I remember when welding patches and rebuilding quarter panels was fun.  The end goal of this truck is not a restoration, but merely to have a structurally solid with non-rust-bucket vibe.  As such, I can take a few liberties with how things are put back together, but it’s no less tedious.

Rebuilding the wheel-arches is another thing altogether.  I’m trying my hand at some hammer forming with a wood/metal buck but I don’t think that’s going to turn out well.   I used a 1-7/8″ trailer hitch ball to make a forming attachment for my air-hammer.  Unfortunately, it wasn’t hardened so it just mushroomed at the end and also hardly made a dent in the sheet metal.  Back to the drawing board.

The pieces of my drivetrain are coming together.  What you see there is the transmission out of a Lexus LS600HL (known as an L110F), plus the transfer case from a 1992 Toyota Land Cruiser 80 series (known as an HF1A), as well as the Inverter from the Lexus LS600HL (bottom). The high voltage leads from the battery pack (I don’t have one yet) go into the inverter, and the two orange leads from the transmission plug into the inverter.  There is a separate controller (I also don’t have yet) that will talk to the inverter and tell the transmission what to do.

There will be nothing connected to the front (left side of this photo).  That’s where the V8 gas engine used to be.