1992 Daihatsu Atrai, Port Saint Lucie Florida

Hey Guys, Ive had my van for a while now, been cutting the rust out of her and replacing with sheet metal, pretty much got it all done now, going to start blocking the body out to get paint on her in a few weeks.

Welcome to the forum, that will be a nice looking little van when it's sprayed! I like the wheels

welcome   

Hello, lovin the wheels

Hi welcome, like the wheels

You must think we are all Robots or Parrots on here but ------ LOVE THE WHEELS TOO !!
What colour(s) are you treating the Van to ?? Send us some of your Florida Sunshine too please.

That is going to turn out to be a really wicked Hijet!!

Welcome

Loving the wheels too

Thanks for the warm welcome guys, I wish I could send you some of our beautiful weather, its 80 degrees with a lite wind today. Sorry to rub it in   . The wheels are aftermarket MB mark, the tires are 155/60/15 from a the front of a Smart for 2 car. Im actually toying with the idea of using a 50s Kombi VW bus steel replacement nose and fabricating it on something like the Japanese do with fiberglass. The nose i can sort here locally for pretty cheap and its practically the same shape and size. I may even give it the split window depending on the fitment and look. I will be making that decision once the restoration shop gets his shipment of panels from Columbia and i can properly fit it. Far as i have seen, a "real" steel conversion has never been done yet. Over here in the US, these little guys are super rare so no parts what so ever. A few trucks I have only seen two other little vans and they are rust buckets. To find one thats street legal is even more rare. I am wanting to do a two tone paint job on it, not to sure on the colors yet. This one in the picture is kinda like what im going to do, minus the underpinnings, I want a custom look. Just try to imagine it with my wheels and tires. I know its noit staying true to the brand.....but over here we cant source any spares for Daihatsu body parts.   

Certainly some major work you are planning.In the picture it certainly looks fantastic the quality of work the Japs have done. The wheels look very much American style -- very retro.
Hi-Jets aren't exactly known for staying cool here in England. They can overheat at the drop of a hat.

How do you propose to allow air flow through the radiator particularly as your climate is the opposite
to ours here.
There is a chap here on the Isle of Wight who makes fibreglass VW fronts for Extols and I have wondered
how they are kept cool.

Liking the wee Veedub clone, love the colour scheme. What always looks wrong to me on the 2 tone clone( ) schemes is the rearmost side windows, they just look wrong with the 2 colours.

The 'new' campers that they import from south America have a fake spare wheel on the front which is actually a very fine mesh to allow airflow to the radiator. Maybe you could do something similar?

http://www.danburymotorcaravans.com/models/model.aspx?modelID=1

I'm a die-hard dubber at heart though and personally I do cringe a little at these hijet vw conversions. I like the hijet for what it is and I wouldn't want to try and make it look like another vehicle. Everyone to their own though, the variety of the customising of vehicles on this forum never ceases to amaze me!

I too cringe at the bus conversions I see mainly because they are not even close to the real shape of the originals, that is why I want to use an original panel to do a conversion. The replacement panel i have available is an exact fit from the VW parts restoration manufacturer that supplies the rest of the world, which is conveniently located 30 minutes from me.
  The cooling is handled by an over sized radiator and fan unit that I fitted to cure any issues that may ever occur, which by the way the van can idle in 90+ degree weather for hours and the needle stays steady at the center of the gauge. I plan on making a 1 inch by 2 foot scoop at the bottom of the nose panel that will direct the airflow to the radiator that will be in a duct system that will be part of the nose support system.
   I tried to contact the aforementioned guy that produces the nose kit with no luck, I would rather just buy a piece that is fitted already with little to no work, but I have had no luck. I am a welder/fabricator by trade so its not something that's outside of my comfort zone, and the price will be about the same so like I said, Im still toying with the idea and until I see the fitment it will be just that, an idea. I do like the original look of the Daihatsu but the parts are twice as hard to find in the US than anywhere else in the world. We didnt get many of the vans here and most have been to the crusher because most all of them were never street legal and only used at resorts and golf courses.As the electric carts became more popular the little guys were cast aside and forgotten about. My van started its life as a government unit, and was fleet maintenanced for its whole service life. I was able to see the records by tracing down the maintenance company by its service tag/barcode in the van. It was taken out of service in 2008 and ended up in Miami and sat for a few years. I bought it from a Cuban fella in an embarrassing state......(see picture)    The other side was just as bad, the back window was plywood, and the wing must have had to be perfect because the guy drilled 16 or so holes in the roof to mount it. I have subsequently mended the hole with my welder.

Heres the radiator i installed, its been cleaned up a bit with some new sheetmetal where i cut to get it in, but it makes bleeding the system a breeze and its rock steady cooling. The rust in the pic has been abated as well, cut out and replaced by sheet metal.

Heres some of the rust repair that ive done.
https://i.servimg.com/u/f58/18/81/82/71/cam02013.jpg

rust in bottom of door and rear wheel well

bottom of slider door

heres the rust i cut out of the sliding door....minus all the bondo

Ha ha ha, over here that's usually what's left of the van when you remove the rust........

Yeah, most Japanese vehicles over here dont do well in our salt air. I consider myself lucky that its in such good shape, of the other 2 that I have ever seen, they were plagued with the brown stuff.

Any chance one of you guys would know where I could order a front windscreen gasket or any other weather seals etc.? Im thinking you guys may have more options than I do here in the States.

Nice van! The bus conversion would be an interesting one... especially if you ever find yourself secretly attending VW car shows hahaha. As for the wheels, I like them too. Was surprised when you said they were aftermarket MGs. Those have big wheels >.<

Looking forward to seeing the new paint job on yours. Looking to brighten mine up with a fresh coat someday.

For the weather strips, only ideas I have are to continue looking for a website like this one or to find something close to it and cut it to fit.

loving the work, will look really nice when finished, are you going to lower it or keep it standard??

Hi, don't know if you know about this site, I think it is based in Canada.
minitrucktalk.com

Ive been busy with the van, getting ready to stuff a "new" engine into it, the original hamster bit the dust so in goes a hot rod engine. A 2001 Goldwing Gl1800 6 cylinder boxer engine. Heres a link to the thread I started on the other site. All my pictures are gone from this site, dont know why? Anyway here.

http://minitrucktalk.com/threads/1992-daihatsu-atrai-port-saint-lucie-florida.15782/

The Hijet to Honda Goldwing engine swap is just about finished, lots of pictures and video.

http://minitrucktalk.com/threads/1992-daihatsu-atrai-port-saint-lucie-florida.15782/

This engine swap project is sexy, the fabrication is bang tidy mate!

Is it me? I can't see any pictures

Yeah i dont know what happened to the pics on this site but grab the link i posted above to the site I've been posting on, it has all the pics and videos. Thanks Highlyjetted!

Doing a great job there