Impressive what you've acomplished so far!

Now we are getting somewhere. No welds yet, but it is aligning nicely. Amazing what a little cutting and aligning does to the vision.

Yes Richard, the door is taller and longer front to rear then the pickup. The heigth isn't much of a problem, just need to shorten the top of the door, the length and striker area however likely will be.

This is a rollup window b pillar/striker area.

and this would be the style for the external hinge that your pickup has.

The easy solution if you are going to use those later doors would be to find some b pillars cut out of a later car to graft into the pickup, just striker plates likely won't do it without a fair ammount of work.

Chris

I figure I'll be looking for striker plates, although I haven't had a chance to ask if they may be included and just not photographed.

Chris, are you saying the new doors will not be the same height? That the new door is taller than the pickup?

Hmm, if you are planning to use the later style doors you may want to pick up some complete door aperatures (part numbers czh122 and czh123) for that style door as the portion you have on the pickup is incompatable with the later style door. Here is a mk1 door sitting in a rollup window shell for example, note the back edge, the top and the front of the opening of the door.

With the parts you have it might be easier and cheaper to retain the mk1 doors and graft the front clip inside them.

Chris

If you are going to use the a/c you need a Jap spec dash as the glove box is smaller to allow for the center vents. The clocks just remove from the binnacle and attach to the wood dash. Fitting the MK III> doors requires what you have and the later striker plates.

so where are your graphing the front end in at?  like at the cross brace?  If that's how you are adding roll up doors, I believe the rear door opening and latch are different between the 2 doors, but you seem to be able to overcome these issues.  That will just be a interesting area to do a graft and would like to see pics of the process

The rest of my front clip arrived, so we are ready to fuse the two parts together. I won't be able to get there till the middle of May to disassemble the engine and see what I need, but my body guy can now start, putting the Renault on hold for a while.

I will have to figure out how to use the necessary parts of this dash with my wooden dash from MiniSport.











I also bought a pair of 1998 Toyota seats locally that I will re-upholster along with the door panels for a final look. These have arm rests and good back support. I showed them to a friend last night and he is going to the same place for the other pair to put in his 59 saloon.



I've now set a target. I'd like to be driving this by the end of august!!!

Got a little more done today.

The engine and body parts got stuck at the border for paperwork, so they will be another two weeks. They were able to strip off a few other parts and send them along, so today I took advantage of the holliday to clean and polish a bit. tomorrow I'll paint the sub-frame and reassemble Sunday.

Here are some pics from today

Smart move with the roll up windows as they are much more practical especially if it gets hot where you are.

Finally something to report. Still fighting to get the engine I ordered, but that looks like it will take a while, if ever, so I found another engine in the free zone in Chile. My body guy went to get parts and talked me into the engine in a whole front clip. I wired the money and he loaded it on a truck destined to Tarija.

So when it gets here, he will graft the front clip onto the pickup, giving me a fairly unique pickup with roll-up windows.

No progress to report. Recuperating from a little surgery so it will be a month or so before I get back. Body shop says once he gets the front sub-frame and engine he promises 20 days. Til he sees them he is not very motivated. Seller of engine had to rebuild it because high water got in before he shipped. Says it will ship any day.

I'm enjoying the Pickup progress report.  Keep it up.    I admire the custom work you are needing to do.   My pickup is still in the body shop.  I have some pictures of the "before" and some of the "during" at MiniOwners.com, search for MOTOREN.

Looks like pits in the balls ... I wouldn't use them. Buy tapered roller replacements although I understand there's a worldwide shortage at the moment.

Got a couple of hours free this afternoon so I polished up the trumpets, put in the new knuckles and put things together. Going fine til I realized I hadn't ordered wheel bearings. Then realized my wheel bearings aren't like the ones in catalogs. (see other post for questions)

But then realized I had forgotten to oredr wheel bearings. Those will take about thre weeks to get here. A friend said they looked fine.

The labor must be cheaper than importing the panels, looks a lot more solid than when you got it.

I LOVE when someone thinks outside the box and uses what is available, you da man!!! Keep the pictures coming!

It started life as the floor of a Toyota minivan, with lots of reinforcing ridges. Now it has been formed to fit, and will eventually be flat (with ridges) and covered with fatmat.

Is it just the photo angle, or is that new floor bent like a "Ruffles" potatoe chip??