Camper trailer pinstriping and sign writing.

We finally met a great pinstriper at a car show near Doyalson and after talking with him we decided to give him the job on the trailer.

"Shacko" as he is known did a magnificent job of the pinstriping and sign writing and was so helpful in giving us his flare on our design.

We chose the font for the writing and "shacko" was able to get it set out and hand painted it just like 'old skool' stripers.

We would recommend his services to anyone and if you would like to contact him for your own job call Jamie on 0447039639, he lives on the Central Coast, NSW

Rear ended.
Back again with some more photos of the pickup, I bought a series 2 mazda rx7 so I could use the diff, and a few other pieces, and it is a close fit as far as wheel track goes without shortening and the springs sit right under the chassis rails which made it easier to make the brackets for mounting the 4 link.

I have made all the brackets for the 4 link to fit onto the chassis and new shockie mounts and removed the watts link from the diff and replaced it with a panhard rod from a toyota camry as the chassis was too high to fit the watts link.

At this stage I will only tack weld the brackets into place until I get the engine and gearbox mounted so I can check the angle of the diff and tailshaft and that all the suspension angles work the way they should.


I have not made any upper spring mounts as I am still trying to decide whether to fit a set of coilover shocks and that depends on what is available for this application.

I have extended the bolts for the swaybar and will remove the old lever shock mounts from the chassis and weld the sway bar brackets from the rx7 directly onto the chassis.

Once I am happy with the way it all looks and works I will then send the rear brake rotors to a machine shop and get the stud pattern changed to ford 5 stud to match up with the L300 front end.

A bit more progress

I recently found a set of mags that I thought might look really neat on the A40 pickup so I purchased them for $1300 and then fitted some Kumho tyres. The fronts are 15 x 6 with 205/70 15's and the rears are15 x 10's with 295/50 15's at a cost of $800. The reason I chose these tyres is because I wanted the tyre diameters to be the same and they are both 26"Dia. which should give a comfortable ride.

As of the last blog I have now finished narrowing the L300 front end and have drilled the mounting holes through the chassis and welded anti-crush tubes through the chassis. The cross-member is fitted and connected to the original steering column and box and I have also used the original steering arms and ball joints.

This shot shows the Z cut through the centre and the engine mounts rewelded after lowering them.

This is where I cut away the shock tower to allow the narrowest wheel track possible and then replated the cut away, it also allowed the mounts to be lowered about 40mm.

This is before replating the cut out.

In the photos you can see where the mounts have been lowered by removing some of the metal from the spring tower and then replating to add strength. The Z cut in the middle of the cross member has been plated internally and a thicker plate (3mm) welded across the centre of the bottom for strength while jacking the front of the car up. The first picture shows a gap of about 6mm between the chassis and the spring tower when fitted up and also the mounting bolts .