1963 Us Navy Dj-3a

Well that aught to prevent the parts that hadn't started to rust from rusting.

 

Yep, and the rusty parts can continue on their way. It will be pretty slow though. It lives inside a garage in a low humidity part of the country now.

 

There's a Bronco lurking in the background, what is the story on that?

 

Storing it for a friend.

 

Painting has begun.

Building up layers:




I think this is the final product. When it's dry, I'll use some Scotch Brite and sand paper to dull it down. I'm liking it. It's the perfect Blue Angels color if I want to add a yellow stripe to tie it back to its Navy origins:


Yeah it's fake patina, but doing a solid shiny color with my zero prep would look even worse. I also tried to not go overboard with it.

Doing the tailgate separate. Look at the fine prep work I did before painting. Those stickers under the previous paint are nearly gone!

 

Some 000 Scotch Brite and some 150 grit sand paper on the left side, and it's about where I want it:


It looks better to me than the trashed but no patina white for sure:


Need to scuff the tailgate and other side, then I can pull the masking off.

 

The good news is that the paint is done. I put the tires on and set it back on the ground it to get a feel for how it looks.

Works for me. I like it:






I'd like to go with rust red or pale yellow stock looking steelies eventually, but this will work for now. It has a very 70s/80s look about it.

That bad news is that when I forgot to turn the ignition off after checking the wiper sweep, some of the magic smoke was escaping from under the dash. I couldn't see where it was coming from so I unhooked the battery and ignored it.

I'll need to pull one or both of the seats back out and see if I can figure out what I screwed up.

I do have all the carburetor parts now, so if I figure out the wiring issue, it should be a runner soon.

 

Looks great. Love those tires

 

Looking good!….you have got a lot done in a short amount of time.
Do the back tires hit body at full stuff or did you put bump stops in.

 

I haven't had it fully flexed out yet, but a little flexing with the jack last night indicates they might clear.

 

Got some piping sewn on the cut portions of the top, cleaned it, and got it back on. It's a permanent summer top now. Better than throwing it out:




Painted the "WILLYS" with some off-white:


This is the final look with top and painted logos:


Considering painting the aluminum diamond plate with some matt gun metal grey to reduce the contrast some.

Also got the carb back together. I'll install it tomorrow:

 

Lookin good!

 

I like the idea of painting the diamond plate, it's a bit too much contrast as is. It also makes one wonder how much rust is hiding underneath!

 

Lots!

 

Gray would look good if you can patinate it to match the rest of the Jeep.
The patinated blue looks good, much better than I expected.
I kinda liked the honest original white.

 

The carb is back on the engine:


The new drag link showed up from Parts Mike. Really nice piece with ground in flats. It's in the process of getting painted:


I wanted to add a heater shut-off valve under the hood before the coolant goes in:


Since there is literally zero storage inside the Jeep, I zip tied this bag to the seat frame to hold the registration:


License plate installed:


Cut a new gasket for the gas cap. The old one had shrunk and wasn't sealing:


The old fuel filler to tank hose was hard as a rock and had a pretty good drip when filling the tank:


So it got replaced with one for a Willys truck. It was the right diameter, but a little short. It should work though:


Now I need to add coolant, fill the transfercase, fill the front diff and it's ready to run.

Although I do need to figure out the wiring issue under the dash. Nothing I could reach felt hot when it after I pulled the battery, so it may be the fuel gauge didn't have a good enough ground and fried itself. I hope not. I'll investigate tonight.

 

I have a heater shut-off in the same location...
Move it inside the tub so it can be kicked on and off while moving or drill the handle for a pull rod.

Leaning over at a stop light is a lot easier than opening the hood.

I typically have my heaters ready when on the trail. The stock heater has (i think) an 85 Toyota valve with a choke cable control. The passenger side has a ball valve. Also don't shut the valve until it is fully burped of air.

 

It's going to get turned on in the winter and off in the summer. I don't really need an inside control for it. I thought about a cable operated valve, but decided to go with a much higher quality ball valve instead since it's not going to move much.

 

I open the under hood valve before I hit the dusty trails. It helps keep the blood flowing to all cylinders when in the technical stuff.

 

I don't have it installed yet, but the new drag link is painted:


Got the transfercase and front axle filled with oil. Not really photo worthy.

After that I tackled the wiring problem. The smell/smoke seemed to originate from the instrument cluster area. I was assuming I didn't have a good enough ground and smoked the voltage regulator in the fuel gauge.

I took it all apart to investigate:


It all looked fine. If you're curious, here's the inside of the fuel gauge/voltage regulator. The voltage regulator is on the left side. As the bi-metal arm heats up from the coil of wire around it, the points open. With the circuit open, the arm cools and closes again. Over and over. This switches the 12 Volts on and off at a rate that approximates 5 Volts output. The voltage is constantly going up and down, but it doesn't matter because the fuel and temp gauges are also thermally activated and don't respond quickly enough for the fluctuations to show up: The fuel level indicator is on the right. As its arm heats up, it moves the pointer.


If you hook this up, you can see the voltage regulator points opening and closing about 1 time per second.

I'm not sure exactly the path of the electricity during failure, but if the housing is not grounded, the voltage regulator and the fuel gauge both burn out. I'm guessing it's making a new ground path through the fuel/temp senders and the extra resistance to ground causes issues.

I've got three instrument clusters here with burned out gauges. The wire is so fine and so highly calibrated, it would be very difficult to fix.

Just to verify everything is working, I wired up the cluster and a spare fuel sender to the battery with a bunch of test leads:


It's working as expected:


That's a relief, but didn't solve the wiring problem. I dove back under the dash and followed the smoke to this. I actually burned my finger in the process:


That's the resister Painless says to install if you want your alternator exciter wire to still function when the idiot light burns out. It was getting hot enough to melt the connector it's attached to, hence the smell and smoke.

I don't really need this since the Powermaster alternator is technically a one wire and the "exciter" wire only exists to run the idiot light. So I snipped it off and all is well. I gets hot enough I really don't want to mount it anywhere else under the dash. I can live with a tiny bit of melt at the non-business end of the plug. It didn't melt through the wire insulation, so it's safe:


With that fixed, I should be able to start up the Jeep tonight. It hasn't ran since November last year. It ran terrible then, so hopefully the rebuilt carb is improved.