my 1960 xk ute

kool old truck mate, love the slammed stance and rat look

cheers guys. its getting there slowly.

Needs a fiberglass blue healer in the back.
http://www.saintfrancisgarden.com/Life-Size-Blue-Heeler-29L-p289.html

haha that is cool and would be good in there wouldnt it

i have never seen this thread till today thats so awesome i have always wanted one of them, you should put the wagon roof on make it a delivery that would be awesome as

wow been a while since the last update. Im still poking along slowly at the ute. trying to have it done by Bright Rod Run but not really liking my chances at the moment haha.

The ute needed all the floors replaced so I thought I might give welding a go myself. I have always wanted to be able to do more myself to cars so went and bought a welder and a bottle of gas, watched a few youtube movies and away I went. I am pretty damn happy with how it has all come out considering 3 weeks ago I had never used a welder.

First was the drivers floor

eek


much better


and then the passenger floor

eww


lovely


and finally got all the floors finished up last night and cleaned it right up





the rust repairing was good fun, cutting out the patches and everything I really enjoyed it and cant wait to get into the delivery haha. Thats my goal now. Do a beating/painting course at tafe and be good enough to do the whole delivery by myself.

I also got my radiator fitted up over the weekend. Found a good use for holden parts haha. Good old trusty VN radiator


hopefully this weekend I can get the disc brake front all sorted out. will be sure to keep the updates coming if there is still interest.

Cheers

Red-Pv wrote:i have never seen this thread till today thats so awesome i have always wanted one of them, you should put the wagon roof on make it a delivery that would be awesome as

no need now mate got one of them too

love the ute mate! great work, the bagged look is absolutely awesome! my old man use to have one of these i remember cruising to building sites with him on a saturday morning when i was still in primary school lol
keep up the good work mate, look forward to seeing more progress pics

Great work Brad.

cheers fellas

Great Work for a Beginner there Brad!!

I'm looking forward to watching the Ute's Progress.

thanks Rusty. I would be more excited if it was the van nearing completion but my mate is getting better slowly so hopefully some progress on that soon too

Fingers Crossed here!

What a beast.Luv it.

cheers mate

made a bit more progress with the old girl lately.

ripped the fuel tank out to assess what sort of condition it is in. I will let the picture explain haha



so with such a short deadline till Bright I decided to lend a mates fuel cell that he isnt using at the moment. So we mounted it in the back and it looked sh1thouse haha. Didnt suit the look of the ute at all. So a trip to the wagga swap found me another option. and walla



got myself an esky in the rear now instead haha

what started as this



evolved into a neat cover for it







one thing out of the way now.

Next was to fit the seat up so I got some rails made up and mounted it. The floors will eventually be carpeted and everything but for now im going for a look that says "hey looks like he found this in a paddock, fixed the floors, trimmed the seat and regod it" haha so the seat went in without carpet or even painting the floors just yet



also got all my linkages sorted out



mounted a tranny cooler



fitted the dual circuit xt master cylinder



and assembled my brand new brakes.



which leaves me with this weekends job of rebuilding the front end of the old girl



cant wait.

hopefully there will be more updates soon

Lookin' good!

Fully into the Esky trick.

Enjoying the pics and words, keep 'em coming.

Regards, Smooth

Luv your Work Brad.

I'm looking forward to checking it out at Bright this year.

Love the aussie fuel tank Heck. I love the whole car.

Sweet!!!!!! Bugger the stocky fuel tank full stop, the esky rocks!

well been some more work done on the ute lately. The chances of it being at Bright are getting slimmer but ill keep working away at it.

we started on the airbags a couple of weeks ago. First thing was to remove the old diff and put the hilux diff in that I had. I have always been a bit wary about using the hilux diff in it because I wanted it LOW and the diff is a bit wider then the stock one but it seemed to make sense because the hiace was originally bagged so all of the brackets were on that diff already. My mate has a hilux diff in his delivery and it works a treat but he has trouble with it scrubbing with a load in the back and I want mine as low as possible haha.

so as I said a couple of weeks ago a good mate of mine came over from west wyalong and we started on the rear setup. He is a welder by trade and knows his s t when it comes to suspension setups so thought we would have a good crack at it.

we removed the old diff and bolted the new one in on the leafs still so we could adjust everything. we then made these brackets up for the lower 4 link arms and welded them to the chassis and floor


I had to remove the old shock brackets and everything from underneath but it was all going great to start with.

With the lower brackets in, the diff hanging and the bridge across the top tacked in we decided to whack the wheels on it and see how it sat.

There was the first problem. the xy wheels that I had didnt fit. The diff needs a bigger centred rim to fit over the hubs.
I knew I had some at the parents farm off an xb so we did the nuts up tight and stood back to see the hard work


it was low but it was higher then before......by almost 2 inches

This is where I started to lose motivation haha. I knew it was only a case of moving the brackets from the top of the diff to the rear and moving the bridge around but with my mate coming 140ks to help it was making it hard.

Anyway I had a week away from the ute and went out to our farm to get some rims that I needed. a 14x6 with the bigger centre to fit. The following weekend my mate came back over and we decided to get stuck into it again. We moved the brackets to the rear of the diff and braced it all up. Because of this I then had to move the bridge across the top back which meant more cutting of the old girl haha. Lucky im no restorer cause this could make the vintage car community a bit sad.


bridge in and everything mounted in the spare wheel well just to trial it all up. Still needs alot of tidying up but it was in there. The spare wheel well is pretty rusted out so im a bit worried about it to be honest haha

We then lowered it off and hey-presto we had some slammage haha.




but with that came more problems. Even the smaller wheels that fit better on the diff press hard on the outer gaurd. By that I mean we had to let the air out of the tyres to let the gaurd drop down over it then pump it back up HMMMMM. So it looked good but motivation was at an all time low by now. 2 full days of work and although it looked cool the only way I could get it moving was to have it full raised

By this stage I was over it. I was at a stage where I should have just left it lowered normally like every other normal person would haha. Then I had a mate visit me in his newly finished (well the exterior anyway haha) xm coupe and I tell you what it helped with motivation haha







so after a few calls between my mate and I we decided to tow the car over to his place and get it finished. We are putting the old diff back into it and putting all the brackets and everything off the hilux diff onto it. By having it there he can tinker away when he wants and ill be there on weekends. makes sense me paying the petty considering it being my car haha.

So we loaded it up last sunday and headed off (yes I drive a holden as a daily haha)


we booted the monaro that we rescued a few months ago out of the shed to let the real car have a warm bed haha


and here she sits waiting for more work


hopefully have some more good updates in a few weeks. we are thinking about modifying the floor in the back now that we have started cutting it up because it was very rusty in there anyway but will see how we go.

Damn, How did I miss this one?!
Freakin loooving it! YOU sir, have the idea of "how" these things are built (Bar that pretty benchy hehe).
Hmm, I just may have been given an idea.

.............I almost forgot what forum I was on their for a moment lol.

EDIT: Did I mention Pinstriping?


Dan

haha cheers mate. there is reasons for the seat. It needed trimming and unfortunately the car wont stay looking like this forever so the plans are when the body gets to rough it will be going a creamy white with candy teal roof with lacing so the seat will match then haha

As for pinstriping that is definitely on the cards mate.

Creamy White= Ivory
And Lace painting, Man. You have my attention now.
I'll be interested in seeing the Lines you get on. I'm a practicing Stripper myself. Always good to see some well executed Pinz

Dan

no huge updates but a couple of decent pics of it outside.

Still needs the rear tubs removed to get it sitting lower but its looking cooler already

that is a good looking car so good it has added a new saved search in