I made some cosmetic changes to my vehicle over the weekend. Cutting the doors and filling in the gaps took a few hours but was no real big task. Perhaps the hardest part was cutting and not really knowing exactly how things would proceed after that!!! I'm pleased with the new look. I still haven't taken any shots with the LED headlights in action but they work quite good. My motors from Jameco are slated to be here in a week so I'm looking forward to that.

One problem though, I noticed last night that one of my dogbones has substantial wearing. I think I caught it in time as I am presently in the process of rebuilding it with a two-part cold weld plastic compound. Its very strong and should be more durable than the original. Knock on wood.

Here are some images for your viewing pleasure.

Back filling the gaps with coroplast and epoxy:


Bondo-ed:


Prior to painting


The New Look:

A quick question -

I think I'd like to paint my wheels.

Black, Drab Olive or OEM Chrome?

Suggestions?

Sean

MR. SeanD, I like the work which you carried out on your crawler.
The color is of my taste. The removed doors gives a very beautiful stile to your crawler. CONGRATULATION.
PS..........
I like more not to see this blue: -)

for the rims, WHITE .... CHROME ...I leave you the choice.

Thanks Tex.

Yeah, I agree that blue needs to go!!

I took the rig out for a run in the snow yesterday. It still ran for an hour on my 2100 mAh battery pack and darn it was cold out too!!

Sean

Which modifications remains to you you he to make?

I will probably move my shocks inboard and then do the motor swap. Not sure what else? A gear swap may be in the future as well - who knows?

Sean

On MIX-CRAWLER, I have system FLAPDING, I advise it to you. And not to forget the FLAPDING-SHOCKS.: -)

SeanD, That's a really nice job to the doors. All you need is a driver and maby a passenger. Mayby a small dog to put in the back.
All 3 wheel colors would look good on this car.

Gumbi:

Thanks. I used to have a crazy marine driving before:



but as you may guess, there was no room for his legs so I just glued his torso to the seat and voila. See, the doors used to hide the fact that he had no legs. Now with no doors, you can't hide the fact that he has no legs.

Actually in the Bondo-ed image above you will see the crazy marine torso still attached to the God-awful blue seat!!

No driver is the price you pay for no doors!!!

Cheers,

Sean

If I said to you that TEX has me to cut the 2 legs… :-(

very nice crawler... i like the look without the doors, very very nice... very clean too

i would have to say you should go with black for the rims. also that paint job is sick. also the chopped doors look amazing.

Wow, that is a super clean job. Looks great. I'd leave the wheels alone personally. Chrome looks great on the otherwise flat paint scheme.

Thanks to all for the compliments!! Much appreciated. The jury is still out on the rims so they will stay chromed for now.

I am quite lucky that it does look as good as it does. I initally had it painted black and yellow but made the mistake of not completely cleaning off the WD-40 used to remove the stickers. WD-40 does not a good paint base make!!! The paint remained yet and gooey for a full day. I actually had to scrape the entire body and then sand the remaining goop off with a sanding block. It took a few hours but it finally came clean. That's when I decided to cut the doors and go with drab olive.

For the purists who may argue that the door sills on a real Jeep don't slope away like mine, I will argue that this is a custom way of ensuring that water does not stay in the tub !!! Sound good?

Cheers,
Sean

P.s. I did a very similar sill job on my 1995 Saturn SW2 so I've had practice!!

Wow Sean that's really nice man. I'd love to be able to do something like that to my truck but I don't have the cojones to start cutting on it, and I don't know anything about bodywork or bondo at all. Maybe someday I might be able to pull something off...

GV280Z:

Thanks much.

I ain't no body man either, believe me. As for the cajones, if you look in the first image you will see a wine glass. It contains a homemade apple/cranberry juice "cider" that is 13% alcohol. During the cutting, filling and painting I drank about 8 glasses of this stuff, plus some whiskey and much rum. Cajones had nothing to do with this - I was half tanked!!! I was lucky it came off like it did. Plus, I have this uncanny ability to start something with absolutely no real idea of how it will pan out and next thing you know, everything falls into place. Might not be cajones so much as having a horseshoe where the sun don't shine!!!

Cheers,
Sean

Oops. Make that the 2nd image has the wine glass.

that rig looks great seanD, very clean job on the doors. and ****ed if that "cider" doesnt sound tasteeey.

Yeah, good old liquid courage! I used the same technique to man up enough to take a sawzall to my beloved Buick in order to do the back suspension. After about an hour of cutting I had the back half of the frame out from under the car and called it a night. There was no going back at that point so I had to go digging for that same horseshoe!!

wow that looks great.. can't wait to see it with the LED's