Project cars
I got into cars at a very young age. Throughout my childhood, my father always had something interesting sitting on the driveway. From an 80’s Pontiac Fiero to an Opel Speedster to more recently an Audi TT RS.
My own automotive journey started at 14, when my uncle bought himself a Daihatsu Rocky as a toy for his 45th birthday. It was a tired old rust bucket he paid just €600 for. To justify the purchase to his wife, he told her he was going to use it to teach me how to drive. I have great memories of doing donuts in a random field at 14 years old. Unfortunately this car was too rotten to be road legal, so it was stripped for parts and abandoned.
Our family was still in need of a cheap work truck that could tow and haul things around, and since we enjoyed our first Rocky we decided to get another. We drove this one around for numerous years and after it’s transmission broke a third Rocky was purchased, which leaves me currently owning 2 vehicles:
- 1989 Daihatsu Rocky F70
- 2.8l Turbodiesel
- Short wheelbase
- Solid front axle, leaf sprung all around
- 1995 Daihatsu Rocky F78
- 2.8l Narturally aspirated diesel
- Long wheelbase
- Torsion bar front, coil sprung rear suspension
Below you can find me documenting the full restoration process of my vehicles to get them back on the road, and more importantly, in the dirt!
All car related projects
The big gearbox overhaul
This is the main issue that originally killed this car. After buying not one but two defective gearboxes, I was left with no choice but to rebuild them myself.
Gearbox output shaft nut
The gearboxes on the Rocky platform suffer from a few common issues. One of the most common ones is the retaining nut on the output shaft loosening over time. This leads to issues like the gearbox popping out of 5th, and after a while also rough 3-2 downshifts.
Rear drum brakes rebuild
Just like the front brakes, the rears were in very poor condition. Everything was rusted, seized and needed to be replaced.
Laser cut brake protection plates
While changing the wheel bearings and seals on the front axle, I noticed the factory dust shields on the front brakes were completely rusted away. One of my clients kindly allowed me to reproduce these in 3mm galvanized steel after a scheduled maintenance on their TruLaser machine.
Front axle rebuild
The front axle was leaking grease, the wheel bearings were on their last legs and the brakes were heavily grooved. Needless to say, a full front axle rebuild was necessary.
Roof mounted truck horns
The more I started to inspect the body, the more I realized it was very far gone. With a full restoration being incredibly hard, time and money consuming, I decided to lean into the roughed up look by mounting some vintage truck air horns on the roof!
Momo Montecarlo steering wheel
As I’m very tall and the Daihatsu Rocky is Japanese sized, I have quite a hard time comfortably fitting in the drivers seat. A smaller steering wheel ended up being just the upgrade I needed to more comfortably fit. As an added bonus, it’s a nice aesthetic upgrade from the utilitarian …
Cast PU shock mount bushings
Upon close inspection, the factory rubber bushings showed signs of cracking and deformation. I decided this was a great opportunity to get familiar with my new to me Revopoint 3D scanners.
TPU reproduction shifter parts
Rubber gets hard and brittle with age, and since there’s no new parts available I’ve resorted to printing them myself out of TPU!
Veterinary car shelving
My friend Pieter-Jan from DAP Warandepoort was just starting out as a veterinarian and was gifted his grandmother’s old Peugeot to use as his runaround. He made a custom cabinet to fit in the back and tasked me with designing a partitioning system for the shelves.
Rusted fuel tank restoration
While the body enjoyed it’s 15 year garage hibernation, the mechanicals weren’t so happy. From sitting, rust had formed inside the fuel tank and would clog the fuel filter. Here I breathe life back into a rusty fuel tank.