Time to start, after a bit of welding practice on some old scrap i decided to start off on the front end, strip it all down to good metal and see what’s going on underneath, cut away all the front upper and lower panels to reveal a lot of surface rust, a bit of rot which got cut out and what looked like a couple of panels to replace / weld back in, obviously this being all new to me i took my time and tried to at least think about it before rushing in, after cutting out the rot i treated the whole area with rust treatment and tacked in the upper panel, that went quite well after the windscreen repair (that was hard as my first proper welding experience) i left out the lower panel as the cab floors needed repairing and i thought it best to leave this area free to access it better later on…turned out to be a good idea as you will see later on.

Onto the next area!!

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With a bit of a journey ahead i asked around for what is the minimum needed to start this sort of restoration and had various responses, i decided to go with the minimum and then a few more bits that although not potentially needed first off would certainly make life easier going forward, this collection gets added too throughout the project considerably……i can always sell it after right???

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Time to start with as blank a canvas as I can get, strip out of the engine bay, wiring, gearbox and fuel tank along with the rear suspension and swing arms, the vast majority of this is going to, after inspection get replaced with brand new parts, most of it is not worth saving. The gearbox I was told was absolutely fine but my trust in the previous owner ran out a long time ago so that is now going for a complete rebuild so I don’t have the worry of that item either, prodded around some suspect areas and also discovered the inner and outer sill on both sides were completely shot so another job to add to the list, all in all a productive few days albeit a very expensive few days

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