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Your expertise please

Posted: Mon Aug 12, 2013 7:49 pm
by The Bird Man
Evening chaps, right, some of you might of gathered from my previous posts that I am doing up my SJ ( slowly ) Well time has come to start the work on the body, and boy does it need work !! I have never ever repaired body work before and looking at it, it's quite scary stuff :shock: Just wondering what you guys think of it, is it worth repairing, if so, how difficult ? Haha, thanks in advance. Eddie ;)

Re: Your expertise please

Posted: Mon Aug 12, 2013 7:54 pm
by dan_2k_uk
.

Wow!!

Errr. Yeah there's no reason it cant be done. How good are you with a welder?

The good thing is you have the body off the chassis which is the best way to approach it.

Re: Your expertise please

Posted: Mon Aug 12, 2013 7:57 pm
by rory-ray
It does look quite scary but, get yourself a 4" grinder and some carbon discs, start squaring off the rotted areas until you find solid metal, as soon as its squared off it will look 100% better, its just a case then of getting some metel, a cheap welder and teaching yourself to weld! Ive sort of learnt to weld by working on rotted cars and watching youtube videos, once you start you can only improve!

Once your confident enough get some metal sheet and begin to repair!

Re: Your expertise please

Posted: Mon Aug 12, 2013 7:58 pm
by turbo-tom
wow that can be done! but take time! as Dan says... take body of attack it with angle grinder and plate it up ;)

Re: Your expertise please

Posted: Mon Aug 12, 2013 8:28 pm
by Jordi
Cut the rot out. Cut new steel to fit and weld it in. Sounds so simple.

Welding is something you get better at with practice.

I find body work quite time consuming but its not as hard as you think, if you plan to off road it the repairs don't need to be show room standard just solid.

Re: Your expertise please

Posted: Mon Aug 12, 2013 9:34 pm
by The Bird Man
Cheers for all your replies guys, appreciate them all. I've never welded before so it'll be a whole new experience for me :lol: Right I shall get going with the angle grinder tomorrow and see how I get on, I'm quite handy with it so should be fine, it's the welding that will be the tricky part. At least I now know that it's worth going ahead. Once again thanks and I'll let you know how I get on ;)

Re: Your expertise please

Posted: Mon Aug 12, 2013 9:37 pm
by Jordi
If you're buying a welder DO NOT BUY GASLESS a good 190amp (ish) gas mig welder is ideal for most jobs on a Zuk.

Re: Your expertise please

Posted: Tue Aug 13, 2013 11:00 am
by twiss
Jordi wrote:If you're buying a welder DO NOT BUY GASLESS
I second that! They do tend to be rather crap!
Ive got a 150a MIG, cost me about £250 but it was well worth every penny!

Re: Your expertise please

Posted: Tue Aug 13, 2013 11:13 am
by timwilks13
I also concur, I only have gasless and though it may do what I need it for its in no way pretty as it splatters ALOT, and tends to blow through very easily! get gas get gas get gas!

Re: Your expertise please

Posted: Tue Aug 13, 2013 11:35 am
by turbo-tom
I dont even own a welder and I used the college's gas less and it was crap. Twiss's welder is pretty good I must admit!