The Tuki Suzuki - Toyota drivetrain, Samurai body

[854RUN]

lookin darn good, the floor looks great!

[4RnrRick]

Prep'd


Primed


Painted

[Phazertwo]

wow, I need more cinder blocks!


Looks  Rick

[joeshmo]

good looking paintjob, i cant remember what u were using, spray can or did you use a gun?,
ever think of painting an 01 on the doors and a confederate flag on the roof? j/k

[THK Matt]

WOW that looks amazing Rick.

[TheCookieMonster]

WOW that looks amazing Rick.

x2 

[TIMS89CRAWLER]

ya that looks pretty sexy!

[4RnrRick]

Passenger side now painted...

[Jordan7118]

Paint looks amazing. What are the steps you're going through to paint? Spray cans (doubtful) or gun?

[4runner freak]

Paint looks amazing. What are the steps you're going through to paint? Spray cans (doubtful) or gun?

Rattle can - easy to touch up...........

[Jordan7118]

Crap... Thanks! 

[4RnrRick]

Paint looks amazing. What are the steps you're going through to paint? Spray cans (doubtful) or gun?

Yeap - Rattle can.... So far with my sheetemtal work I haven't needed to bondo anything since I got everything close enough for me and just used a flapper wheel to polish the surfaces down smooth. (although I will probably bondo the tailgate because that weld seam didn't turn out as good as I hoped) Anyways, then I just sanded the old paint down with a cross hatch pattern to rough it up some and to feather out the edges, then I prime it with two thin coats and then I painted the final color with 3 thin coats. The key with rattle can is to control the overspay.





Got the tub installed onto the chassis for hopefully the last time.



And heres how the rear winch bumper turned out...





I also set the rear cage back in so now that the frame rail is notched - I should be able to get the coilovers to fit in the back and finalize my mounts....

[DeadlyPeace]

Looking great! Nice rattle canning job too
The rear bumper turned out good. Looks much better with the top center part cut out. Not so plain.
Awesome work!

[TIMS89CRAWLER]

  I really like the rear bumber/winch set-up... this thing is coming along nicely....

[THK Matt]

how did you "control" the overspray?
if you dont mind asking?


and damn that looks really good. better then you hoped?

[4RnrRick]

What I mean by "control the overspray" is don't let the overspray touch paint where you just sprayed...

well that didn't make sense.... its hard to explain.

here - loot at the picture below

Basically when you spray, tilt the can in the direction you going to paint so air born paint particles that will land on the surface will get painted over. These air born particles dry before they hit the surface and give the surface a frosted look if they land on old or tacky paint.

If you just keep the can point 90 degrees at the surface, then your "over spay" is getting blown onto the area you just painted and will cause a hazy to the surface and make it look spotting and not have a even gloss to it.

The bigger the panel your painting (say a hood) the harder it is to control this over spray.

[4RnrRick]

So for the side, I kinda used this pattern.

1.) with teh nozzle poining downward I would spray the back rail working from top to bottom.

2.) then for the side panel behind the behind the door, I would hold the nozzle pointin got the left and spray from top to bottom slowing overlapping each pass.

3.) for the rocker panel I would hold the nozzle pointing downward and slightly foward and go from right to left.

4.) then I would finish it off with pointing the nozzle slightly downward and spray from top to bottom.

So this forces most of the over spray to a place that will get sprayed over with the next pass and keeps a smooth consistant high gloss surface.

Hope that makes sense....

[fj40forlife]

really nice build took me a few hours to read but nice. I like the color to. that what i was thinking for my fj40

[4RnrRick]

Got a steering shaft made last night.



Also got started on the attaching the clutch pedal to the clutch master.

[MiniSimp]

Also got started on the attaching the clutch pedal to the clutch master.

I hope that is just a mock up...

[TIMS89CRAWLER]

you hope its a mock up why??? looks like pretty handy fab work to me

[4RnrRick]

I hope that is just a mock up...

kinda..... everytime I tacked it on, when I cycled it it would flex and bind and break my welds! I finally made my best guess and burned it in good. I'm not real happy with it current location... problem is the clutch peddle swings in a arc and the piston needs a linear motion.  I'll proably have to cut it off and move it up another 1/16 - 1/8" to get it better.

As for alignment - its actually better than it looks in that picture..

[TheCookieMonster]

looks like it will work quite well to me ....keep up the great fab work rick ...she is gonna be one hell of a masterpiece when its completed

[TIMS89CRAWLER]

ya it is I really hope to see this at the round-up

[toyotanner]

hey rick you wouldnt happen to remember the inside measurment of frame rail to frame rail on the front of sami would you? or still have that front clip of samurai frame you could measure?

my buddy just got in a wreck and tweeked his frame and im gonna build a new one from the firewall forward and was just wondering what the measurment was cause with it being tweaked i didnt want to trust the measurment i could have taken.

[toyotanner]

nevermind i got the measurement any progress over the weekend?

[4RnrRick]

I was going to get that dim for you, but spaced it - oops....

No progress, I'm so burnt out on working on it..........









I did lift my DD (sidekick) and install some 31"s.




and I bought another RC Crawler (Axial Ax-10) and have been messing with that way too much lately.

[Tallchevy]

I did lift my DD (sidekick) and install some 31"s.

Looks good. What lift did you use & how many inches?

[BigBs84]

Love the RC that thing is sick and yea everybody has to take a break sometimes 

[DTB]

You know someones gonna ask for specs on the Axial!