okey doke.
its about time, now im nearly finished my ute that i did one of these project build threads. after owning 260z's and an r32 i picked up this little beauty for $5000.

this is how it all started:




i then bought a set of wheels of a fellow member VIXEN. he has helped me out with a few nice goodies.




that did me for a while until the bug really bit. i also found some rust and decided it was time for an extreme makeover

after running around town getting rediculous quotes for paint and panel , i headed off and bought a lincoln mig and a nice big air compressor and various cutting tools and a spraygun.
after pulling everything out of the ute and totally stripping it bare, i cut out the rust and welded in in with some new tin.


and the rears of each sill



that was about all the rust i came across, except for around the rear wheel arches, but they were getting chopped out for the flares anyway

all along the way over the 2.5 - 3 years it has been sitting in my shed i have slowly been collecting all of the gx parts(i know i know facelift parts, for the pedantics) that i could possibly get my hands on.
first came the engine:



then i found this bonnet under a dudes house when i was there getting other bits. $300 later and it came home with me.




then came the dash, TOKYO2U was very helpful and sold me the bonnet off ebay after it didnt sell.


steering wheel came from the same bloke.




grabbed some personalised plates while i was at it.



then last but not least, thanks to member VELOCITI, i now have a gx grille.

righteo, time for paint and body mods.

first i had to chop the front guards so that my tyres and flares would fit.


i have limited pics, as my computer died by my hand a few months ago and i lost everything.

the rear arches were a bit trickier, i had to cut them and then weld the inner and outer skins together without warping the whole rear quarter.


you can see where i had to stitch the inner guard together after beating it upwards to meet the outer skin.

in choosing a colour, i wanted something light coloured as i was set on black flares and bonnet, bit of contrast never hurt. looks a bit racier imo.
so off to the paint shop and mixed my own brew of metallic purple. now on their books as datsun metallic purple.
painted engine bay first then did the rest a bit further down the track.




there im sure you all get the idea of the colour.

i wanted everything to be as new as possible, save re doing things down the track. so i bought a bundle of new bushes, some black paint and a can of clearcoat and did a refurb on the x-member, lca's castor rods and such.



thanks to WHORIDA i had a pair of 200b struts rock up on my doorstep.
this is the only part i had professionaly done.
i had them cut down 60mm and camry shocks added into em. 1200 spring perches were also welded on to accomodate the smaller diameter springs, which are chopped king springs atm. one i get it out of the shed ill go get some springs proper.


just need some camber tops if anyone has some they wanna sell.
the rear springs were removed and taken to a blacksmith to be reset 3 inches lower.
150 for the rears and 700 in total for the front setup, (includes purchace and moding of strut) it now sits like this-


i might just thank PIGDOG at this point for the bunch of q's i had that he could give me a decent answer for.

thats what im talkin about!!!!!

Hey Steve,

Nice project, when you say a can of clearcoat, do you mean aerosol tin?

Looks like it did really well.

I saw the tins, but I get a bit weary of tinned things so I bought the three part system... maybe I should have bought the tins.

Cheers,

Chris

Nice work with the Ute!!!
Where did you get the fender flares?
Do you have more pics?

good pic of wheel arch mods thanks
i like the purple