63 CJ5 - my unemployment project

Once upon a time, my garage really did look like that. I had everything neatly in order, put away where it belonged. Then we took it all out of storage, and moved in.

 

Today was a day of much bloodshed. I don't know why, but apparently the Jeep is mad at me. I guess it's 'cause I got some Ford parts for the Chevy engine that's going in it, or something...

Anyway, I scored an oil bath air cleaner housing for a 67 Ford pickup that, to me, closely resembles the old Dauntless V6 oil bath air cleaner housing. The reason for my bloodshed is that I hacked all the oil bath junk out of the middle of it so I can run a K&N later.

I also scored a vintage trailer brake control out of a 71 International Travelall made by Kelsey Hayes. I'll get some pictures posted as soon as the blood coagulates and I can again handle the camera...

 

Oh the joy of it all R)

 

Well, here's some pics:

Here's the oil bath air cleaner that inflicted the damage to my fingers and hands. It wasn't that it cut me too deep, but I had about thirty cuts on each hand.


Anyone know what the deal is with the aluminum bearing retainer for the SM420? I have no idea why the PO used it, when I put the throwout bearing on it, it could only slide about a quarter inch before it was off the retainer. I got the correct one from Herm.

The other junkyard score. This came out of a 71 International Travelall. The body and interior on the truck were perfect. I always hate it when I go to the junkyard and find perfectly good vehicles that would be awesome. Anyway, it's a trailer brake control. Not that appropriate for a Jeep CJ5, but cool, nonetheless. And it was only five bucks.

I got this jack at an estate sale a long time ago and finally got around to cleaning and painting it. I was in the garage to work on the Jeep, but I moved this out of the way of something, and next thing I knew, it was disassembled on the workbench. I guess that's proof that I have ADD. Anyway, I've been thinking of selling it, but I'd like to be able to say what it came from or went to. Anyone have any ideas?

Well, that's about it for now. I got the engine and tranny bolted together today, and that was pretty much it. I stared at everything for a long time and managed to drink a bunch of beer. Gratifying day, though.

 

Got the engine, tranny, and t-case set in the chassis today.


Getting the body set back down. Need to massage the trans tunnel and relocate the holes for the shifters.


Finally feel like I'm getting something done! It's funny; it feels like I'm so close, but I know I'm nowhere near done.

 

Gr8 progress. Maybe I need to be unemployed.....
Oh wait unemployment = no dinero $$$- uh forget it R)

 

To be honest, it does have it's benefits. Thank God my severance package paid for what it did and thank God my wife has a good job, or I'd be hurting a lot more than I am. Still, I think my wife's getting tired of bringing home the bacon...along with the rest of the groceries...

Plus, I'm no good at being a stay at home spouse. We don't have kids, but when my wife gets home, the laundry isn't done, the dishes aren't done, the house is a mess, and I'm all excited about whatever progress I made in the garage telling her to come take a look, and usually tracking some sort of garage floor residue into the house in the process. Did I mention I'm making dinner tonight?

Anyway, the only thing I got done today was building a couple sawhorses to set the body on during the paint process (Oh, and I built a picture frame, too). My Dad was a carpenter for 30 years, and taught me how to build these, and sawhorses built incorrectly was kind of a pet peeve of his. So, I took it to a little bit of an extreme and screwed these together instead of using nails. I'm happy to report that they're not only the sturdiest sawhorses I've ever built, but they also sit on the ground with all four legs touching at the same time.

 

On Saturday, I ended up cutting the front crossmember out and boxing the framerails. After that, I tacked the steering box mounts to the frame; I sure hope this is the spot that the steering will work best.

boxing the rails

Steering box tacked in place

My favorite part was the molten metal making a U-turn to go down my glove. I'm just grateful it wasn't somewhere else.

Learning to weld overhead was pretty cool though. I've heard it's more difficult, and I'd have to agree. The most frustrating part was that I was kinda on my side, and every time my head touched the creeper it'd knock the helmet off. That was the worst of it, though, so I still have to say that I'm having a great time...

 

I know I'll have to modify my grille, the question is how much? I don't think it'll have to be that much, but the box mount is just tacked for now and probably will be until I can check it out.

 

You are going to fab a new cross member to go across the frame rails right?



This is how I did my last Jeep cross member

 

Oh, yes. I haven't quite set myself on round tubing or some rectangular tubing. I have rectangular, though; but I really liked the metal store I went to the other day and I've been looking for a reason to go back. Plus, now that I've been using the welder, I want to use it more.

But, if I go with rectangular, I'm going to have to go get some hole saws. We'll see, I guess. Either way, I need to go pickup a rag joint or another steering column from the salvage yard so I can start working on that.

What I did yesterday was cut the tranny cover to fit it around the SM420. I'm going to need a BIG hammer, I think.

 

Well, I haven't posted in a long while, but I have got a little bit of work on the Jeep done. Most recently, I built my own headers for the 4.3. I was going to go with Novak headers, but I called them, and they said they may not fit, and that the headers were their most returned item. So much later on, I'm reading JP magazine, and I see a factory exhaust manifold from a 4.0 inline six, and think, I wonder how close those ports are to a 4.3?

I pick one up at a junkyard for 12 bucks, bring it home and hold it up next to a 4.3 cast iron manifold and figured they'd be close enough. They did need some modification, but after paying fifty bucks to have the header flanges cut on a water jet, and paying just under thirty bucks for the exhaust manifolds from the junkyard, I've got a couple of headers built for way less than the pretty ones from Novak, and they fit really well.

Here's the Jeep manifold, and the header flange:

After cutting the manifolds in half, bending one of the tubes about an eighth of an inch over, and then lengthening the farthest tube about half an inch (using tubing from the other side of the 4.0 manifold), I welded it up to the header flange. Here's a comparison.

Here's the passenger side header:


I've done more work to the Jeep. I got the shroud cut from the grille shell, mounted the radiator, fabricated the brackets to hold the grille using tailgate hinges, installed the 2000 Plymouth Breeze seats (got those for 32 bucks in a junkyard, and they feel great!), got my crossmember tacked in place, and welded up a few more holes in the body.

Anyway, these are the only pics so far. They suck because they're taken with my old cell phone, but at least they're something.

 

Okay, so the wife had nothing specific for me to do today; so instead of watching DIY or HGTV (no offense, I love those channels), I headed to the garage. It was nice to know that there was someone close to call 911 if need be. Normally, she's not home when I work on the Jeep.

Anyway, here's a pic of what I started with today. I knew there'd be a little bondo in there, and I knew there'd be some holes to weld up. I also knew that there were a couple dents in the back. I don't know why, but while the rest of the Jeep is relatively straight, the back of it was (to me) mangled.

So, I remove most of the paint and bondo, and start welding up holes. Next to the passenger side taillight holes, there was some rust-through, so I cut it out and replaced it. Probably my best body-panel-welding thus far (that's not saying much).

One of the dents on the body was in front of some bracing on the underside of the panel, so I couldn't use a hammer to pound it back out, so I welded a bolt to it, and hooked my slide hammer to it, and pulled it out. Worked like a champ! Then, there was what I thought to be another shallow dent that needed pulling, but when I tried to weld the bolt, the panel started melting. And I mean MELTING. Turns out, there was a bunch of solder in a deep dent. Here's a pic:

Well, after using a torch to melt it all out, I welded the bolt on, and pulled the dent. It sure is a lot straighter now. Still not perfect, but I can live with it, I think. Here's the bolt welded to the body. I can't believe how goofy this looks! But it really worked!

 

Poor mans dent puller way to improvise
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kinda like a cheap (er free) stud gun, better to grind the weld than fill the hole left by a screw..

 

Wonder how this build turned out ?

 

I saw it listed on Craigs list about a month ago! Wish I didn't have my own project going, I would have jumped on it.

 

The Jeep's being used as a shelf in my garage, right now. I got a job and haven't had a lot of time to devote to it, lately. I've got the power steering pump and reservoir done and the radiator mocked up, and found a few interesting parts in the junkyard, but that's about it. I was trying to sell it a while ago, but not really hard. I was planning on dusting it off this weekend and tinkering with it, and I may, but I have a couple other vehicles that need attention just to make room. I was eyeing a full-float kit today and Christmas is coming, so...

Anyway, I can say for sure that the V6 and the SM420 will be for sale, eventually. I've decided that I really want a VW diesel and a Suzuki trans/t-case for it. We'll see, though.