Alrighty, where to begin, basically I have been sitting here staring at my wagon, looking at ways to shave weight, reuibld this and that out of ally, blah blah blah, basically it came down to a vast amount of work. but one way to drop weight quickly is to cut the body in half. haha.

I have been tossing this idea around for about a year now, I would gain room, lose weight, and it would look awesome, well I hope.

Here is a photochop of the plan, the cab was made a bit short, it will have about 150mm added behind the b pillar. like a small extra cab, which will allow me to fit a 1700x1700x1000mm canopy in size. with the spare tyres hanging of the canopy it will come in at the same length, but will allow me to raise my rear fuel tank for a slightly better departure angle.




I did get some new tools to sort out the swap, including and air compressor, 200 amp ac/dc tig welder, and paint gun kit.

How it currently sits:

Figuring that you would use aluminum for the construction of the ute body, have you estimated the weight difference? The two passenger doors, cargo door and side glass might save about 250 pounds. The subject roof section is give-or-take comparable to a Gen I 2-door is about 75-100 pounds...I have cut up two Monteros this way. I have not reduced the cab floor for recycling.

One of the Betsy's had the back half removed, and Toasty did the same to a Gen 2. Threads are older but should still have some useful info:

Toasty's Monchopo

Beer and Cutting Tools

A buddy of mine bought my last genI and did several versions of a chop. Version one sounds like what you want to do (he left it as a trayback) and he left some room behind the front seats. Version two is more like a single cab pickup.

Here's his build thread, not updated for a while... this page is where the pics start working:
http://www.4x4wire.com/forums/showf...;amp;page=0&fpart=4&vc=1

Phil

PLus i will be loosing the floor, my storage system which is heavy as all hell, as it has steel drawers, my roof rack wont be needed, and my rear bar with dual carrier will be lost.

I seen the other thread, that is what helped me sort out how to go about the job and actually gave me the iea in the first place when I seen it about a year or so ago. I sent him a message on expedition portal but never got a reply.

What about keeping the weight and adding more grunt to pull it around? I still have plans for a 350 swap. I found all my parts. just need to finish my other projects so I have reliable wheels between cutting the engine adn drive train out of my current DD <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/lol.gif" alt="" />

He's already repowered from 3L gasser to 2L-something diesel. He's in Australia...so this is more plausible:


<img src="/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

The reason is fuel economy. I find myself in some decently remote areas. need to keep the range up. I can do about 1000kms on sand with safety and 1600-1700kms on highway only.

you wonder why we run bullbars and steel rear bars, its outta control o the higways. He's got the gasoliiinnneeee

I thought it was the nitro. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/drunk.gif" alt="" />

I never understood the way the blower would only begin to spin when he turned a switch... was that even a real thing? I know where aussies got there supercharging craze <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/lol.gif" alt="" />

I would just like to state, that every site I post on has now made a madmax reference on my build thread. My life is now complete