can anyone weld seems up for me?? (brisbane)

[islandvitara]

theres no info on this but, i need someone here in brissy somewhere to weld the seems up on my sierra, it was a hardtop but ive choped the back section off and need the seems welded up...





if anyone is available to do this for me please swing me a PM so we can sort this out and yes $$$ is involved


cheers, islandvit

[grimbo]

why would you do that to a hi roof Sierra?

Anyway what do you mean by the seams? Do you mean you need to get someone to weld steel across the edges to make them suare and safe. Also what are you doing about the back of the cab?

[islandvitara]

i dont like the look of the hitop, i want it to be a bit lower and yeah i meant what you said grimbo - make the seams safe and secure and im leaving the back of the cab open and puting a roll cage in at a later date followed by a custom canvas top i'll get made up for me..

i also have a b-pillar from a soft-top sierra to go in to make the top of it more secure..


can anyone help??? $$$ is involved aswell


cheers, islandvit

[want33s]

You could have saved yourself a lot of $$ and a panelbeater/welder a lot of time if you had spoken to them BEFORE you cut it.
If you had left a bit more metal the job would have been a lot easier.

[Gwagensteve]

I saw your members thread and wondered how long it would be before this came up.

Sorry to say this, but you now have a mess that's going to be VERY hard to finish properly/legally.

Soft top sierras have a much stronger tub in the area you have cut. It's going to be hard to get enough strength back in there now to safely mount a seatbelt to.

You'll also find the A pillars wanting to crack because the roof is way too flexy.

You might be able to get a rollbar built to mount the seatbelts to - this will make the job easier, then you can just close up the back of the pillars, but it's going to be a nightmare to weld up without distortion and lots of panelwork/bog.

By the end of it, you're going to wish you'd just bought a soft top.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, it's just my 2c.

Steve.

[grimbo]

there is no way you will be able to make that safe and legal.

[ScrawnC]

Just pull the body off and get a soft top tub from the wrecker. Might be easier to do what you want by starting with a soft top.

[sierrajim]

Just pull the body off and get a soft top tub from the wrecker. Might be easier to do what you want by starting with a soft top.

agreed

[alien]

phwoar! i bet all the hightop owners just shat kittens when they saw that =P

Like the others said - go buy a soft top body - save your doors, tailgate etc as spares for later.

[fordy1]

i like the look with the front half on

heep the front half and make a 4 point cage in the back with a roof so its like a ute with a alloy top and roll up canvas sides

[grimbo]

more to do with the fact he has hacked apart the vehicles body, loosing all the strength from the body also loosing the approved and engineered seat belt mounts. To get it legal and approved would be pretty hard I reckon as roll cages aren't the easiest things to get approved and being in QLD I would imagine it would be even harder with all their restrictions.

Once again this illustrates where a little thinking, research and common sense goes a long way to making sure you aren't wasting time and money doing modifications

[islandvitara]

thanks for the info guys, it can be done, spoke to the guys at ontrack 4x4 at slacks creek and they said they can do it no problem, for $77/hr plus a mod plate on top of that.

jus its a lil steep for me buh am willing to pay if no one else can do it

will show pics when its done. hopefully in a couple of weeks time

cheers, islandvit

[Gwagensteve]

So any idea of the total cost? I'm guessing there's a couple of days in it, easy.

Bear in mind, when you car falls over, you'll be totalling that work as well as the tub.

Steve.

[grimbo]

so how many hours do they think it will take, plus how much is a mod plate?

To me sounds like a very expensive exercise on a very cheap car. It would still work out cheaper to just get a soft top tub and put it on

[oxident]

lol that looks hillarious, looks like you took it for a trip to jurassic park and a dinosaur went to town on it

[Moph]

All it needs now is some truck exhaust stacks, flat sheet welded across the rear of the cab and top/rear of the tub, and a fake truck turntable hitch thingy on the rear

Can imagine turning it into a mini truck like that looking kinda cool (or completely wanky - all dependent on viewpoint), but aside from that completely impractical mental image, why the hell did you chop the back off a perfectly good hightop?!?

Pleeeeeease people, if you want to cut the back off something, start with a soft top? They have the B pillar reinforcement already there, and they're common. Some of us like the rarer hard tops / high tops, and its a damn shame to see one in relatively good nick being taken to with an angle grinder...

All that said ... good luck with your project! I think you might need it...

[islandvitara]

hahaha jurrasic park nah im confident its not gona be to bad i mean ive got the b - pillar from a softop to be welded into the roof/sides to put strength back into it and im organizing the steel to be welded into the seams all i need is someone to weld it but last resort is getting ti done at the 4x4 shop

[v840]

I think there'll be a couple days in it at least islandvit. Sierra sheet steel is notoriously thin and a complete pita to weld. It deforms extremely easily and my welder on its lowest setting can blow holes in it without any effort.

Not trying to discourage but as grimbo said, there will be a fair bit of work (read:money) involved to get it sorted. I agree with those who are saying to get a softop and do a body swap, I think it will be a whole lot less effort and a whole lot cheaper.

A body swap can be done in a day (weekend if you take your time). By the time you've farked around welding yours up, mod plating, enclosing the back, adding a roll cage etc you'll have a couple of weeks into it and be no further ahead than if you just went the softop body in the first place.

At the end of the day though its your chariot and you should go down whatever path you want with it, but there's a heap of collective zook experience on this board advising you to do otherwise. Either way, good luck with it dude.

[St Jimmy]

Not my cup of tea but if it was'nt
for guys like this there would be no modded
4wds ,hotrods, panelvans ,ect
Keep up the good work
hope it all turns out ok
post pictures of it when finished
b59

[just cruizin']

Looks like I might get into trouble from the higher lords of Seirraville when I cut mine today/tomorrow. Standard hardtop cut down into a extra cab with the rear wall reattached, pretty much taking out the back side windows, loosing about 400mm.

[grimbo]

at least it isn't a high top

[islandvitara]

Not my cup of tea but if it was'nt
for guys like this there would be no modded
4wds ,hotrods, panelvans ,ect
Keep up the good work
hope it all turns out ok
post pictures of it when finished
b59

cheers Boner59 and anyone else whos got some hope for me haha nah look guys its seems to be a lil difficult but i WILL get this done the way i want it not that im ignoring what you guys have posted ive read them all and have taken on the advice but i want mine to be the way i want it,

theres no rush for this to be finished so if it take another 3 months then so be it at least when its done its going to be something im proud of that ive achieved - fixed/built/designed my own sierra and worked hard to get it to where it will be when its finished

i will post up the full story when its done, and painted, lifted, ect

thanks for the advice guys but ive chosen my destiny - high top chop it is


cheers, islandvit



to be continued...

[Liam]

so is the Pope going to brisbane?

[cjdeane10]

i always liked the look of the high-tops and was a bit dissapointed when they werent brought out in the WT version...

Seriously, you have massacred it... get a WT softtop body...
i see it ending badly, and you having a wrecked car you cant use.

but i am kinda interested on how this turns out - kind of like a moth is interested in a flame...

[grimbo]

I understand people doing different and unusual mods if they can do the fab work themselves as they aren't wasting their money on labour costs if it goes pear shaped. But to pay someone a large amount (which you don't seem to have actually got yet - just an hourly rate not the the finished total) to do something on a very cheap vehicle is just over capitalising on stuff that wont add anything to the function or even be guaranteed to be a workable solution.

Personally i would have spent the large amount of $$$ involved on buying front and rear lockers and improving the capability of the vehicle

[want33s]

Looks like I might get into trouble from the higher lords of Seirraville when I cut mine today/tomorrow. Standard hardtop cut down into a extra cab with the rear wall reattached, pretty much taking out the back side windows, loosing about 400mm.

I looked at that idea myself until I realised the roof has quite a bit of curve in it.
If you cut the back off and slide it forward the floor and sides will match up but the roofline is way different.
It can be overcome with a couple of well placed slices in the turret skin but will need a full bog spread to even it all out.
Not as easy as it looks, but then no custom panelwork ever is.....

[grimbo]

Looks like I might get into trouble from the higher lords of Seirraville when I cut mine today/tomorrow. Standard hardtop cut down into a extra cab with the rear wall reattached, pretty much taking out the back side windows, loosing about 400mm.

I looked at that idea myself until I realised the roof has quite a bit of curve in it.
If you cut the back off and slide it forward the floor and sides will match up but the roofline is way different.
It can be overcome with a couple of well placed slices in the turret skin but will need a full bog spread to even it all out.
Not as easy as it looks, but then no custom panelwork ever is.....

joeblow has done this and made a very neat extra cab but from memory was alot of work to get right

[just cruizin']

Well I got it sitting in place this morning



here's the joins




with the gutter lined up the body lines are about 3-5mm out, which I will work around. I have kept the full B pillar and C pillar strength and may fish plate the internal panels.

[Gwagensteve]

CjDean10 - there were WT high roofs. The only came into NSW via Ateco. Overlander Magazine drove one in 1988 (I had the mag with it in, it was blue). I saw one at a wreckers fairly recently.

Just cruzin' - yours is coming up nice.

Please don't think I'm having a go but islandvitara have a read of this if you want. I think you're in a very difficult situation now:

The big thing with all these chops is that the planning takes forever and the cutting 10 minutes. I think you've cut the back off and then have stood back and tried to figure out how to finish it.

If you'd cut the body with an eye to what you wanted to do, you could have done something like Just crusin' and used the C pillar and rear door opening to close the b pillar up, replacing all the strength you cut out and still had the rear of the cab open. Now you have to pay someone to try and problem solve this for you.

I think you should spend your next three months trying to find a soft top tub instead of pouring money into a bad idea. I've seen heaps and heaps of cut sierras never finished because of the hassles of closing up the cuts.

Islandvitara, feel free to quote and add to this list, but lets look at the pros and cons.

Pros:

It's different
It has more headroom.
You already own it

Cons:

Your body currently has no strength and all of your cuts are in one plane menaing the welding is all at a corner. Very hard to do.
You won't be able to stay dry if you leave the back open. This will sh!t you when you had a hardtop oringinally.
your ute section has absolutely no strength and the weight of the spare will pull the tailgate off the car, if you ever figure out how to get one on it. If you don't the sides will fall off anyway.
You're gong to have $2K in the most vulnerale part of the car. WHEN it falls over, it's all going to be wrecked.

Steve.

[r0ck_m0nkey]

for $77/hr plus a mod plate on top of that.

At that price it shows how much of a waste of money it will be. If you were closer, i'd sell you a bare softop body for $50 or alcoholic substitute.

If you had wanted the high roof look, it would be far easier to add it to a softtop body then to cut a high roof model up. Could have even taken a mould of the roof, then made a fibreglass copy and clip it on. Same end result, cheaper and a lot less hassle.