This Weeks Update..........
I've been busy making battery trays this week!
Had a customers VW in for a custom tray.
As he now had a space underneath where the spare used to be he wanted to mount an auxiliary battery in that space.
Designed and built a tray out of 3mm sheet steel and some angle.
It needed supporting on the back edge and the only way to do it was to pick up the chassis where the towbar mounts.
Cut and drilled some plates.
Cut and tacked a piece of 50mm angle in.
Got it electro-plated.
Made a top mount and found some J bolts.
Bolted a battery in.
All done.
I also made 10 Suzuki trays.
Cut, drilled and bent all the steel brackets.
Used a jig to weld them all together.
10 finished and ready for electro-plating.
I also did a lot of work on the electric solar Suzuki, but I will upload those pics in that thread shortly.
I stayed back after work on Thursday and cracked on making the other pair of axle stands (or chassis stands as their called here) that I mentioned a week or 2 ago.
Got one of my ones that I'm copying on the bench and tack welded some off cuts of angle around each leg.
Cut and folded some 3mm sheet.
And clamped them to some angle I'd cut for the legs.
Welded.
Made another.
Cut and hole sawed some 6mm plate.
Welded them on the tops.
Cut and bent some 25mm x 5mm flat.
Clamped and tack welded in position.
To make the tube extension piece stable, I needed to weld another piece of steel with a hole in the middle underneath.
Put an off cut of tube in the middle so I could accurately mark where the hole would need to be.
Cut a cardboard template.
Gave it a tap to get an outline of where the tube was.
Cut and hole sawed some steel.
Welded in position.
And that is as far as I got on them but I should get them finished next week.
My old ones had always been missing the pins since I've had them.
I'd always just used some M20 bolts.
But decided to make some proper pins as would need some for the new pair anyway.
Welded some chains on.
And welded the chains to the stands.
Brought them home and gave them a coat of black paint.
OK................................
LJ!
I picked up some Nissan calipers last weekend which I hoped to use for the rear disc brake conversion.
My plan was to use a pair of my old front discs.
Wound one of the calipers back and it went back enough for the disc, so things were looking good!
Dug out my spare pair of rear half shaft and some old front brake discs.
Then discovered that the disc wouldnt fit over the hub as the center hole wasnt quite big enough.
It didnt need much removing, just to the edge of the bevel as shown in the pic below.
Dug out my rear wheel bearing press tool and took the whole lot to work.
Put one of the brake discs on the lathe and removed the offending section.
The center hole was now big enough.
Bolted the press tool on.
And pressed the old bearings off.
Same with the other one.
I then had 2 rusty old backing plates for the scrap bin.
And the bits I needed.
Minus the 2 old bearings.
Cleaned all the bits in the parts washer.
This 3 phase bench grinder fitted with a wire wheel does an excellent job at cleaning up parts and getting all the rust off.
So I could now turn rusty old parts into nice clean bare metal ones.
Rusty.
Clean!
Followed by a few coats of black enamel paint.
About this time I discovered that the old brake disc still wouldnt fit the hubs.
No way I could remove that much metal!
So at this point I had a dilema in that I needed to source brake discs that would clear the hub, but going down the tried and tested route of Nissan Patrol GQ rear discs would also mean I would need new calipers as the calipers I'd sourced wouldnt work with the much thicker Patrol discs that are vented and so twice the thickness.
Anyway.........................
I continued to spend my lunch break's cleaning and painting the parts.
Finally everything was cleaned and painted and ready for re-assembly.
Picked up some bearing kits.
With genuine Koyo bearings of course.
I couldnt work out why there is an extra hole on the hub! Doesnt make sense?
Paper gasket even has a cut out for it.
And the backing plate has a raised area for it.
Knocked all the studs back in.
Fitted the rubber seals/dust covers.
Pushed the new bearings in.
A bit of grease inside the rubbers.
Dropped them over the half shafts.
Got the other press tool.
And pressed the bearings home.
All the way until the groove was visible for the snap ring.
Other one.
Both done.
I decided to order some of the Subaru L series calipers that people commonly use for these types of conversions.
Excellent customer service from this company, they were great to deal with!
Pulled the pads out.
And got them in the parts cleaner for a good clean.
Nice and clean.
The wire wheel also did an awesome job of cleaning the pads up which have still got plenty of meat on them so for now they will be going on while I get it all working.
Comparing the L series calipers to the tiny in comparison Nissan 200SX ones.
Picked up some Nissan GQ Patrol rear brake discs.
Which fit beautifully over the hubs.
The back of the disc looks good in terms of where the caliper mount will sit which will be bolted on to the back of the studs which hold the half shaft in.
All the bits collected up ready to be fitted.
I will need to change the master cylinder to an 80/90 series one and also get some hoses made up.
I did consider just fitting 80 series rear brakes but then I would still have drum brakes for the handbrake and its well know that 80's with standard rear brakes dont always have particularly great handbrakes.
I know I could have fitted some of the dogbones from
www.hardcandy4x4.com, like most of the 80 owners down here have been doing for years, but I really wanted to get away from drum brakes.
I got the fuel pump all wired up and plumbed in.
I just put the fuel hose onto one of the many breather outlets on the top of the standard tank.
A quick check of the fuel levels.
Flicked the switch for the pump.
And within a few minutes of pumping I had noticable differences in fuel levels and no leaks!
Re-fitted the swing away wheel carrier.
And spare.
Re-fitted everything in the back.
Screwed the water container holder in place.
Which left some screw heads.
So I cut some thick rubber to go in the bottom and cover the screw heads as they would have worn through the bottom of the containers in time with the corrugations.
I also cleaned all the rust off the aircon brackets and got them re-painted, so they also now need fitting.

I'm hoping to get a few hours work on LJ this weekend to pull the rear diff out and investigate the leaking rear air locker, then start on the brake conversion.
