GQ roof swap

[Gasolinejunkie]

I recently bought a 89 GQ, the motor and mechanicals are immaculate but the body has a bit of rust especially around the roof gutter. When I bought it I intended to sand it back, clean it out and re-paint.
In some places the rust has eaten through the metal while previous owners patched it up with body filler.
I recon the more I sand back the more rust I’ll find so now I’m planning to do a roof swap. What I want to do is cut out all the pillars 4” down from the roof and weld another roof (with it’s respective pillars) on.

I’m curious to see if anyone here has done something like this. I’ve also thought about doing a body swap but I think thats too much work.

[hiluxmad]

see if you can have a look at the sub frame of the roof.
it may be easier to do just the roof skin if the actuall gutters are ok.
lots of spot welds but not structual welding then.......
just a thought

[Gasolinejunkie]

Nah, its the gutters that are rusted out. I’m not too fussed about the structural welding because the metal is thicker at the pillars and with good gussets it should be as strong as factory if not stronger.

[steveoo]

You dont have to use gussets. You just have to stagger your joins 10cm's apart for each layer. (i used to be a panel beater and thats what we are taught at school/ work)

Where in melbourne are you located i might be able to give you some advice if you want

[r0nmay]

That gutter would be the most rusty so it could be a quite harder to remove the rust. Anyway, it is also good that the rust on the roof is just few. Some repainting after sanding is just fine.

[deano86]

i'd be tryin to do just a roof skin as been mentioned alot easier to do then tryin to join all the pillars in the right spots again