mini on my mind...

ok, today is my birthday, im finally 18, lol, but thats not what i wanted to talk about. anyways, i have been thinking about mini trucks for some time now and i think im gonna take my mazda and slam it... im not sure how to go about this but i think i want to body drop it because it looks like the cheapest way to go. i need some info on body dropping, what it takes, the approximent cost, and the pros and cons over dropping the suspension... this is kinda what i want to do with the mazda

you cant just body drop it.. body droping is something that guys do that bag there truck and the frame touches the ground before the body.. at most they are only raising the cab floor 2 inches and there is a shitton of work involved.. gotta remove all your interior.. cut your floor, firewall, cab backwall, cab supports, and trans tunnel.. then you gotta get it all dead level with the cab again.. then make new supports for the cab, weld plates all around where you raised the floor, and then redo the firewall and cab back wall.. it doesnt sound to bad but it definitly isnt a weekend project.. you are talkin atleast 2 weeks worth of solid work.. the first time i did it it took me darn near a month and this was in my dads shop with every tool you can imagine and i have a great mind for fabrication... i dont know what your idea of cheap is but body drops arent cheap.. thete are all kinds of cost involved from metal to welding wire to time let alone if you mess something up.. then your eather scraping the truck or searching for a donor.. alot of the guys that bodied there trucks had a donor to get things from already..

ok, well, i have no experience in fabrication at all. i thought body dropping alone was a drop kit that will do well by itself but i was wrong. this summer i wanted to get 2" drop spindles for the front and then take out a couple leafs in the back so its level... or the alternative would be baggin it but i dont really have the money to do the baggin right now so if i dropped the suspension 2" would it still sit really low, but no low enough where i would be bottoming out on speed bumps and pot holes? lol, i want my truck very low and the goal by the end of my senior year (next school year) is to try and get my mazda featured in either truckin or mini truckin magazine... i planned on working on just the suspension and mechanical work this summer... and when i school year started i would do the interior and then by the end of the year have all the paint work done. i know a good airbrusher that can do all the paint and whatnot cheaper than retail, all i gotta do is pay for the apint and he will do all the work for me for very little. heres the plan...

first, i would drop the suspension, using air bags or just a drop kit, cut the inner fenders under the hood so you can see the tires from under the hood... then i would drop the rear down, cut the bed up so the rear axle goes into the bed and fabricate a custom cover for it where its clear on the top... or some kind of design. then i would pull the motor and tranny and tear them apart and build the motor from the block up, all dressed up, rebuild the tranny with everything new. after i got all that work done, and the motor and tranny are back in and its low, i would start tearing apart the interior, making custom fiberglass pieces for the dash, center consold and sub boxes in the back, new carpet, new headliner, possibly a sunroof, tint the windows, reupholster the factory seats with some custom colors, im thinking a black and blue theme, still unsure. get the fiberglass pieces airbrushed with some blue flames and skulls, like i said i know a good airbrusher... after i get all the interior done, i would start doing some body work. theres a large amount of rust near the cab front part of my bed, so i will need to do that. shave the emblems, taillights, put a roll pan on, new front bumer, grille, hood, fix some rust spots on the top part of the cab, in the roll pan i was thnking about corvette style lights, possible some caddy lights where the existing taillights are. projector headlights, some streetglow on the underside, and on the inside of the cab. i wanted to do one of them license plate boxes sideways inside the tailgate like you see on custom mini trucks as well, i think that would be pretty cool. paint will be 2 tone black on bottom, candy blue on top, and separating them will be some pearl whit flames done my my airbrusher.

what do you think joe? approximent cost? i kinda want to do the airbags but i dont want a fucked up system... and i dont want to pay a crap load on the suspension because the motor alone is going to take a while.

honestly.. you are lookin at about 10,000 right there.. bags, brackets, notchs, compressor, tank, and plumbing is gonna run you about 2,000.. your gonna probley dumb about the same into rebuilding your motor but you could do a V8 swap or something for about the same.. your gonna have to body drop it and do alot of frame work to get it to lay out all the way like you want and thats gonna run you about a grand in metal and misc parts that you have to buy or make.. then about another 5-6k in body mods, and interior work.. not to discourage you or anything but most of the "featured" trucks in magizines have been years in the making or the person has a rather fat wallet.. i would love to see you do it but i dont think your taking the time it takes to get all this done the proper way into account.. i wouldnt set my bar that high for the end of school.. i would set it at say having the truck bagged, bodied and the motor done by the end of the school year.. but you would probley spend the summer after you graduate cleaning all that stuff up to make it feature worthy.. then it would be time to do all your major body work and interior done.. youll probley spend anther 6 months or so doing all that.. once your happy with everything else then its time to get it painted.. at that point youll probley be out of a vehicle for a solid 3 months because its not something you can just slap together and make look good cause it takes endless hours of body prep work and finalizing all the interior fiberglass work that needs to be painted as well.. i didnt even get into rims and tires, exterior dress up, and engine dress up.. thats probley another 5,000 right there.. once you start adding things up all the small things turn into a big thing when it comes to customizing stuff for the first time.. there are gonna be a few trial and error shots in the dark cause you have never done it before and may not like the outcome.. it might look good on paper or in your head but may function like crap or look totally hidious.. i was there man.. i spent way to much on the first truck i laid out and paid the final price of never being able to drive it cause i dumped so much into the bag setup and body work that i didnt have any money left to do the motor.. i was using a milk crate as a drivers seat cause it didnt have an interior when i got it.. it was a major fail to say the least but i learned alot and was able to salvage some stuff that i eventually sold but didnt get anywhere close to what i paid for it.. i just dont want to see that happen to you..

i agree with joe. yeah take it slow. ya got a while to do all this.

that is excellent advice joe, i cant thank you enough for all the information you have given over the years and i read it slowly, and then read it again, then do some research, and then read it again just to make sure i know wht im getting myself into. the motor in my truck is old, i got almost 300k miles on it right now, and im pretty sure it might die soon, not that i want it to but you know how it is, engines blow sometimes and with that many miles on it, i dont want to chance it. i got a car offered to me very cheap, price isnt an issue with it but im not going to say the exact price excpet that is extrememly cheap. theres a lady that works with my dad that has a 1994 Lincoln Continential and the only thing wrong with it is that she got the radiator and oil fill mixed up and ended up pouring some water in the oil fill and its been siiting since last summer i guess, doesnt run right now but i have a feeling it needs very little. before she parked it for good (she went and bought a freakin' sunbird) me and my dad put a new fuel sending unti and fuel pump in it (idk if you guys remember the car, it was the one we used the fork lift to lift the back end of the car up, i have pics somewheres) and before we did that she had a brand new computer put in it and a tune up i think. the car is in good shape but i have a feeling i can get the car for about 300 bucks or less because she wants it gone. and if that is going to be the case, i will prolly sell the mazda or pass it down to my younger brother... prolly sell it though. heres an idea of the lincoln...



im not sure all that you can do to them though

that would be a 95 continental limo.. you can do as you please as far as the mazda goes.. i would just park it on the side of the house or wherever and work on it slowly.. dont give up on her that easy.. lol.. even if you put 50 bucks a week into it by the end of the year you should be able to find a decent donor motor for the money you saved..

lol, well, im not giving up on it, my birthday was on monday and my parents said my gift would be there later that week. yesterday i got home and at the front door was my gift awaiting me, and guess what? it was parts for the mazda. for my b day i got a distributor cap, rotor, plugs and wires, and now it runs so much better than it did.

lol.. yeah sometimes a good tuneup will do that..