Hello Guys,



I have been lurking on these forums and reading for a few months. I bought my Suzuki a few months back, and have been steadily working on it to make it semi worthy.
Since buying it I have had to put a whole new floor in it, all 8 body mounts and the front inner fenders made out of 1/8'' steel. I have had to put new spark plugs, and head lights in it.


It has a 2.5'' lift with coil spacers and strut spacers. It didnt have a diff spacer on the rear so the ball joint is shot. I replace it and added a 1/2'' plate not realizing that I needed the full 2.5'' of spacing there! So its shot again.


She has 235/75/r15 Traction King tires under her( really poor tires) untill i find my self a set of 31's. Have 4 lights on the hard top, and 4 more once I fab up some bumpers.


The carpet was ripped out when the floor was done, and gator guarded all of it except the rear floor. Buddy that had the car before me did a pathetic job on patching the rear floor, and even welded it right to the damn frame!! I never got around to gator guarding underneath, so its oranging up with out salty Maritime roads she is on.


It has a really horrible exhaust system on it, with no flex pipe so it is cracking the downpipe and noisy untill i have the money to fix it yet.
The worst part on the truck is the rear section of the frame and crossmember. Its completly rotted off and just hanging there by my patch job untill i cut it all out and put in some square tubing.
I have ordered a 2'' body lift and a diff spacer off another member on here.
Now, I need to drop the gas tank down and weld the rear frame up, whats the best way to go about this?
Also I need to lower my front differential a bit I feel, where can I get brackets to do this?
I will be putting 31's on her soon, hopefully Swamper LTB's and installing my huge stereo system. Tell me what you think guys, and what are some possible necessites and modifications.!

Enjoy the Bodylift and diff spacer. I got some nice 31 inch tires but they would be $$$ to ship to canada.

NIce project you got going.......

Thanks! Cant wait to get them and start on this frame work!
Here are a few more pictures of the big dirty..

Ouch!  That actually makes me feel pretty good about the amount of rust that's on mine!  Heh.   Good luck with it!   I hope you can fix it up and keep it.  They're a blast to drive!

The salt really does eat it up doesn't it...

Looks like a good start though.  Keep us updated with your work. 

Yeah I deffinetly have a pretty soft one here, lol. Damn American weather and lack of salt. Makes me want to go down to Florida and pick one up haha.
She's rusty but is getting better, cancer ain't easy to heal haha

Heres all the progress I got today!

looks to me that you are doing fine with your project. sorry |removethispart|@ the rust, but it doesn't seem to scare you at all.
i like your attitude!
you have me wondering |removethispart|@that rear ball joint thing. i never put a spacer in mine. probably ought to look at it.....
you'll probably notice a lack of "poop" w/the 31" tires. i did.

Yeah that rear ball joint is mangled bad, i cant seem to find a used one and its around 700 from dealership... I ordered a rear diff spacer to fix this problem. Hopefully that helps.
Had to put in a new rear U joint as this is getting bad. Also am installing  snorkel once i get a stock intake box, anyone got one around they will part with?
New rear tail lights, door guts because i dislike the slow old power windows and poor skins.
Anyway here are a few updates!


Here is the new rear frame made out of 1/8th inch steel, and a 2X2 box tubing. didnt really care what it looked like as the bumper will hide that, so one side is a little smaller than the other, but shes solid now.


Here is the rear floor cut out. I got a little carried away with the rust....


Rear tub that had to be plated.. stupid rust.



Here is the rear floor all welded in after many fires from the years of undercoating(or lack of), random sections full of body fill(seriously, who uses body fill on a floor?) and seam sealer. Used tiger hair fiberglass all around to seal her up.


Rear frame with custom body lift in. Now before the comments come about the 2x2 instead of 2x3 tubing, its all i had and ALL my body mounts and 1/8th steel so no worries about strength...


Ugly front body mounts. The previous owner must have been a horrible welder, because where he welded the front inner fenders to the cross section that are where the body mounts are, literally all pull apart, so i have to re weld entire front end on literally...


Decided to plate this body mounts.


Going to cut this box tubing and run it across the front body mounts and weld in place for structural support, and since my bolts were all mangled and snapped, actually they were just threaded low and soft grade metal..



Random shot of a body mount all done.




Shot of underneath the rear floor before its coated with tar and the gas tank is put on..
Thats it for now will have more updates after late tonight when I get home from the garage again..

Bryce

edit: sorry about the advertisement thing that comes along with using imageshack.us for hosting pictures, does anyone know of a better site to use?

For hosting pictures, you can upload them right here while you post! Or, you can create a gallery by clicking the "gallery" link above and follow the links to create a user's gallery. Once pictures are in there, you can share them everywhere. And as a added bonus, we are not blocked by corporate I.T. departments like some of the big picture and video sites.

-Eric

Nice job!
That's what I call making a silk purse out of a cow's ear!
Keep it up!

That's what I call making a silk purse out of a cow's ear!

Amusingly, this isn't the first time I've heard that statement. 

For the ball joint on the rear, why not look at replacing it with a bushing and bolt setup?

I would love to do that, but cant find anything that would work, any where to purchase parts pertaining to it. I have already purchased a spacer block, and am fabbing up a plate to move it forward.

More progress, but no pictures yet.

Everything is installed and put back together with some head ace. I used the wrong body rubbers on the front as I had to custom cut them because of re plating one body mount and not the other, as it was shot on 1 side and not the other, i mixed them up so the front end is higher on one side than the other haha.

Its coming together, now I just need to put the diff spacer on, and install a new universal joint that was bad, and i actually SNAPPED it with my hands when searching for the bad one.

Pictures will be up tomorrow.

Bryce

dam that looks about like my fred flintstone mobile i got fix my body mounts 2  :'(