The good, the bad, and the awesome

[Jeza]

G’day,
It’s been ages since we’ve had this amazing resource. A big shout out to ‘Blocker’ (is this the original Blocker or a new one 🤔) for getting us back on line. Thought I’d post a few pics of the transition to my van. A bit of a bingle gave me an great excuse to transform her over to what I wanted.

In the beginning, nice windowed XX7
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Ouch, my bad..
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Hmm.. well got to fix the front, might fix the back too - complete roof found on eBay
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5 hour round trip to get it home
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No turning back from here..
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Phew! That’s better
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In primer
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In colour, my favourite angle
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Finished! The good that comes from something bad. An accident gave me the opportunity to do something that I probably wouldn’t have done for a long time. Windowless conversion, replace a rusty door and plenums, rear bottom tailgate and tidy up the scale in the gutters. And put GTS guards on too - not an original HZ option but gotta love them!
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[damienengland]

That's a pretty awesome job. I do like windowless vans...

[Sandaro]

Hey Jeza, good job. Any tips, lessons learnt with the cut out replacement. I'm curious particularly about the ute to van join line and how you did that? Just grinder??

[Valencia]

Wow great work Jeza
good to see you back on the forum to mate

[Innuendo]

Awesome!

Such a sweet ride now, not that is wasn't before but the work has it at another level now. Great stuff.
Bet you weren't feeling the best when you pranged it?

[axistr]

Seeing your van makes me miss mine even more. Nice work Jeza.

[wbute]

Great effort. That would be the best way to fix the windows.

[Valencia]

Is that Windsor Blue Jeza ???

[Jeza]

Awesome!

Such a sweet ride now, not that is wasn't before but the work has it at another level now. Great stuff.
Bet you weren't feeling the best when you pranged it?

Nope wasn’t a great day when I pranged it, but definitely turned out for the better

[Jeza]

Hey Jeza, good job. Any tips, lessons learnt with the cut out replacement. I'm curious particularly about the ute to van join line and how you did that? Just grinder??

I didn’t do it myself, was panelbeater who did the front end repair - Paul Hodges from Autoshape restoration. He does a heap of old stuff, specialising in kombis. Excellent metal fabricator.
He described it as ‘unpicking’ the seam - spot welds probably every 20mm I reckon. Other cut was just below the gutter. Definitely the best way to do it. You’d never know, unlike some of the window fill ins.
Also get to tidy up any rust in the seam at the same time - mine was ok but some are bad, rust from the inside out so near impossible to get to otherwise

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Is that Windsor Blue Jeza ???

Yep Windsor blue

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Wow great work Jeza
good to see you back on the forum to mate

Been awhile, good to be back. It’s a value resource. Some much info within the forums.