Superb progress!
Your oak mould is absolutely fabulous!!!
All the doors rot in the corners mainly because the outer glass seals are poor and over the years people don't keep the drain slits clear.
Keep up the good work, it is a pleasure to watch.
Regards,
Rodger
Thank you Roger! With the mould it has surprised me how relatively easy it was to mark out and make it. To think of fabricating the patch panel straight from a flat piece of steel sheet. Mind you I haven't made it out of steel yet!!! Aand yet to make a mess of it welding it in!!! But hats off to the fella who shared the youtube video content...
Have gathered together some parts with some help from my mate who works with me.
I've dug out these axles, they're from the 1995 24v hdj80 that was incredibly rusty and I used the engine and box in my trusty 1991 hdj81, converted to manual from an auto.
As I'm at the stage of looking to refit the fj45 original rear axle there's several issues with it... don't want a semi floating rear axle, drum rear brakes and no rear wheel hand brake... this hdj rear axle is fully floating, rear disk brakes, rear wheel hand brake and it has a diff lock! There's no contest there! Need to clean the axle case down to bare just leaving hand brake pivot and to add leaf spring seats..
Front axle is coil sprung, has the bigger front disks and of course the locker. Then add to the chassis the appropriate parts to make it like an 80. The difference between the width where the radius arms attach hdj80 to fj45 is that the latter is 20mm narrower. So it's possible but it's got to be done well!
Made the discovery quite a few months back that the square light lj70 front arms fit the 80 front axle and vice versa. The rusty one is an 80 one which is also shorter. There's an option regarding castor etc. Food for thought..
The con side of using the 80 axles is that they're manual gearing... re gear to auto or a change of plan to manual trans??? I don't have a manual gearbox.. h151f or h55f??? Any one have either of these that needs rebuilding??
Have the flat bed into an area where I can work on it.. looks pretty sorry..
But the underside frame is remarkably good! It will do the trick and it'll bolt straight on!!
Plenty to do lol!