Suzuki Club UK

Good and bad today.

Good. Ive got all the old underseal off and the body has been turned over and put back on the chassis to build a new rear floor and tubs. And got my tyres fitted up and balanced by a mate for free which is handy.

Bad- the front body mounts are off. I think the are both around 6mm to close together so ill have to adjust that before i paint the floor pan.

Ohh and the body fell of the trolley! No damage tho.
It was very slow mo with me shouting "no no no no no!"

I can imagine that slow-mo body fall.

And the 1000 thoughts as it happens of "oh (insert explitive)!!!, this is gonna (insert explitive) it!!!"

This was the floor i wasnt happy with but it does the job. You can see i hand to re make the cross member and do two large patches next to it. This was from some previous repairs that had been done to the seat mounting holes for some reason. The body mount areas have three skins so far and another will be added inside like the orignial mounts when i put the bolt in. A fourskin if you will. **sniggers**

This is how i left it tonight

Live update!

We have floorage.

Great work Andy, what thickness steel did you use for the floor? Are you going to drill and tap it for rear seats? Also, will the floor be okay as a single steel sheet? I heard that manufactures add the ridges to make the floor stronger and stop it deforming and flexing/booming whilst driving. Although I bet fitting ridges would be an absolute nightmare with out a forming tool!

Hoping to get a good morning in the barn tomorow.

Feel like the major part of the welding is done. Its just lots of little bits to do now. Ive also got to paint the thing. I tried as much as possible to keep its original paint. But theres just been so much rot cut back that it just doesnt make sense. Also the quarters have rippled a little from the arches so its going satin turqoise.

Tramp wrote:Great work Andy, what thickness steel did you use for the floor? Are you going to drill and tap it for rear seats? Also, will the floor be okay as a single steel sheet? I heard that manufactures add the ridges to make the floor stronger and stop it deforming and flexing/booming whilst driving. Although I bet fitting ridges would be an absolute nightmare with out a forming tool!

Hey dude.

Its 2mm black or cold rolled i belive. Its definately not a good choice for bending . Those arches were a bugger. I used this material before and its less prone to warping but the floor has a slight "POP" to it.

Im going to be putting some solid 12x12 square steel bar across from front to back to give the floor more rigidity and to try and reduce any drones. Theres not going to be anywhere for seats
I just dont use them, so no mounts in the floor. Ill be bolting a ammo case or two in the rear so stuff can be locked away when i leave it parked with no roof on. The floor will be gravitexd so it can simply be rinsed out or left in the rain with the back of the roof off.

I really wanted to keep this sami close to stock as it would make it easier to sell but it was just too far gone.

andyrew wrote:

Tramp wrote:Great work Andy, what thickness steel did you use for the floor? Are you going to drill and tap it for rear seats? Also, will the floor be okay as a single steel sheet? I heard that manufactures add the ridges to make the floor stronger and stop it deforming and flexing/booming whilst driving. Although I bet fitting ridges would be an absolute nightmare with out a forming tool!

Hey dude.

Its 2mm black or cold rolled i belive. Its definately not a good choice for bending . Those arches were a bugger. I used this material before and its less prone to warping but the floor has a slight "POP" to it.

Im going to be putting some solid 12x12 square steel bar across from front to back to give the floor more rigidity and to try and reduce any drones. Theres not going to be anywhere for seats
I just dont use them, so no mounts in the floor. Ill be bolting a ammo case or two in the rear so stuff can be locked away when i leave it parked with no roof on. The floor will be gravitexd so it can simply be rinsed out or left in the rain with the back of the roof off.

I really wanted to keep this sami close to stock as it would make it easier to sell but it was just too far gone.

Great! It sounds like you had already thought about the floor. Those arches may have been a pain, but it was certainly worth it, they look really robust and at 2mm they should be significantly better than the originals.

Don't worry about keeping it standard, if you can't save it, well you can't save it! You can only work with what you have got and this with a rebuilt back end has to be much better than the rotted out original!

Arches nearly finished