Hey guys! over the past two years I've been slowly working away on a HJ ute I purchased in January of 2012 and thought I might as well post a few pics of her journey.
Progress was slow due to completing my VCE in '12 and starting uni last year. Finally, due to the uni holidays over the past couple of months I was able to spend some solid time getting it back on the road.
Firstly I have to say, this forum along with other closely related forums had helped me tremendously in areas of especially paint and body, engine and interior work. So I'm very grateful.
I made the mistake of not taking enough photos of the car when I first got it, but here it is 
rust removed in front of the rear wheel and welded back up- the wheel arch was a complete mess. It looked like the lip around the wheel arch had been replaced by an incompetent welder (not yet rectified in this pic), and their filler hadn't stuck to the metal very well at all and was coming off in big chunks.
Most of my time in the early stages were spent trying to get the sides straight, the flat panels weren't the best for learning how to use filler, but I got there in the end. A lot of work trying to heat and cool the panel was needed to shrink the metal so it wouldn't pop back out when the high spot was pushed in. If you haven't seen restolad's channel on youtube, check it out. Heaps of helpful info for car body restoration!
It came with 2 original gts guards, the bottoms of both were rusted out. The LHS guard was so badly damaged at the top and bottom, only the flutes were salvageable.
http://s1199.photobu...tml?sort=3&o=52
flindstone car!
tack welded
half way through getting rid of all the old paint in the back...
Made a makeshift spray booth in the shed out of black builders plastic... $100 later
Getting ready for primer
epoxy primed
bonnet primed
some colour
welded guard in primer
in primer
colour
bit of a break from painting
View Garage
