Am I asking for trouble?

[Matthew]

I went and looked at it, didn't make a decision if I will buy it yet, but was very tempted, if only it didn't have the roof rust.
It's an 81 model that has seen the last few years of it's life as a farm/shooting rig.
It had a 1.3l engine and box, both pulled to go into Aarons swb. There is a spare 1.3l box included but condition is unknown. The original engine mounts are in place with a plate bolted to them to fit the 1.3l.
It had more rust than I'd hoped for, but I guess less than it could have had considering it's age and history. Plenty of surface rust on the exterior panels, most of it visible in the photos, and some on the chassis. The 'real' rust is in the 3 spots already mentioned, in the pass. door, the front left hand guard and possibly under the plate around the windscreen wiper. The other spots I found were 2 small rust holes in the roof, <5mm across, one in the front edge of each of the pressed sections, and about 6 bubbles in the roof. There was a small rust hole in the back of each of the headlight brackets, the firewall looked good as did most of the windscreen surround, though there is visible surface rust around the edge that joins the rubber.
I couldn't see any cracks on the top of the roof in the fading light, but did see one crack on the bottom edge of the lip that joins the rear window/wall to the roof.

It's not a question of whether I should by a tray back sierra, it's should I buy this one, or keep looking. It's not just about the end result, otherwise I would buy the engineered $7800 tray back on outers.


There is also meant to be a swb 1l for sale down the road, it's really rusty but has a good motor, supposedly only done 70k, the guy has been asking $600 for it. So if I were to buy the lwb I would probably buy the swb for the engine.

P.S. any help in building a lwb would be much appreciated.

Matt

[cj!]

I don't know if you got to see mine but it has lots of surface rust (looked like a leopard due to all the spots it had ) particularly on the roof, a couple of holes around the windscreen and a seriously ugly roof thanks to some bodgy welding repairs. as it's never going to be a show car it will tidy up good enough for my purpose. The issue is really does it have rust (not just surface rust) in problem areas as things like guards and doors are easy to replace. It sounds to me like it is not too bad depending on the money.

[gwagensteve]

I'd agree Matt - that sounds pretty good.

Small rust holes weld up pretty well without too much fiddly work. (I've had lots of practice on Cj's junk)

they're always rusty around the headlight buckets and the 1.0's seem to have rusty doors by now. That's no biggy.

The roof sounds pretty good all things considered -Chris' was mostly ruined by a repair attempt by the previous owner.

Chris' looked pretty bad around the screen, and there was some welding in it, but it cleaned up pretty well and there were about 6 locations that were welded up in the end.

They split around the pinchweld for the roof/cab sides to cab back - don't sweat about it - mines cracked in several places.

I'd still say go for it if the $$ are right. None of them are getting any younger and they'll all need some body work by now.

Steve.

[Phantomzook]

Spoke to Suzuworld Mick today he has a lwb tray running and complete at his house if your interested.
Asking $2500 but he always seems to start high.

[Matthew]

Any idea of the condition? I think it would have to be pretty good to spend that much, yes it's convenient having a complete car but is it worth the extra say $1400 (if mick would take $2000 for it) if both were in similar condition.
Not sure how much aaron is after but was going to offer him $500-$600 and go from there.

[Phantomzook]

No sorry Matt dont have too much on it. I would imagine it would be similar to Aaron's as it came off a farm as well with rust in the "usual spots" to quote Mick. He would have no problem you going out to look at it. (Near Eltham).
I know with mine I only paid 750 but after all the little things I spent hours chasing up I spent some unexpected dollars.
I would recommend something complete unless you have already compliled a shed full of spares.

P.S No I'm not on any sort of commission.

[Matthew]

Thats why I'd buy the 1l shorty around the corner from Aarons, instant shed full of spares, and in a large handy container with wheels . Guess I should find out if it's still for sale.

Also found this, but it's just a tad too far away http://www.4wdmonthly.com.au/classified ... pe=detail#

[cj!]

I paid $1800 for mine from Mitch although I did get a bunch of extra stuff and his help so it was worth it to me.Also he bought it interstate so he had added costs. Yes, I may have been able to buy something cheaper if I waited and hunted around for awhile but I was happy.

The 1.3 has some advantages over the 1.0 in that it would be a lot easier to bolt in a 1.6 down the track or even a Jimny efi 1.3. It was the extra work involved in doing that to a 1.0 that pushed me towards using the 660 in the end. It also has the right t-case for crawler gears.

[Matthew]

I just rang the guy with the Sydney ute and it has sold, he thought I was the guy that is meant to be picking it up tonight.
He ended up selling it for $800, the guy that bought it got it for the tub, he said that the body was pretty bad, and that the chassis was really bad, the previous owner had tried to weld something to it and it was full of holes.

I haven't seen many 1.3s for sale. Actually I haven't seen many cab chassis for sale at all, I don't know if I'm looking in the wrong places or not. The only other one I can think of in recent time for sale is the one that mock went to look at, and then someone else in the club beat me to it.

[Matthew]

Daryl, do you have a contact number for mick? I guess I should give him a call and find out some more, and see if he will drop the price a bit.