Monday, Jul 27, 2009 at 18:10
An impressive read - the ol guy has done a heap of work to the truck and most of it so expertly done too...
Like many old timers with a raft of skills - he has managed to "make do" with a lot of parts he had lying about the shed - that "would be handy one day" - thermo fans from this and that models of cars etc all use din the conversion..
That fact alone would scare the begeebers outta me.
ONLY the creator of that car could fix it - for ONLY he would know that his ro that part came out of a this or that model and year car from peugot or whatever...
Its a one off build - for example the drive shaft manufactured by the mate? a Unique part to ONLY his vehicle - where does one get a spare while on holiday in Tasmania when that one lets go at a critical moment?
Ring the mate and ask him to make another "from memory"?..
Like I said a work of art, and a very worthy project with a few conscerns for me tho, from a practicality point of view.
The roo/bull bar - the bumper bar part with tool boxes etc - brilliant - the actual sweeping long curved bar work?...looks frankly woeful.
That's a case where old and new technologies needed to have a meeting of minds before work started.
Maybe if a
young engineering student had drafted up a cad cam drawing of the bull bar on a computer first - photo-shopped it onto a photo of the vehicle and bumper bar section first - it would have been clear that the shape he has now looks kinda amateurish.
There are so many GOOD looking bull bars out there that to have one that takes away from the look of an otherwise great project IMHO is a shame.
The guys obviously capable of cutting and bending pipe and doing a good job of welding but his flare maybe for design etc is lacking.
Had it been me for example I'd have pre fabbed the uprights in timber chipboard as templates and run some plastic vacuum cleaner tube around to see how the beast would look completed before I made up the steel parts to fit and weld.
To my eye the bull bar uprights are too verticle if anything they almost slope backwards as if the bar is designed to deliberately roll a big bull or water buffalo up and onto the bonnet and thru the windscreen.
Most good looking bull bars I;ve seen have a forward projecting downward angle to deflect whatever you hot forward and down onto the road and under the vehicle.
Up to this part f the bull bar build we seem to be doing OK!
This seems to be where the wheels fell off the bull bar build IMHO.
Maybe something with more of a cow catcher look, would have set this build off a bit better!
Heavens knows there are heaps of examples out there to look at and get ideas. To my mind this art of the restore let the rest of a great build down just a little bit, not much but just a little.
You do have to take your hat off to the guy for his patience and work, overall it would get a 9 outta 10 from me - the bull bar design being my only criticism, and the whole boxed bumper section looked so good I was expecting more from the bar work.
You couldn't value the time effort and expense that must have gone into the build and the guys patience to photograph everything and detail his build along the way as
well, posting up photos and answering questions etc.
Pretty good effort...
Nissotas & Toni's.......whatever is this world comin too?
Both projects suggest to me - that the owners really wanted a Toyotal in the first place, and are trying to fix their mistake of buying a Nissan, bye slowly converting them to Toyota's one bit at a time! LOL...
Could 'a been worse - they could a started out with a Ford!
Cheers
AnswerID:
376442