April 12, 200718 yr Wow.... that is pretty amazing work. But.. Excuse me for a moment.. Why pick such an ugly car to put the brat tray on to start with?? :-p Oh, and those holden and ford utes are just ugly. :-p I see them every day too.. They are WAY to popular in Australia. And most of them that I see have hard tops.. Which makes them more usless then a wagon. Anyway, brilliant work so far mate, looks 'interesting'
April 12, 200718 yr Author Well, for better or worse, I'm the President of the Merkur Club of America. Trust me, there's no reason to be impressed - no hot interns (or even fat ones), come along with the position. So I'm rather "wedded" to the platform. And from a semi-practical standpoint, I know the car inside and out, and have enough spares to build a small fleet, should I so desire. So much for my semi-practical justification for the project - who am I kidding - I should have just bought a Ranger if I wanted to be practical.
April 12, 200718 yr Custom cars just have something about them huh? I can respect a Subie with an 8" lift and second t-case, but I can't respect a huge SUV with suspension lift and mudders, even if the SUV can go further. It's the personal effort I respect. Thats why people who take their car to a shop to have mods (hoods scoops and huge spoilers) fitted I just laugh at...
April 12, 200718 yr Author Custom cars just have something about them huh? Yep. I can confidently say that this will be a one-of-a-kind. The funny thing is, I sorta already want to do another one, so that I can apply all the knowledge I gained (i.e. mistakes), from building this one. Take a look here for what I was thinking.... (ScorBajio) http://forum.merkurclub.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=8943
April 12, 200718 yr that is definatly one of the more interesting projects ive seen lately. i cant wait to see how it turns out. looks like it willbe a fun ride when its done, all i ask is that you put a large turbo in that thing and make it a runner. i know it can be done, ive seen some crazy merkurs out there.
April 12, 200718 yr Author all i ask is that you put a large turbo in that thing and make it a runner. i know it can be done, ive seen some crazy merkurs out there. My current driver XR4 has a SC50 T3/4 - this one may get the same treatment. At the moment, the XRBrati has got a turbo motor in it, but with a simple open header. It's just a tinsy bit loud, so I have to make sure it's back in the garage before bed-time, or leave it out until the following day. The car will be a driver that is 1/3rd show-piece, 1/3rd track car, and 1/3rd functional "truck". As such, I'm not planning to go over the top on making it look too "pretty". Rhino-liner will hide lots of sins.
April 12, 200718 yr My current driver XR4 has a SC50 T3/4 - this one may get the same treatment. At the moment, the XRBrati has got a turbo motor in it, but with a simple open header. It's just a tinsy bit loud, so I have to make sure it's back in the garage before bed-time, or leave it out until the following day. The car will be a driver that is 1/3rd show-piece, 1/3rd track car, and 1/3rd functional "truck". As such, I'm not planning to go over the top on making it look too "pretty". Rhino-liner will hide lots of sins. sweetness, i really cant wait to see it done. you gotta bring it down this way some time when its finished. i have many cookouts here in frederck md. you are always welcome to swing by. i look for any excuse to break out hte grill.
April 13, 200718 yr And the motivation for this project is...? Same as the motivation for a lot of other projects: To do something different, or something that hasn't been done before.
September 27, 200718 yr Author It's been awhile since I've posted in this thread, so I thought it was time, now that the two structures are permanently bonded together. Here's a link to the whole thread, but you may want to jump ahead to about page 13 in the interest of time. http://forum.merkurclub.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2639&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0
September 27, 200718 yr Thanks to Daeron I think it was for the bump. Wow, that thing is NUTS! I love it! Normally I'm in the "don't cut up a good car" crowd but when the planned end result is something like that it's usally well worth it. So the roof it Subaru huh? Looks like you made looooots of measurments for this one. Did you have yo bend side body panels to get the two bodies to fit or did the cutting lines take care of horizontal depth differences? Did that make sense? I assume you're using all XR4Ti running gear? Wonder if the Brat trans would hook up to the turbo Ford engine.... but it's transversely mounted huh? Anyways that's one hell of a cool project, I greatly look forward to seeing the finished product.
September 27, 200718 yr Thanks to Daeron I think it was for the bump. Wow, that thing is NUTS! I love it! Normally I'm in the "don't cut up a good car" crowd but when the planned end result is something like that it's usally well worth it. So the roof is Subaru huh? Looks like you made looooots of measurments for this one. Did you have to bend side body panels to get the two bodies to fit or did the cutting lines take care of horizontal depth differences? Did that make sense? I assume you're using all XR4Ti running gear? Wonder if the Brat trans would hook up to the turbo Ford engine.... but it's transversely mounted huh? Anyways that's one hell of a cool project, I greatly look forward to seeing the finished product.
September 27, 200718 yr I read all 17 pages and I must say I'm impressed with this project, very unique. I think when it is 100% finished it will grow on the nay sayers. Kudos to you for "getting R done"
September 27, 200718 yr Author So the roof it Subaru huh? Not really. The structural part is mostly from the Merkur. I left the center part of the Brat T-roof in place, but it's not doing much. The whole roof will be re-skinned with a donor from a solid roof Merkur that I already have. Did you have yo bend side body panels to get the two bodies to fit or did the cutting lines take care of horizontal depth differences? Not quite sure what you mean, but there was no "bending to fit". It was "simply" a matter of cutting the bodies until they matched up. I assume you're using all XR4Ti running gear? Wonder if the Brat trans would hook up to the turbo Ford engine.... but it's transversely mounted huh? From the waist-down, it's all XR stuff. Of course the Brat transmission doesn't bolt up, but it would be a silly idea to replace a reasonably strong gearbox with a weaker one any way. It's all RWD, so nothing is transversely mounted.
September 28, 200718 yr Oh I thought the 4 in XR4 meant they were AWD. Knowing they have a good old RWD transmisson almost makes me want one! but I don't touch (gasloline) turbos.
January 23, 200818 yr Author Figured it was time for an update.... You can see some of the other updated pics here... http://forum.merkurclub.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2639&start=270
January 23, 200818 yr looking good.... I went through the entire thread on the other board.... you should post this pic for the guys on that board to see what became of the red Brat http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/80s/mick/gallery/Brat-trailer.jpg
January 24, 200818 yr Author you should post this pic for the guys on that board to see what became of the red Brat http://www.ultimatesubaru.org/80s/mick/gallery/Brat-trailer.jpg Okay, done!
February 8, 200818 yr the bracing looks really good.... http://forum.merkurclub.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2639&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=285
February 8, 200818 yr Author the bracing looks really good.... Thanks, yea, the suspension is going to need to step up and do it's job, cause the chassis ain't moving one bit!
February 10, 200818 yr Author wow it looks really good. Hurry up and finish it so we can see Trust me, nobody wants it done more than me!:-p
February 17, 200818 yr Author I am glad to see a project like this , check out my photo's Neat! Did you fabricate the metal you needed, or did you "borrow" it from some othe car? I can't tell from the pics - does the tailgate still work, or did you make that solid around the back?
February 20, 200818 yr yeh ,I welded the back doors shut and the fender flares are from a dodge van. I made the tailgate so it goes down .I retained the heated rear window as well .the wheels are from a dodge d50 14 inch,just had to mod them alittle.
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