Brakin.

So I decided pretty early on when I realized the Jeep needed new brakes all the way around that I was going to go the route of doing the disc brake conversion on the front. Turns out, it's really one of the easier swaps out there to do. Dana axles are pretty darn universal in their caliper bracket mounting and these are no exception - just use caliper brackets from a late 70's Chevy truck (4x4), calipers from the truck, brake hoses, and rotors from a 76' CJ7 and you're basically done. Some other small odds and ends, a little machine work on the stock drum hubs and you're done. Wholla....better brakes!

Odds and ends...

So besides all the painting, cutting and welding...I had to do lots of other small items that I haven't really covered yet. All the wiring at the back end of the car needed to be redone. The fuel gauge didn't work when I got the thing, but all that was was a ground issue. I replaced all the back wiring, and chose to solder all the connections rather than use crappy butt connectors that always fail in a year, especially when under the car. I then pulled my hair out for a day chasing down ground and wiring issues when only one front turn signal worked, no brake lights worked (switch was bad) and the parking lights up front wouldn't work. Now, all that's fixed.


Here's a little fix you can use if your indicator lights on your gauge cluster for your turn signals no longer work right. Unfortunately, these 40 year old bulb sockets are powered by the 40 year old circuit board as these just twist in to make a connection. Mine would work...then not work...then work when I pushed on the lights....enough of that! After 3 hours of sanding the contacts on the bulb sockets down, and installing and re-installing them, I gave up and went a different route - I removed the green lens paper on the inside, painted the plastic black inside, very CAREFULLY drilled two holes, and bought two green LED units from radio shack that secure on the back with a nut, and already have a resistor built in. I then grounded and ran the wires through the open holes (once the old bulbs were twisted out) and ran the wires down to the cluster of wires heading to the back of the car and spliced in. Done!
Oh, I also masked up the outside and painted it up.


Something had to stay patina on the car. Originally, I was going to paint the thing copper and leave the hood all patina, as it looked cool as hell. I opted not to and blasted the hood. I left the badges as is, and re-installed the front medic badge, leaving the Jeep badge off. I just didn't like it. I removed everything silver in color (front headlight and turn signal trim rings, cowl vent, hood latches, hinges, tailgate latches), and powdercoated everything flat black. It saves a lot of money buying an Eastwood powdercoat kit and using an old oven. Don't use your wife's - I can't imagine that will end good.

Under the engine compartment, I left the engine as-is. I removed the exhaust manifolds as they were covered in thick scale, sandblasted them, and painted them in POR 15 High temp black velvet paint. Good stuff. After the manifolds were back on, I fired the Jeep up from its winter slumber, and annoyed the neighbors for a while with open manifolds!!


Now currently, I'm working on the front disc brake conversion. The rears are all rebuilt, and the front hubs are at the machine shop getting cleaned up with the new conversion races pressed in back. Once this is done, I have to mount the rear bumper, get the exhaust bent up and installed, and we're ready to rock!

Paint and roll bar.

When I started thinking up this Jeep, I figured I'd go with Olive flat paint, but wanted something durable, not just thin rattle-can stuff. I opted for Hot Rod Flatz, and used a Urethane high-build primer underneith. The Hot Rod Flatz paint came in Oliver Drab, and Olive Brown...I figured the Olive brown would be more of a desert look, but the color looks absolutely nothing like the sample pictures...it looks more like baby shit green. Perfect! Ugly, yet kinda cool. You won't forget it, which is the point. If you want a cheap flat paint, HR flatz isn't bad. Goes on easy, mistakes cover easy, and it'll only set you back about 100.00. I used just over a quart to do the whole thing.

Now, onto the roll bar...



For the roll bar, I figured I'd snag a cheap Wrangler bar somewhere and make it work, which is exactly what I did. I ended up scoring a kid crusher bar, the front window extensions, padding, and seat belts front and rear all for 100.00. Deal. The bar surprisingly fit nice and snug in between the tub sides. I lopped off about 4.5 inches off the bottom of the bar, and welded on new flat mounting points for the front. The rear I left completely untouched, just fabbed up brackets to mount on the fenders using 3 Grade 8 bolts per side (see earlier pic). I really wanted to be able to use the stock mounting plates for the front extensions, but unfortunately couldn't get that lucky. I finally just said screw it, lopped off the mounting plates and welded the bars directly to the front windshield. It's not going anywhere. The front extension pads were grey instead of black, so I cleaned them good with denatured alcohol and painted them with AutoZone fabric paint (black). This is the first time using this stuff and I am completely amazed. They really, really look like they aren't painted at all.

The seat belt bottom roller was fixed to the bar via tapping the bar and using a Grade 8 bolt with loc-tite. The upper uses the stock location, with the buckle mounted to the floor. It took a lot of prepping and layout to make sure the bar was level and set-up right. I still don't know if the top is going to fit back on, but all my measurements point to yes. The top had 2 feet of snow on it behind my shed when I did this and I didn't much feel like going out there.


Here is where the front extension meets the windshield. The lower sections of the windshield on both sides had some rust issues. Rather than scouring for a new one, I just opted to cut out and repair it since I probably wasn't going to be driving this thing in the rain too much. My guess is the windshield gasket leaks, but I really don't care.

Sidework.

The sides of the Jeepster were pretty bad. The rockers were shot, and the rear quarter panel section was bad as well. I decided pretty much right out of the gate that I wasn't going to mess with cutting and welding new quarter panel sides on. Instead, I would cover the back with diamondplate. Once again, I mocked up a pattern with matte board and sent that in with my other pieces. Overall, I think everything cost me just under 200.00 to get fabbed up. Not bad. I decided to eliminate the rocker panel completely and cut it off, along with the rear fender, right at the body line that runs along the rocker and rear fender. I did this with a cut off wheel, took my time, and went really slow. I had my sheet metal place fab up some "U" channels out of 14 gauge steel to be welded on and used as rocker panels


Here you can see a picture of the installed rocker panels. The rough edge is a stitch-weld going all the way down. I don't mind the exposed weld, it's kinda a cool look, but if I had it over again, I might have used rivets like I did on the back diamondplate.



Here is the rear diamondplate panels. To make the top edge that curves around the back, I simply C-clamped the panels in place, heated the top edge with a torch, and bended it around the edge with a hammer....slowly. I then took the panels off, and covered the area behind them in a thick layer of truck bed coating. I then put the panels back on with C-clamps, drilled and used big-head rivets to secure the panel all the way around. After this, the fender flares (from a YJ wrangler) were installed using Rivets. I had to trim the fender area as the inside of the flare is circular, unlike the outside. I just trimmed a little at a time, and test fit until it was perfect. I found the centerline of the gas neck from the inside drilling out, then used a hole saw to cut the hole. It takes time and use a lot of cutting oil, but you'll get through! Seen here are the tires and wheels I'm going with.

Da back.

So the backend cargo area was the first area I needed to tackle. I removed the gas tank first and when doing so, I noticed that the crossmember that ran between the frame rails in the back was completely rotted out. Armed with my sawzall and cutoff wheel, I began chopping out the entire back half of the cargo area, along with the crossmember. I removed the bumper in the process. The rear valance behind the bumper had a few small pin holes in it, but nothing major. I removed the tailgate and the rear lights, cutting all the wiring. I didn't want to take a chance that anything worked or more than likely didn't work. Searching around online I realized that finding anyone who carried the cargo area patch panel was not only rare, but extremely expensive - upwards of 500.00! I decided to fab my own by using diamond plate (steel). I mocked up the layout using matte board used to frame pictures. It's thin, easier to cut than regular cardboard, and bends easier. I then purchased a whole sheet of diamond plate and sent the layout (along with several other ones I'll explain later to my sheet metal guy.



In these two pics you can see the new floor, along with the fuel neck robbed from a Ford van, cut up and made to work. You'll also notice the brackets made to support the YJ Wrangler rollbar to the backside of the fender. The tailgate was completely shot, so I took it down to the sandblasters and well, made it worse. I ended up cutting the bottom off the gate and welding half a piece of wire conduit pipe to make the bottom 180 degree edge of the tailgate. The backside was shot too, so I cut out the rust, and covered it with another piece of diamondplate. I had the plate bend me a new "U" shaped crossmember for the back, as I cut out and welded that in at the same time. I had all the plate fabbed up at the same time. Better to have all your sheets and measurments ready to go, and let them mess with it. After this work was done, I was ready to move onto the sides of the jeep.

Almost done (like magic).

Here's some distance pics I snapped about 3 weeks ago... A bit more has been done since these pics. The paint is hot rod flatz, olive brown. Below, I'll get into more detail, but it's gettin' late!

A jeepster? Really?

So in August of last year, I was driving home from the sandblasters after blasting the two front fenders from Betty, my 1950 Buick that never seems to get done, when I noticed a Jeep parked in a yard with a for sale sign on it. For some reason, I decided to stop. I've always liked old Jeeps. I owned a 79 CJ for a short time and a wrangler, and this thing looked old. When I got up close I realized it was a Jeepster, and on the surface it really didn't appear to be in bad shape. The sign said 3,000.00, so I decided to take the number down and inquire on the amount of crack the owner smoked to think he would get 3000.00 from a Jeep in this decrepit state. Jeepsters in and of themselves are pretty rare birds, especially up north where under normal circumstances they pretty much rotted away right before the owners eyes. This one was no exception. Thin, thin metal (which I really found out later). It needed work. Luckily, my thought process (at least I thought) was in the right place. I wanted something without a top. Either an S2000 (10,000.00) or an old Jeep (not 10,000.00).

When I called him he seemed pretty open to negotiate. I guess the old Jeepster had been sitting for awhile. A long while. I offered 1500.00. He took it.

Wow. I own a Jeepster.




I am unable to explain the insane chrome swan hood ornament, but I'll assume it was bought from JC Whitney in 1979. The medic-badge on the front was a cool score.

Prior to offering I did look the thing over pretty good. The rear floor section was trashed, the rockers were trashed, as were the rear quarter panel sections behind the tires. No biggie...just lots of welding. The motor was a Dauntless V6, made by Buick, and had be retro'd to an HEI ignition system. The thing fired up, coughed a bit, and I goosed the gas for about 2 minutes or so and it idled right out nicely. Exhaust leaks everywhere, no brakes....but I drove it down the street and back. Not bad.


This is what I was dealing with in the rear cargo section. Lots of rot. The dude that owned this thing looked like he thought he was the galvanized sheet metal - rivet king, because these side patch panels here was just the beginning. Oh, and that's the gas tank fill - a nice 2" pipe cap! The thing was going to need a lot of cutting and welding. Nothing too major, and luckily my thought process was fabricate and make stuff work.

Unfortunately, here's where I made one documentary-grave error - unlike Betty, I did not take before and after pictures of everything I did. I know, I'm a slacker. At the time, I thought it wasn't worth it. Looking back, i wish I had. So in the next post, the Jeep miraculously has new paint and is almost ready to hit the road. What you don't see is that I started the project in August, got the car in paint by late October, let it sit through Christmas, and just finally got back off my butt to finish it up here in January / February. Currently I have the front disc brake conversion to do, rear bumper, and take it down to the muffler shop to have pipe bent up and exhaust ran. Not bad considering the amount of work I did in such a short time.