Now it's a pickup

Today's job was to swap the hard top for a cab. Lots of people have said it's an easy job and it is. It is easier with a few hands so we called in Andy to help.

We picked up the cab on New Years day. It was in a sad looking way. Before we started the swap Shelley cleaned it up very nicely.

The roof came with a big dent in the middle. I wasn't expecting to get rid of it completely but just to reduce it a bit so the headlining fitted properly. We balanced it upside down on some blocks of wood to control where we applied pressure then stood on the areas that looked like they were kinks we might be able to reverse.

We worked entirely from the inside and, well, much to our surprise after a few attempts with increased pressure and working along different areas the dent popped out.

When we flipped it back over we found out why it had taken more pressure than we originally expected. There was now a big crack in a large patch of filler. The filler was almost certainly what had been holding it in the wrong shape. I've chiselled out as much of the filler as I can and will refill and sand it back to shape.

The whole job of swapping the roof is fairly easy. It still took the best part of a day to do.

Inside there's a few simple bits of wire to remove and the washer tube can be separated at a non-return valve near the front windscreen on the left side. It was cold, so I used a hot air gun to make the tube pliable. I reversed the non-return valve to seal it off.

The headlining comes out by removing the trim clips, mirror and the sun visors. The alarm sensor un-clips and the interior light unbolts from the headlining.

The rear door is the pain to remove. The usual problem of rusted in bolts. We were lucky that we were eventually able to undo the nuts. A lot of WD40, a breaker bar and some good thinking by Andy sorted out most of them. One of the door stay bolts snapped off.

Once the door has been removed, the rest of the bolts are fairly easy to remove. The corner bolts are left on the upper panels and the lower nut is removed.

It's quite a fun job to see it go through its changes.

In warmer weather topless would be fun.

Putting the cab on is very easy.

Andy had the good sense to loosen the rear brackets so that once bolted in they can be pulled back down on to the seal. For some reason the rear centre four bolt holes were pre-drilled but the outer four needed to be drilled.

Nuts and bolts all in place and a bit of sealant squeezed along the top of the front screen. The door seals fitted better after we removed all the old sealant that had been pumped in to some gaps. Once assembled we added our own sealant where we could see daylight round the door seals in the corners.

All back together and looking very nice. We didn't think we would get Shelley out of there :-)

A job for another day will be fitting the tailgate.