I am looking at buying this truck, the dealer has extended it 8 in. He says the seat slides back too which is great for a tall guy like me. He also moved the wheel to the other side. Is there any concerns i should be looking for.Heres a couple of pics. http://www.minitrucktalk.com/attach...ment.php?attachmentid=7329&stc=1&d=1328057309
Vary, Vary, nice truck !! I am interested in how they made the cab, it looks good!! Take it for a good drive and see if the front cv joints bind on some good bumps. Lets hear how it go's. op:
That looks like trucks made in philippines. Basically the trucks are cut up into several pieces and shipped as scrap metal and reassembled in the philippines. Take a real good look at this album. http://www.minibrutes.com/album/thumbnails.php?album=3 In my opinion they left Japan with the intentions they would never be reassembled again. Guess you can't cut a truck into enough pieces. Just look at the cuts in all the pilars and the cab wall and firewall! YIKES!!!!!!
Not so sure I wanted to know how they did the cab now. Jigsaw Puzzle :frustration: These guys are dam good at welding pop cans !!!
I can't say if they are safe or not, It looks like a lot of welding. If the welds are good I don't see a problem. BUT that's a lot of welds! I have worked and owned a body shop and have done a lot cop tops but I have never seen any thing like the pix Greg posted. The A and B pilars are what I would be concerned about. When we spliced them together we made an insert to aline and add some beef to that area of the pilar. With all the work I don't see how they can sell these trucks for that price. That's a nice truck but buyer beware. I still love the cab and ya got me wanting to do something like that. Look it over GOOD and drive it over some twisty ground try to make the body twist. Then look for crack's in the areas in the pix Greg posted. See if the guy selling it will stand behind all the work that has been done. Good luck and let us know what ya find out !!op:
I wouldn't touch one unless it was offroad only or the prices were crazy low like 1000$ per unit. I base this on the fact that even if the welding was done right I don't trust it to be safe.
its about an 8 hour drive to this dealer, long way to go and not buy one, would sure like to test drive one, hopefully i'll get a chance soon to go there. Going to e-mail them and ask if they did the modifications or if they were done in the Philippines.
I'm going to buy one of these from the Philippines in about a month for my landscape company. They are completely rebuilt with attention to detail. Every part repainted, new interior, etc... the craftsmanship looks to be top notch. You can't tell that the dash has been cut up, etc... to convert to LHD. Looks factory. They are converted to LHD. This is important because RHD insurance is becoming increasingly difficult to find in Ontario, and my staff will be driving the vehicle. The ones I'm looking at are not extended. But I wouldn't hesitate to buy one from pictures that I've seen. I will be going to drive one in the next couple weeks and find out first hand.
There are many threads on here about these vehicals..... Sask Carry bought one and had nothing but problems with it. Unless you have money to burn I personally would not waste any more time than what you allready have on this truck. By a JDM RHD and leave these trucks cut up . Does not matter how shiny you paint a turd, its still a turd.
Problem is, it's extremely tough to get RHD insurance in Ontario now, impossible in Quebec. For commercial insurance it's even more of a headache.
sorry, should be more specific. I'm buying one from a distributor in Canada. There are a few now. PM me if you're interested. I've only spoken with them, can't speak for their service.
I'm searching around and asking some saaq garages about the law in quebec if its only a question of changing the steering to left its not that bad. I don't know about insurance though.
From what I have read, it's not hard to change to LHD, but it's labor intensive. There are also no kits. You can't just order a LHD dash. It needs to be fabricated. For me, that's discouraging to convert to LHD myself
It is but if it means I can drive it on the roads I I'll put the efforts in to change it. After some research ,in Qc it's just a change to lhd and your good to go.
