2012 A Spacecab Odyssey

[DSUZU]

Each tub will articulate about 45 degrees from horizontal. You obviously lock the hulls if you go amphibious. There have been some exciting experiences when people were climbing steep hills and one wheel broke ground first and the front tub decides to twist . The drive is all mechanical with a snowmobile type belt and variable pulley drive from the engine to the transmission. The tranny is all gear, forward, reverse, and high range. Top speed is only about 20 MPH, but it will climb a brick wall. One of the advertisements they used to use was to nose it up to a wall and accelerate it until the front wheels litterally climbed the wall.

[bradzuzu]

Ok so it pivots in the center as well, correct ?? Axles stay fixed to the body ?? That's impressive coming from a little 12 hp ...
Hopefully it has a cage..

[DSUZU]

A roll bar was offered as an option. I have a modified roll bar, but don't know if I will use it or not. They have a wide track and very low center of gravity. Another option was a 16HP OHV single cylinder engine the Tecumseh OH160. Today, many Coot owners have converted over to a Briggs and Stratton 14, 16, or 18 Hp Vanguard V-twin. I have a rebuilt 16 waiting to go into mine. Man, I need to get this Spacecab finished.

[shaggydoink]

Boy I wish I was closer - I'd help with both!!

[DSUZU]

Finally got back to work on the Spacer. I've come to the place where it's got to get a whole lot worse before it gets better. Started by pulling the bed in preperation for painting. I also pulled the inner fender liners. I found two nasty suprises. First and easy was another plastic fuel filter that I didn't know about. It's amazing that the P. O. didn't burn this thing down between this filter and the other plastic filter in the engine compartment.
Second suprise was a rusted out spot near the left lower door hinge. There was also a crack below the hinge that went almost all the way across the pillar. I welded up the crack and cut and welded a patch over the rusted out area. There are still a few spots to finish up, but I ran out of time and daylight. Job required pulling the passenger door (note the studs to aid in R&R of the door), also had to pull the wiring and sunroof drain tube out of the pillar. Required removing the ECM, which I also unplugged as a precaution because of welding in the area.

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[bradzuzu]

Nice job Denis , those dumb filters are a ticking time bomb... That'll be a nice truck when your all done with it.. Are you painting the whole thing ??

[squatch]

Glad to see someone is getting some work done on their Spacecab!

[shaggydoink]

Nice to see an update Dennis, I continue to be amazed at how much you're able to do with such ease. Keep up the great work and keep the updates coming!

Jonathan

[foytiX]

The rides are looking awesome man. That coot is a hoot. Those old Techumseh engines were tough, unfortunately some of the parts are becoming nla.

[DSUZU]

That coot is a hoot. Those old Techumseh engines were tough, unfortunately some of the parts are becoming nla.[/quote]
Thanks. Yes, parts for those older engines are getting tough to come by. One guy paid over 60.00 for a single exhaust valve. It seems the best place to get parts is evilbay. Our Coot website, Cootworld (much like planetisuzoo), is also the main source for informatio and used parts.
So after my productive day on New Years Day, the rest of the week has been rain . Nothing worse that doing body work, having bare exposed steel, and getting rain. Maybe I'll get some work done today????
For painting, I'm trying to decide between two options, one would be taking it to a shop and having them paint it w/o the bed. That should put the price near what they charge for a small car. I could then paint the bed myself. My other choice would be to shoot it myself, if I go that route, I would use acrylic lacquer, because I'm most comfortable working with that. If I go that route, I'd consider taking it to a shop and have them do the sanding prep and shoot it with the lacquer primer sealer. Time and money are the deciding factors. Don't have an excess of either Dennis

[bradzuzu]

Hopefully it gets nice enough to get the thing primed.. It doesn't look like you'd have to do a ton of prep work Denis , but I understand the time frame crunch, be nice to just have it done..

[DSUZU]

Back to work on the Spacer. I finished up the firewall / pillar repair, primed it with zinc chromate, shot a coating of rubberized undercoat on the front, and some gunmetal touch up paint on the side. Now for the big (to me, scary) project.
The truck must have been in some kind of boo-boo on the drivers side in it's past, because I found body filler and rust. The worst rusty area was just above the left quarter window, where the molding is at the edge of the roof. I had started on this some time back, and originally had hoped to just weld up the rusty spots, but the metal was too thin, and it just disintegrated as I tried to weld it. This was back in September.
I had cut a section out of a '91 Rodeo roof to get the molding. I cut the section apart, and modified it to fit the contour of the Spacecab roof. Today, I cut the rusty section out (the scary part), and fit the graft into the hole. I then welded the new section in place. It was not as easy as it sounds, and certainly not as easy as I had hoped it would be. I spent most of today welding, grinding, welding some more, and again, watching holes form as I welded, not because of rust this time, just because of the "beer can" thickness of the metal. I finally got it to where I felt I couldn't do any better, and after grinding and sanding, decided it will still need a thin coat of filler to smooth out the spots around the welds. Finised up the day by cleaning and applying the filler. Hope to sand and glaze that tomorrow.

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[hessmess]

Looking good, that is way out of my abilities! That is a wierd place to have rust. I just have it on the fenderwells.

[bradzuzu]

Excellent job Denis !! Did you get rid of the window to ?? On the side ??

[itsmehb]

Sounds like a medical term?

[shaggydoink]

You continue to impress Dennis, excellent work!

Jonathan

[foytiX]

Sounds like a medical term?

I'm lost on this statement

Good job on the graft, that took some balls to make that initial cut looks like it's turning out nice. Have to wonder if the previous owner didn't leave it parked with something on the roof, or maybe something scratched it. Once rust starts though it will spread like cancer

[DSUZU]

Didn't get rid of the window. It's removed for the work, and I put a piece of aluminum flashing over the hole with 2 big magnets to keep weld sparks from flaming the truck. I also covered the glass sunroof with a galvanized oil drip pan, to keep sparks off it too (how do I know?, well my first welding attempt left a few burn pits on my sunroof and the left window ).
Yeah, it took some guts, but it was either this or re-bondo it and watch the rust come back. I figured worst case scenario would be cut the hole a bit bigger, go cut another patch, and pay a "real body man welder" to do the job right. I came out lucky.
The rust had definitely been from body damage caused by either an accident or tree limb falling. The inner roof framing has been seperated from the skin, and straightened, indicating someone has worked on the area before. After my repairs, the inner frame is now welded back to the skin, so it is actually stronger than it was before.
I'm thinking about doing the roof in white bedliner material so it will look like a vinyl roof. This might make it cooler in the summer. Dennis

[bradzuzu]

Cool idea.. Your bad at criteaking yourself if you didn't do it ,or try it,, you'd never know and or get better...

[DSUZU]

The feeling when I cut the hole was similiar to when I cut the roof off my 1981 Toyota pickup years ago to install a "California Hot Tops" convertible top kit. "well, we're committed now". I'm actually pretty talented, and when I do something, I usually want to do it right. I put another thin coat of filler on today. After sanding, I determined that there were some low spots. I also sprayed some "Ospho" rust treatment inside of where I welded the patch yesterday to treat the inside roof support framework. I did determine that this truck has been hit on the drivers side. The inside of the drivers side is black (replacement panel), and the inside of the passenger side is gray / gunmetal indcating OEM part and paint. The previous rusted out part is right where they joined the replacement quarter panel to the original roof panel. Mystery solved.

[bradzuzu]

That's cheesy !! I know your talented... I get that tear into something fear sometimes to it's either fear or the apitomy feeling of another challenging job...

[DSUZU]

More progress this weekend. I finished up the patch on the roof, found and fixed a small pin hole on the other side where the back corner joint is, scuffed up the whole roof to take down the nasty clear coat. I decided to do the roof in white bedliner, so I ordered a 1 quart kit of that from Eastwood. I also removed the sunroof, took out the wind deflector, mount sockets, and weather strip seal. I Cleaned the area thoroughly, and found a few small rust holes in the rain trough that goes around the sunroof. I cleaned that area thoroughly, and did a small (postage stamp sized) fiberglass patch top and bottom. When dried, I shot the whole trough area with the gray touchup paint.
In doing the roof work, I was bothered by a dip in the left rear panel of the roof. The panel was flexed down, but would go into place (flat) if pushed up from the inside (this term is sometimes known as "oil canning". I cut a section of 1/8" x 1/2" bar stock, put a slight bend in it, and I spot welded the ends into the roof frame supports, and JB welded it to the center panel of the roof. No more oil canning. While I was waiting on various parts tocool off or dry, I took the time to dye the rear interior panels. I also ordered 5 more cans of dye from Summit Racing.

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[DSUZU]

I must have made a boo-boo. Here's the side panels.

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[shaggydoink]

I must have made a boo-boo. Here's the side panels.

Boo-boo? What.... color not matching the rear panels?

Jonathan

[DSUZU]

Somehow, it posted 2 pictures of the rear panel, and I couldn't remove one, so I had to add another post to show the side panels. Color came out great. The duplicolor srray comes out darker on the fabric than it does on the vinyl parts. The Rustoleum comes out better on the pastic / vinyl parts. Dennis