The Toyota Crown ute is progressing along, the body is fitting the modified original chassis and this is how it will look when it's dropped ... I think it has the right stance ... The framing you can see is holding the upper body together as the floor and lower sections are rusted away and have been cut out, then to be completely refabbed by us.  The frame allows us to lift the body on and off as we please during this stage.

The rear doors on this little Morris J we are working on were pretty sad and the hinges were that worn I decided to start from scratch. The old doors were going to cost alot to repair and in the end they still would have been rough, it would have been like trying to make caviar from a pigs ear.  Its not a decision to take lightly as it is an expensive exercise to make hinges from scratch and the doors from scratch and get it all working, but the end result is what you are chasing.  The customer now has doors with a good well planned out rubber seal, a proper stepped overlap in the middle, hignges that don't let the doors swing around and hit the body,a high tensile long hinge pin, inner skins that unscrew to allow panel repairs and bear claw latches on both doors so they dont fly open.  The back window was modelled off the original Morris J van doors, of which incedentally is not symetrical, and it is the shape of this back window that makes it instantly reconisable so I went to great pains to keep it accurate to original.

With the rear floor done and the back seat panel finished it was time to roll up a new rear tail pan on the 38 Plymouth.  It certainly was not easy, a complex compound curve with a dead flat bottom and a double swage line through it and a pair of exhaust slots.  It has come up well though.

Hidden under this stock looking 49-50 Frod Mercury, Kustom Bitz has made up a 31 spline 9" diff with EL disc brakes and a tru track centre.  Custom extra capacity fuel tank was shaped to maximise the fuel capacity and in doing so gained an extra 40%, but it is all hidden within the body lines so you can't tell. Baffled with centre feed fuel well tank is powder coated black and lined.  Kustom Bitz 2.5" custom fitted stainless steel exhaust is fed by custom long tube try-y headers and runs four straight through mufflers and a pair of resonators with H pipe to keep the 351W high comp, big heads with roller cam engine under wraps while not restricting flow. You can find out more about this build by following our facebook page.

This pic shows one of our Hot Rod IFS units before it left the workshop.  This one was set up to take an R6 air bag on each side, have full shocker travel for ride tuning and have a total of 5" of drop from ride height.  The problem with conventional coil over style air bags is the limited travel, typically you only get half of this drop which does not have the desired dramatic effect that this design gives. However this can not be designed as a bolt in unit, the chassis has to be altered to suit the IFS unit.  I am running a Flaming River manual steering rack, the Straight arrow model.  Here at Kustom Bitz we can set these racks up properly and modify them when correct geometry requires it.

This pic shows the competed engine swap before the front sheet metal went on.  Customer was after a factory looking engine swap as if Ford intended the 351 Windsor was always ment to be there.  We built a torque monster roller cammed 351W driving a C10 Auto and 31 spline locker 9" diff.  Custom fabricated Tri-y headers stepping up at every transition to 3" to maximise scavenging and mid range torque then exiting through a 2.5" sports twin system with H pipe.  It sounded tough and was exciting to drive.

The Australian models of the 38 Plymouth [and dodge] had the wipers down on the bottom of the windscreen and service parts just dont exist, not to mention they are fairly flimsy anyway and well worn and rusted by now.  The solution was to fit this electric wiper kit from New Port Engineering to the top of the windscreen like they were on the US models.  However the Aussie body has some differences in the top of the windscreen that mean the holes have to sit higher for the meachanism to clear on the inside, so you can't use their template supplied otherwise you end up wiith holes that you need to fill again. Apart from that these New Port Engineering wiper kits are very well made and the new wiper arms look the ducks nuts.

Shown here is a 4 bar brackets I have designed to locate a 9inch diff with coil over shocks on the rear end of a lowered 1969 - 72 model F100. I use big rubber bushes oversize 4 bar tubes and utilise the leaf spring forward mounts to keep chassis modifications limited to the rear end notch for diff clearance. I will post some more pics of the finished set up soon, it has worked a treat. Kustom Bitz can custom make 4 bars to suit any application. All custom work is done at an hourly rate.