CustomWorks - Work Shop Blog

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Tuesday November 24th - Jay's Chassis

Many of you will have seen Jay's blue body dropped Hilux at the shop or around the shows. After a year or two on the road Jay decided it was time for a freshen up. So off came the body and fabrication of a new chassis is underway. The chassis will include a tube rear clip to house a Skyline IRS and a V8 will be mounted up front. Keep checking for updates cause this will be one killer ride when its done.See more photos in the Image Gallery.

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Wednesday September 16th - Leesha's Hilux

Leesha's truck is in for a full bag job, shorty conversion and traditional body drop. We started the build with a rear clip with lots of tubework.

More photos in our Image Gallery

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Monday August 31st - '51 Chev

This '51 Chev arrived at the workshop this week. It will be here for a while for a few things to be done to it. The dash has to be restored, some rust will need to be cut out, drop spindles and disk brakes will be installed. Some tinwork and tubs will be done as well.

Watch the blog over the next few weeks as we follow the progress of this classic.

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Saturday August 22nd - Rodeo Tube Control Arms

Tube Control Arms allow greater suspension travel as they permit a greater range of movemnt of the control arm around the air bag. The critical factor with modified control arms on vehicles with air suspension is the angle of the ball joint. Customworks can custom design and fabricate tube control arms to suit a variety of vehicles.

The tube used is chromolly because of its strength. All welds are TIG welded for strength and aesthetics.

These control arms were designed to suit a KB Rodeo. They use the standard bolt on upper and lower ball joints.

More photos in our Image Gallery

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Monday August 4th - VW Ragtop

A ragtop is a great look for any vehicle. Not just a vintage Beetle. And its a reasonably straightforward modification.

The ragtop kits sold by CustomWorks come in a variety of styles and sizes and can be fitted in our workshop.

Here you can see the hole has been cut in the roof and the interior headliner has been rolled back out of the way. The frame of the ragtop has been glued to the roof and is being held in place with clamps to dry.

Next step is paint and to refit the interior headliner. Should look really cool!!

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Saturday July 18th - The Great Notch Off

It's a head to head contest!!

Yes it's the Great Notch Building Challenge. Chris with the Muldoon Toyota and Richard with the shop Rodeo. Who would build the best notch? Who would finish first? Would they be able to do it - 2 notches in one day.

9.00 a.m.

Trays Off!! And away we go. Jack it up. Put it on stands. Remove the wheels, fuel tank and anything else that's going to be in the way.

10.00 a.m.

Mark out the notch. Cut through the top rail of the chassis and clamp the side plates in place. All going smoothly. Both Richard and Chris making good progress.

11.00 a.m.

Tack the side plates in place and add some gussets to give strentgh. Richard seems to be falling behind. He is using a TIG welder and so it is a slower process than the MIG that Chris is using.

12.00 a.m.

Drama. Chris runs out of welding wire. Richard is given a penalty. He has to take time out and go and buy more wire for Chris. The wire arrives and Chris is starting on his top and bottom plates.

2.00 p.m.

The top and bottom plates are time consuming. Lots of welding and its important not to get too much heat into the notch and make it warp. The half hour penalty and using the slower TIG welder are starting to make a difference. Chris seems to have bit of a lead. He can take it easy and actually stop work to have a sausage sandwich from the BBQ. Then its back to the welding and linishing.

4.00 p.m.

Relocate the shocks, apply a coat of paint and its finished. The winner is Chris!!!

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Monday June 29th - Navara 4 Link

2007 Model Navara was fitted with a 4 Link this week. It had already been bagged (by another shop). Fitting a 4 link will really improve handling.

A Parallel 4 link was used in this case. Customworks supplies and fits both triangulated and parallel systems. Both are designed by us and are manufactured using chromoly tube and TIG welded for strength.

More pictures of this 4 link are in our gallery.

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Wednesday May 27th - Suicide Doors and Boot

Fitting Suicide doors is a lot of work. Its very fiddly to get things to line up and to make sure the door does not flex. A good job takes a lot of time to make sure the gapping arounfd the door is even and even more important to make sure that any body line in the door lines up with the line on the body.

This vehicle is going to be a show vehicle and to give it that something extra the customer wanted not only suicide doors but also a "suicide boot". There were no hinge kits available to reverse the boot opening so Richard had to design and fabricate his own CustomWorks custom hinges - Triiickee.

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Wednesday March 25th - Royal Enfield Restoration

The CustomWorks workshop always has several customer vehicles in the shop so the Richard is always busy trying to finish customers work ontime. This means there is little time to work on our own projects. At best there are a few minutes here and there, often at the weekend. Richards project is his Mazda. It is currently on the framing table as Richard is going to build the chassis from the ground up.

 

Leigh's project is the 1941 Royal Enfield Motor bike. This is a 350cc single cylinder side valve engine. Its has been to paint and its in the final assembly stage. The engine and gearbox have been rebuit and have been mounted in the frame. Currently it is being rewired. Once this is finished it should be all systems go and ready to start. Maybe even before Easter?. Then again maybe not. HalfWay Havoc is coming up this weekend and Richard is going to continue on to the Gold Coast for a weeks holiday. The Showroom will stay open so Leigh will be flat out for that week with no time to work on the Enfield. It WILL be finished one day!!!

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Friday March 13th Rodeo Shorty.

There's a lot more to making a shorty than just chopping a few centimetres out of the chassis rails and then welding them back up. In fact this job requires skill and precision in order to make sure the chassis stays square and level and that the joins are not going to crack. At Customworks we have made up special adjustable jigs which allow us to reposition the chassis precisely.

 

It is important to choose the appropriate place on the chassis to make the cut. Preferably somewhere that is easy to get at and is flat not curved so the cuts can be made easily and accurately. The cuts themselves need to be "dovetailed" so that the join line is angled. This gives greater strength. If you are also replacing a crossmember you may consider making the cut where the new crossmember is going to be positioned.. This will add extra strength to the join. Always use a "fishplate" to cover the join as this provides extra strength.

 

As well as making the cut there is a lot of other work that needs to be done. The tailshaft needs to be shortened and balanced, the fuel and brake lines and the wiring loom need to be shortend and attatched securely to the chassis. More often than not the fuel tank will also need to be repositioned which is a major operation - mounting brackets need to be made, filler repositioned, lines relocated etc.

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Friday February 27th - 10 Good Reasons to get a qualified and reputable shop to do your work.

We constantly have vehicles brought into our shop to fix problems caused by poor workmanship, inferior quality products and corner cutting methods.

1. Look at this bag mount. It has snapped due to poor welding technique and inadequate gussetting. Gussetts provide strength. Remember the whole weight of the vehicle is going to be supported on the bag mounts so you need to make sure there is adequate support in all planes.

2. Accessories should be properly mounted when new tubs are installed. The battery here is held in with electrical tape!!

3. Look at the wiring loom. It's been rubbing against the wheel. Clearance should always be checked and wiring and cables securely fastened.

4. Coathanger wire is not a safer option than gaffer tape.!!!
Everything must be securely mounted. Make up a bracket if necessary.

5. Wheels shouldn't foul brake lines. If needed get longer ones made up. It may look OK when the wheels are straight but clearance should be checked with the wheel on full lock - both ways.

6. The aim of bagging your truck is so it lays out. Here you can see the exhaust has worn thru. A new exhaust, lifted above the rails is included in the price of all our bag jobs.

 

7. You can see that the fuel tank has been modified so it doesnt hang below the rails. It is leaking quite bad. Considering this is directly behind where drag blocks were mounted .......Boom!!

8. This 4 link is poorly mounted. The bar is rubbing hard into the chassis rail. A 4 link is a major suspension component and should be designed for each vehicle and installed by someone who knows what they are doing.

9. Finish. There is an obvious difference between a half arsed job and a professional installation. At CustomWorks we make sure our welds are neat as well as structually sound and we paint over all bare metal surfaces. It takes extra time but attention to detail is important .

 

10. Experience. At CustomWorks we have years of experience, building all sorts of vehicles. We've done it all before. Your vehicle won't be a ' learning exercise' for someone.

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Thursday February 19th - Wakeboarding

CustomWorks is best known for its motor vehicle design and fabrication, but when Stu asked Richard to help build a motor to pull a wakeboarder, Richard couldn't resist the challenge

The reel can take 600 meters of non-stretch cable and is powered by a Honda 4 stroke motor.

A chain drive and high gearing ratio means this little device should be able to easily pull a wakeboarder.

Motor runs fine. But there is no water around the Brookvale showroom so we can't test it with a wakeboarder.

I know we'll use a skateboard and see if it can pull a skater up Carter Rd.

Go Richard!!

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Monday February 2nd - Z notch

This Hilux is in for a Z Notch. It is already bagged.

At the moment it is being disassembled.We will give regular up dates on the progress.

Update on the Rodeo tray.

Sheeting and tubbing is nearly finished.

The floor area will remain open to show off the tubework and cantilever setup.

Rodeo Cantilever set up

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Thursday January 22nd - Lambo Doors

Installation of Lambo doors is tricky and takes a lot of messing around to get everything working smoothly. We always start by using good quality hinges.

Strengthen the door surrounds.

It is really important to strengthen the door surounds,

Positioning of the struts takes a lot of time and experimentation to make sure the door is supported but is not too difficult to close or open.

Installation Tips

Always start with good quality hinges

Use as much bracing and support as possible

Be patient with the fitting and adjusting.

 

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This tray needs a lot of work. It has had MU guards grafted on by a previous owner. The tray also is not straight and has several dings in it. The floor has been cut and we are building a frame to support the new floor

Fill the tail lights

We have tacked the filler in place. It is a neat fit. Grant Kustoms fillers are the best. We will be adding a full combo skin later on.

Installation Tips

Before you cut any section of a tray, its really important to tack in some bracing to keep the tray from warping or twisting. If it twists then it will never sit straight and the body lines will never line up neatly.

 

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Wednesday January 14th - Subaru front struts

This Subaru is already fitted with air struts in the rear, a 5 gallon hot dog tank and a single ViAir 480C compressor. Its now time to add air to the front.

New Valves

We'll need to add 4 more ASCO 3/8" high speed 300 psi valves using all brass 3/8" fittings. ASCO valves are fast and reliable and don't stick.

Extra Compressor

There was already a single ViAir 480 C installed but with a second set of struts in the front a second compressor would help. We find ViAir compressors really reliable and the 480C pumps out 200 psi so they should fill that 5 gallon tank in just a few minutes.

New front struts

The Subaru is already fitted with Air Lift Universal Chapman struts in the back. We will add Air Lift double convulted struts to the front. Something more beafy is needed here because of the extra weight of the motor in the front. The kit comes complete with air spring, fittings and brackets so it should not take too much modification to replace the existing strut. Lets hope so anyway!!

Installation Tips

We always make sure that there is at least 1/2" clearance aroud all parts of the air spring. We check it fully compressed and fully extended.

Spraying all fittings with soapy water shows up any leaks.

All welds need to be checked and cleaned up. Make sure the fillets are complete and there is no undercutting.

A final check of air lines is always important to make sure lines are secure and mounted away from heat sources.

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