 31st May 2009, 07:47 PM

watching with great interest...thanks for the pics so far

**cal415** · 1st June 2009, 12:19 AM

Argggg,,, get to the cutting the suspense is killing me !!

**Waxenwane** · 1st June 2009, 12:48 AM

I've given the 9" slicers and dicers a service...................

Lets get to it

**stirlsilver** · 5th June 2009, 01:11 PM

First encounter. Land Rover Discovery and Mr. 9" Grinder.

I really don't think I need to say much more

**disco2hse** · 5th June 2009, 01:18 PM

Just out of curiosity, will you be keeping the hinges on the back doors? Or will they come off, in which case will the panels still line up with your cut marks.

You have a lot more courage to do that sort of thing than me

Alan

**SPROVER** · 6th June 2009, 11:46 AM

And so the cutting begins

Keep the pics coming.

**stirlsilver** · 6th June 2009, 11:06 PM

Originally Posted by disco2hse

Just out of curiosity, will you be keeping the hinges on the back doors? Or will they come off, in which case will the panels still line up with your cut marks.

You have a lot more courage to do that sort of thing than me

Alan

Hi Alan,
The hinges will be taken off. The plan is to make up some plates that will space the door out the right amount for it to sit in the same closed position without the hinges. At this stage I'll probably drill and tap the spacer blocks and bolt the doors onto them. And I will seal between the body and the door with a bead of polyeurathane sealant.

Ok for an update:

I pulled off the skins from the parts of the doors that were cut off. They may come in handy, so it is best to hold on to them for now.

Anyway, today I went in to the workshop and whipped out the 9" grinder again and took to the body of the car... after making sure everything was cut, the body mount bolts were taken off and we wheeled the A frame over the car with a couple of chain blocks. And off it went (The photos pretty well speak for themselves).

I ended up discovering that while the body was in the air it made a pretty handy work bench over the chassis.

I pulled out the fuel lines and fuel vapour lines along with the fuel tank. These items aren't needed as I intend to build an LPG only engine.

And that is it for now.

**disco2hse** · 7th June 2009, 06:06 AM

Originally Posted by stirlsilver

Hi Alan,
The hinges will be taken off. The plan is to make up some plates that will space the door out the right amount for it to sit in the same closed position without the hinges. At this stage I'll probably drill and tap the spacer blocks and bolt the doors onto them. And I will seal between the body and the door with a bead of polyeurathane sealant.

Cool. I see.

Great pictures. Woohoo

Nothing like a big step to make all the annoying little steps worthwhile.

Alan

**stirlsilver** · 12th June 2009, 09:37 PM

Not a very interesting update as I've only been able to spend one night in the workshop this week (I'm off to Thailand tomorrow for work again).

What I have started doing is taking measurements off the car so that I can add some more detail to my model of the structual points on the body. I need this information so that I can design the frame of rear wall. How it ties into the sill and roof structure and also onto the rear outriggers.

Using the measurements I got I have been able to put in these details onto the model (in green)

I've decided that the first job to tackle will be the roof and the roof gutter. I think that the best method in forming the rear part of the roof is not through panel beating but by using fibre glass. At this stage i'm thinking of forming up the guttering that goes around the back of the roof and then using metal mesh that is spot welded to the guttering and formed to the desired shape. Once I have achieved the right shape I need out of mesh, I then place a few layers of fibre glass on it to finish it off.

The first step before being able to do any of the forming of the roof though is getting the gutter made up and welded on so I can use it as the ending profile for the roof. I was thinking something like below, the top half can be used to join the roof to the gutter and the bottom half can be used to join the wall to the gutter.

I just can't really figure out a decent way to fabricate the gutter since the pieces are small, welding will only cause them all to deform. Ideally, you would fold the outside edge but the corners make that difficult also... Hmm...

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