My '50 3A Build

A few years back, I came across a '50 3A locally for the right price. At the time, it didn't look horrendous, and I thought I'd pick it up, dust it off and have some fun after getting it back on the road. This is what it looked like before I even picked it up:

 

That was in 2006. The motor was locked up solid. While it was soaking in a proprietary blend of diesel/kerosene/penetrating fluid/marvel I bought a whole bunch of parts for it. Brakes, missing intake parts, gas pedal, etc. All the stuff you buy when you expect to be able to freshen up the engine and take it over to the DMV for your new plates.

Turns out, the motor wasn't un-seizing for anything. I pulled it and brought it into the shop, where I took it apart. Even the valves were seized in the guides. It was then that I decided to upgrade to a Dauntless.

Got ahold of one locally out of a '67 with trans and t-case attached. This was another 'it ran when it was parked' deal. Had all new tune up parts, and a few joint compound buckets full of spare engine parts. They were all junk, but hey, who can say no to free spare parts?

Got it home and onto the stand, and what do you know?



This one was frozen too. Sigh.

 

Needless to say, I was frustrated. Now the 225 was sitting with the same proprietary blend...with the same results. I soldiered on and at least managed to knock this one apart. While I was doing that, I split my time between cursing at the 3A as I broke one rusty bolt after another trying to get the tub off the frame, and bringing the rusted parts into my basement. I sent the frame out to get sandblasted, and when I got that back it got primed and painted and I was feeling pretty good about the whole project. The rear 44 went up on the bench for some new bearings, and the project promptly stalled.

One divorce and two years later, the project was at the same point I had left it. Dauntless in pieces, and the 3A also completely in pieces in my basement. One tapered 44 still on the bench with a red rag where the cover was supposed to be. I had run out of money (not just because of the jeep) and decided to sell the whole pile.

I had one guy come and look before I managed to come to my senses. I had hung onto it for all this time, I should at least save up some and get after it again. I still wanted to drive the stupid thing and have some fun with it. After all, this was the rig I lusted after when I was a teenager reading 4 Wheel & Offroad and looking at pictures of Rick Pewe wheeling his. So I got on it.

Over the course of the next year, the 44 got finished up (new brakes, seals and bearings) and closed up. The 25 (I think its a 25) got all new outer bearings and seals and brakes as well, and that got closed up. I dragged the frame out into the driveway for the first time in 2 years, and bolted the axles and new Superlift 2.5" springs up. I aired up those ancient Sears re-caps, bolted on the MileMarker lockouts for some bling, and finally had a rolling chassis.





Which reminds me, I have to tighten...well, just about everything.

 

And yes, before I could stop myself from doing it, I spray painted the stupid thin whitewall on the tires. I was tired of them looking like tires from a '92 LeSabre.

Anyway, that brings us up to this past summer. Once it was out in the sunlight again, I cut off the stock 134 mounts and tack welded in the Novak mounts I got for the 225. I'm not sure my little mig is up to welding those thick plates with any amount of authority, so I still haven't finished that up yet. The heads for the 225 are at the machine shop (my uncle's) so at least I'm going to be able to do the motor a little bit at a time. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Its time to address the tub.

I'm pretty sure its an MD Juan tub. Its not really all that bad (not all that good, either) but its obviously not that original. No data plates came with the tub, so I'm guessing that the PO bought a new tub for it, painted it with a roller (you can see how far in he could reach with the roller on the rear wheel houses) and called it a day.

Here are the major spots:

 

I got a new driver floor section and hat channel from Classic Enterprises. I little pricey if I remember right, but its good quality stuff. I cut the bad section out of the drivers side, and the replacement panel will fit fine with some trimming. I have to work a little bit at lining up the new hat channel so that it lines up with the body mounts, but other than that, it seems like it will go together nice.

I have a square sheet of 18 ga. to fix the floor of the tool box, passenger side footwell is surprisingly solid. I figure I'll grab some diamond plate corners for the rear...When I was looking a few years back, I think Warrior made some in black. I'm not a big fan of the shiny diamond plate, and would sooner replace the rusted sections in the rear before using that stuff. The black might look good though. I guess we'll see...first things first.

I got new poly body mounts from energy suspension...I really like them. The tub looks pretty respectable on the frame now, actually. I'll have to get some new pics.

Decided that if I was going the dauntless route, I should go the saginaw route as well. I got ahold of a manual saginaw box, a mount that was billed as a 'jeepster conversion piece' (maybe he meant conversation piece) and fabbed up my own rube goldberg setup. Though in the end and before I put any mileage on this thing I'll end up bugging Mcruff again to make me a real mount instead of the thing I have on it now. I got the tie rod ends and rods from Herm and hooked it all up, then got the DJ column in and lined up with everything. I had to do some grinding on the Novak mount and a little on the underside of the front crossmember, but nothing too crazy. I still want to wait until the motor is actually in its final resting place to call that job done. But it doesn't look half bad...

 

So the plan was to get the motor finished, rebuild the T86 and D18, and bolt everything back up and off I go. Then I found the 1969 '5...

Again, I'll have to get pics. You know its bad when the seller states that the body isn't repairable. He was right. Even the chestnuts lodged in the rotted exhaust pipe were rusted. However, he told me that dauntless ran fine, and the trans, t-case and rear end were all recently rebuilt. That was music to my ears, and I couldn't say no. When I went to pick it up, he even mentioned that the rear has 'the original detroit locker'. I don't think a detroit was ever, original, but whatever. I has some sort of locker which may or may not be original. Sweet.

So this changes the schedule. I spent some time this week tinkering with the 225 and did indeed get it running pretty well, so I figure that I'm going to strip the 5 and drop the drivetrain into the 3A. It has a T14 instead of the T86 as well. Maybe over the summer I'll get around to swapping the axles. I'm assuming the '69 has a flanged 44 in it, though I'm assuming and we all know what happens in those instances. Either way, the newer axles have taller gears and that would fit with my plan: take this thing on short trips that will require some highway action. Maybe I can hold off on the OD for another couple years...

Anyway, the 5 has decent seats, a rollbar and lots of little pieces I'll need to drop the dauntless in the flatty like a gas pedal and linkage and whatnot. Other small parts I've been gathering: a used Novak hydraulic clutch slave kit, clutch master, hanging pedals from a '78, master cylinder from '77? with manual drums (which is what I'm going to stick with until I can scrape together the cash to do the disc swap) 15 gallon tank, skid plate, straps and hoses...thats all I can think of at the moment.

 

So that all for now, thanks for watching! I've been wanting to put together a build thread for some time, since I started working on the flatty again. This forum has been indispensable for my build. I haven't posted a lot, but I've done a TON of reading and learning, and wouldn't be as far along as I am without it. More pics will be forthcoming...I've gotta let you guys know where I'm at currently and you HAVE to see the 5. Its nasty. And not in a good way. I felt pretty good about the flatty once I saw this thing.

 

Very interesting. will be with you all the way on this one. My next project will be a flattie if I live long enough.

 

sounds like you have your hands full
but don't stress it
it will come together in time
just think one day it will be all worth it
I got so frustrated with my 3b I almost gave up and sold it
now I'm glad I held out and finished it
now its my baby
its one you'll love forever if not longer

 

cool build...i am looking forward to more pics

 

Very nice. Looking forward to more pictures.

 

So today was a halfway productive day. Tomorrow is supposed to be an ice storm here in CT, so I wanted to get as much done today as I could.

This is the old girl:



I had the tarp off for the day to help give me inspiration to work on this other roach:



It really is worse than it looks. All the important pieces are buried underneath a skin of rot, rust and bondo. The PO for the 5, bless his heart, loved his jeep so much that he never wanted to admit that it was all done...and dumped a whole pile of money into mechanicals: brake lines, exhaust, ring & pinion, clutch & brake pedal parts, new wiring harness, he had the trans and tcase rebuilt, rebuilt carb...the list sorta goes on and on. Its just a shame that the tub was so rotten that I rolled the bed up like a fruit roll up and threw it out.



I've worked on some rustbuckets before: '54 Chevy 210, '51 Chevy 3800 Wrecker, the 3A, and various other heaps I'd rather not admit to, but this one takes the cake. Every piece of metal was just so badly rusted that it was flaking off in big chunks. And a lot of this stuff has apparently only been on the jeep for like 6 years. I'm beginning to think this guy parked the poor jeep in a lake every night. Anyway, the goal for today was to start removing the parts I wanted: seats, seatbelts, roll bar. The top will be in the classified section shortly, I don't think theres a way to make it fit on the 3a, and I'm sure someone can put it to better use than I can at the moment.

I also wanted to start to get the motor and such ready to be un-attached from the rest of the pile, so I disconnected the rear driveshaft from the rear end and the front driveshaft from the transfer case. One of the bolts for the rear driveshaft on the parking brake drum just spins and spins and the nut never gets and closer to coming off. Not sure what I'm going to do about that one yet. Maybe things will be easier once everything is hanging from the cherrypicker. This is how the day ended.



I think its been hit in the rear before...you can see how the drawbar brace is a little twisted and whats left of the rear crossmember was especially rotten in one area and literally crumbled in my hand.

 

Oh, and I wanted to share this with you guys. This has been a plow jeep its entire life. I'm going to assume that this was some sort of bumpstop or other apparatus to help the beat springs with the weight of the plow up front:





Not bad, huh? Thats called yankee ingenuity.

 

o mah ghod
you aint kiddin about the rust.

i love the way this build thread is going.
nice work !

 

wow custom iron oxide finish! thats alot of rust

 

Thanks for the kind words guys. Any encouragement helps, especially on the days you spend on your back trying to keep rust from falling into your nostrils. I've got a couple questions for the brain trust. It would appear that the pedals I picked up from a 77 or something are enormous in comparison to the amount of room I have in the flatty. I'm certainly not above cutting them to fit, but is.there a smaller setup from another vintage that would require less work? Just curious. I've already got the MC that matches this setup, but im sure it would work with a couple other years.
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I used pedals from Advance Adapters. I believe that Wilwood has pedal sets too. I had a set of swinging pedals from a later CJ but they looked way too long and I didn'tr have the capablility of welding back then. If you can, chop them and shorten them a little. Don't make them any shorter than you need too.

 

I think im going to try to make them work. It doesn't look like anything cutoff wheel, torch and mig can't make work. Willwood an AA definitely make some nice stuff, but its a little pricey for me right now.
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Been there...



done that!