HJ Panelvan roof turret or floor pan & bulkhead?

[realsteel]

Been out scratching around & looking again & I think I've pretty much answered my own question in ways. The bulkhead & floorpan while being a quicker job than the whole roof turret on a vehicle that has already been converted from a van to a ute, the amount of work in the rest of the body after the bulkhead & floor was done will be far greater than the body that has been converted once as the already once converted sandman is an inland car & has far less rust in the rest of it & is straight. The one I bought to take the roof off would need so much more done to it after the bulkhead & floor it's just not going to be worth the time.

I also think doing the bulkhead idea I'd be using another HJ to save cutting the sandman body bulkhead & floor out just incase would mean there really isn't any of the original sandman body left it will just be another body on the original chassis if I just use the other body with the roof turret still on it.

So lol roof turret it is. I'll pick apart what was done to convert the sandman panelvan into a ute to determine where to separate the roof turret on the other one exactly where I need it.

At least then I can say "well at least some of it is still the original sandman body" lol.

Nothing like taking on a small job to warm up with! If it wasn't a sandman I wouldn't.

[green taxi]

can you please do step by step photos as I have to do the same conversion

[Vombil]

i just unpicked an HQ cowl... took around 6 hours. do not recommend anyone do this. they were never meant to be removed!

[Absinth]

I did several panelvan to ute conversions back in the 80's and they were quite a bit of work to do..... doing the reverse will be a hell of a lot of work and not an easy job. When it comes to a HJ Sandman a lot of what makes it a Sandman is in the missing roof turret... ie the hoodlining rails and tooth strip. I'd be looking for a good donor shell, even a good windowed shell would be far less work filling in the windows.

Good luck with whatever way you choose to go and as others have said, take pics of the process and post them up..... we love to look at progress pics.

[realsteel]

can you please do step by step photos as I have to do the same conversion

Will do but after my last post it may be a while before I get back to posting. I will take pics when I get back into it just now I've pushed it aside after thinking I didn't quite have enough to do so went looking for a bit more work to do to it.. IMG_20160517_155503.jpg Now I'll be looking for a complete side to do before I even get ready to do the roof turret.

[realsteel]

All I did was cut the ute roof off above where I knew it had been grafted so I could track down exactly how they did the conversion.. I got this far (pics attached) then noticed on the left the bog seemed to go to far so followed it & the whole left side has been cut out & replaced. IMG_20160517_155804.jpgIMG_20160517_155828.jpg

I'm honestly starting to wonder if this was ever a proper conversion like I was told.

- - - Updated - - -

I did several panelvan to ute conversions back in the 80's and they were quite a bit of work to do..... doing the reverse will be a hell of a lot of work and not an easy job. When it comes to a HJ Sandman a lot of what makes it a Sandman is in the missing roof turret... ie the hoodlining rails and tooth strip. I'd be looking for a good donor shell, even a good windowed shell would be far less work filling in the windows.

Good luck with whatever way you choose to go and as others have said, take pics of the process and post them up..... we love to look at progress pics.

Thank you looks like I'll need it lol. I'm still not overwhelmed by the whole process, I have time & prepared to take as long as it takes to do it. It's my first major project like this so I'm treating it like my learning curve
I could imagine you did a lot better job than the person did on mine.

[realsteel]

Well, a bit of time thinking about Absinth's suggestion.

I'll be looking for another panelvan body anyway for the proper panelvan side so can do the whole passenger side in 1 piece while there is no turret on it. I am going to see what else is about that has a completely rust & dent free body that can have windows (honestly can't see that happening as nearly everything within a price range of my now non existent budget will require work), if I do find the perfect HJ panelvan body & it's able to be bought & affordable I guess the rolling windowless HJ panelvan body I have now I can use the turret sides from that 1 to close up the windows even though that will be a bit of a shame as the roof turret is the best one I seen in the time I was looking & it'll make them expensive turret sides at $1500 by the time I picked the thing up & got it home from Melbourne.

I'll probably change my mind several times in the near future of what I will end up doing lol. I'll definitely keep this updated when I make a definite decision & it's too late to change my mind. Once the serious work starts I will start a build thread also because there will be a whole lot more than just panel & paint.

In the meantime I'll probably start blasting this other project & etch priming it ready for it's body work.

Thank you for all your input everyone.