doyles lj70 project

[JimmyLJ71]

This is where I got the rear panels, not quite so good quality as the front, also on eBay Germany, so is the other company, you need to change your eBay setting to Germany.

Www.ps-autotelle.de

 

[doyle61]

Cheers for that jimmy. I'm using this project to do as much work myself so as I can learn more about the 70 if you know what I mean. I want to do a 73 in a couple of years and with that project I don't want to take on as much panel repair and want to just replace them instead so that info of not used on this car will be used on the next one

 

[Shaun]

Great project Doyle ! These old cruisers are a real pleasure to work on ! Like the way the front end all unbolts. Put a front end off one like yours to my later 1992 model.

 

[doyle61]

Quick update, brought the inner front arch, the front wing and the battery tray into work to fix up a bit. Here are few photos:

Before

After
Never took photos of arch before but you can see them on last update. There was rot at the top on the part that has the double skin. Cut both bits of rot out and welded new steel in. Welded two cracks and some of the holes that the wing bolts to.
After

The wing was in a right sorry state and tbh I didn't know if it could be saved. The patches for this I drilled the sides with 6mm drill and spot welded to the panel. I think she got a slap on this e ing before as it was bent out of shape a bit and because of this the patch looks very messy but I don't mind as it'll be an easy disguise with some filler. I still have a bit of tidying to do with this panel but you get the idea of what I'm at with the photos.

Obviously I'll grind the welds back and clean the surface rust but with the filler im hoping it comes out ok. I'm using metal gate paint and thinking of using it on the inside of the panel as it's durable. I also have to get some protector to put over the paint on bottom of arch, any sugestions?
I stripped the sunroof down but tbh it's fighting me. I can't get one side to move yet. I got two dustpans of rust out of it as well. I'll get it sorted first and then post photos.

 

[Pat]

I like your style.Give it a go and you will get results.

 

[doyle61]

Dismantled the other wing and arch today. The arch seems to be in better condition than the other one but I'll know more after blasting it. The wing has a bigger hole than last one but with repairing the first one in not as daunted this time even though it'll be more work.

The cruiser now looks very sorry for itself lol but I'm happy with the progress so far

Took the rotten running boards off and found some patch up jobs that someone did. I didn't look closely before because I thought it was protective paint but there are tin patches there aswell with the paint covering rivits that were used

At the rear of left arch

Disapointed with myself that I never coped these before tbh. The more I'm looking under the cruiser the more I'm realising it probally was never washed before as I'm pulling lumps of dirt off it lol.
Now question for all ye gurus out there; what are these two pipes suppose to be for. I thought air con first but I don't see where the pump would fit. Help would be appreciated lads

 

[fbnss]

Rear heater?

 

[doyle61]

Rear heater?

It's a vx so does have a rear heater alright. Where should they connect to?

 

[fbnss]

Umm. I think someone who knows more than me needs to answer...

 

[Ash Awbery]

Hi, the rear heater pipes 'T' into the main heater pipes as per bottom image

 

[doyle61]

Well guys bit of an update needed. Work since my last update was a bit slow as my home life has been turned upside down: my wife and myself broke up so it's not been good to say the least. Ironic thing is that the cruiser project is one of the few things that has kept me sane! ! So I left ye at the stage that I did the left hand wing so started on the right hand inner arch. I thought this would have been easier that the left one but after blasting it it turned out there was a lot of rotten metal in it that needed sorting. So I cut out the rot and welded in New patches. The corner part which attaches forward of the door was...... well completely gone lol so had to make up that aswell

So with the fabrication done and ground down and cleaned I put the gate paint on

Next I started on the corner prices that connect the wings to the front panel. Here I honestly thought it wasn't worth it as they were nearly shot. Rotten metal and one was buckled aswell. To find out exactly what I was dealing with I blasted them and well the pictures speak for themselves lol.

I said sod it I'd give it a go and sure if it didn't work out I'd just get new ones; I still want to rescue as much as I can of the can. So bit of trial and error I placed them back to back and reshaped the buckeled one to its original shape (i think)......

With the shape right I marked out the remaining rot (I know I laughed aswell at how little non rot was left lol) and cut it out. I food this in really small stages as in chit a small bit out and weld a small bit back in. This ment that I got roughly the right shape back again.

Next I cut of the old nuts as the bolts were seized in them and welded New nuts in their place. Then I ground the wells back to try make it look nice and have them a luck of the good old gate paint

Next thing I did was go back at the right hand wing. I basically did the exact same as before but forgot to take photos as my head was really up my arse. It was the one with the bad hole but it actually turned out ok tbh.I'm just going to have to treat the inside of both of them for rust before putting filler on them. So the next job I had was one I should have done ages ago but kept forgetting to; the number plate light holder. The lights were shot and there was absolutely nothing I could do to rescue them so out I went I got two nice led lights. Would ye believe this was actually the first thing I've bought for the restoration so far bar sandpaper and spray paint. So €20 later I set about fixing the holder. Got two strips of aluminium and bent them to shape to fit inside the surround but making them deep enough that the lights themselves aren't showing as something is at the back of my mind saying this is a test failure? ? There was a crack with the plastic backing so cleaned that and fiberglassed it from the inside. When it died I ribbed it down a bit but I'll have to do a final finish on it when I put it on the door. Bolted it all back together again and just have to attach it to the rear for now.

So there's where I stand atm. Next job it's to sort out the door sills and under the windscreen. I'm going to have to cut them out where I have the 70 and manufacture the patches in work and weld them up on site which will be a right pain but wish me luck! !!

 

[Ben]

Sorry to hear about your split mate.

Making good progress on your 70 though.

 

[doyle61]

So it's been a bit of a hectic few months for me. Because of break up I've had to move a load of stuff including my workshop back tupp my home place. Good news though it's that I'm getting it squared away bit by bit and I should be able to start back at the project pritty soon (fingers crossed). I'm hoping to build a rotessari (bad spelling I know lol) or something similar to lift the body and work on it easier.

I had some great news on Wednesday though with the birth of my little daughter Eryn. That makes 3 girls I have which I think is enough lol

 

[Ben]

Congratulations on the birth of your daughter.

looking forward to some updates on your LJ70 soon.

 

[doyle61]

Update time!!! So just because I havnt posted an update doesn't mean I've been idle lol. Got great progress done but unfotantly the camera on my phone is broken so havnt as many photos as I'd like. The auld chap has some on his phone but keep forgetting to WhatsApp them to myself. Last week I treated myself to a new kindle tablet for my birthday so I have a few photos of the work done at the weekend.
So I left ye with the problem of rotten sills and my idea to copy Ben and build a rotessary. Well I was goggly eyed from looking at different designs and settled on what I wanted. I decided to use same mounting points as Ben used. So I made the frame itself in work and ordered the coasters off eBay. Can't remember if it was 40 or 50 mm box I used but that's not relevant really. I knew my pivot point was going to be different to Ben so I got centre axes point of the car and measured from there to the base of the rotessary and the adjusted to get a balance point. It was pure guess work and tbh I am out a bit. The rotessary does work but I can only get 60 degrees at the most. When the project is finished I'll take it apart and rebuild it so the pivot point can be adjusted. So myself and dad next had to seperated the body and chassis, bare in mind neither of us ever saw this being done never mind doing one before so it was all guess work and looking at threads on this site. What we done was hook a chain shackle up to one of the roof beams and secured it through the body with straps. I know it' very dodgy (with roof beams) and very agricultural with the straps but we had tick all choice tbh. So we raised the front first to make sure it was clearing and then the back and then raised it properly by putting the straps around the B pillars And constantly watching the roof lol. When she cleared I put axle stands under the front and oil drums under rear arches and pushed chassis away from it. We then finished the part of the rotessary that attached to the car off and finished assembling it and attached it to the body. As i said it works but the balance is out but it's still great to work with

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Next I pressure washed the chassis down to have a decent look at it. I knew it was good but holy crap lads it's mint......and I mean seriously mint. Small bit of rust on inside of rear crossmember and bit of surface rust in places but that's it from what I can see. The plan is to wirewheel the paint off with a grinder and repaint with hammerite. If I get another 30 years out of the chassis it'll be doing good I reckon.......and it won' be getting abused so I think the paint Will do for my needs.
So after doing that quick job I started back doing bodywork. Days and days and days of bodywork. I was making cardboard temples and using them to make the steel patches and it was from here that I've run into the biggest obstacle of the project so far and it shouldn't be a problem at all. There's no power in the shed I'm using. It was my dad' workshop, company went wallop and he got power disconncted but it' now too expensive to reconnect it. So to get over this I borrowed a generator from work.......but it won't power any of our welders!!!! So I'm left with patches but no fucking welder!!! My friend can give me a lens of a generator welder but it' an arc so no good for the body but between myself my dad and my brother we might have come up with a plan. I have an old mug that's fucked so I'm going to use the gas setup on that and combine it with my little arc welder. We're going to reverse the polarity and put a TIG torch onto it and we should now have a TIG plant which sorts the type of welding needed. Next is the brain wave my brother got because they get the same problem on site. We get a step UP transformer and plug it into the 110v side and this then gives a stable 220v supply out of the transformer which hopefully is strong enough to power the welder. Cross your fingers for us lads.
So I was up shooting in Wicklow before Christmas and came across a wrecked lj70 which I called in about. He' willing to sell so I have to get back to him in next couple of weeks. I' going to use some of it for patches similar to what Ben did with the 75 ie the sills and hopefully patches for rear arches. So because I've got this lined up and tbh I was worn out from bodywork I switched back to the chassis. So I jacked it up in the air and put a trusty oil drumsunder rear crossmember and out with the spanners. I disconncted the rear axle and stripped parts off it for cleaning. Again it was only surface rust bar one spot I'm going to look at more closely but that' for a future post. I cleaned most of the parts down and again I'm going to paint with hammerite. Blue for shocks, yellow for springs away bar ECT and black everywhere else

Oh forgot to say aswell. I took all the fuel tank hangers and protector etc into work and sandblasted them there and I'll be repairing and painting them this week and next week during lunch.

 

[doyle61]

The chassis on trusty oil barrel lol

Have prop cleaned but had to use wd40 on it and leave it like this for a few day to free her up

Nice and clean ready for drop of paint now

 

[doyle61]

Hi guys, been a while since iv posted anything on here!!
Just said id give a quick update on everything on why i havnt posed. Basically i was using my phone and kindle to put up the posts up to now as my laptop operating system wasnt up to the job of attaching photos etc etc. What i was doing since then was posting everything to a facebook page i set up because it was easier and said id post here afterwards but time just got the best of me. Anyway im after getting a new laptop and when i have everything synced up with my phone ill be able to put them over here now. The good news is that im after getting through a huge amount of work and im not a million miles away from reassembling the car back together again.
Im also in the process of a new idea and id love all of your support with it when i set it up.....im going to set up a youtube chanel. Up to a few months ago i was taking photos and explaining what i did, same as here, but ive started doing videos of the project now aswell. Ill tell you this, its not easy videoing yourself lol.......I have noticed that im getting more comfortable doing it but still, seeing yourself on the screen in embarrassing!! So hopefully ill be able to start uploading to here over the weekend!!!!

 

[doyle61]

Have a lot to catch up on update wise!! So i Cleaned and painted the fuel tank holder, gearbox bracket and other bits. I mounted the gearbox back onto the chassis but tbh the chassis looks like crap against it!!

 

[doyle61]

So after doing that bit of the chassis i went back to the body. I borrowed a diesel generator off of a friend of mine so i could use my welder.... i cant remember if i said that in an earlier post.......so facing this rot i went at it with the grinder......and ohh boy was there some rot. Worst thing is, most of the rot was covered over. It would have been as easy to fix it right in the first place as cover the fucking stuff up!!

Would you believe it but i forgot to take photos of the sill cut out lol. In my defence though, around this time i was using a phone where the camers was broken and had to use the kindle and often forgot to bring it with me or forgot to use it lol......but ye all know what it looks like cut away anyway
PS point to note, but the inner skins were shot aswell so had to cut all that out also

 

[doyle61]

Started with the back inner skin. I didnt realise how hard it would be to fabricate these patches, not because theyre particularly complicated, but as you can see from the photos, theres massive amounts of metal missing and i basically had to imagine how everything went and manufacture patches from there. The rot was nearly as bad on drivers side so i could get only a few measurements from there. It really was a lot of imagination and a lot of measuring and remeasuring but eventually i got there.

Made up the front and rear patches of the arch

Then i made up the patches for the new outer skin. Not too bad for metal from an old oil drum lol. Obviously all the welds are all ground back at this stage but i didnt take photos