British Columbia do it all CJ2A build with V8 Power

Canadian M38s were built by Ford at the Windsor Ontario plant. I decided that the M38CDN repo plates would be cool. Real CDN M38 jeeps are fairly rare.
Greg

 

Shipping for the body was only $150 US to ship to Sumas WA. I wiated for a sale on at 4WD Hardware and the had 10% of the price of the body and 1/2 price on the shipping. I use a shipping depot at Sumas just across the border from Abottsford. They only charge $5 per package or $20 per pallet. They are great there and will load it with a fork lift for you and then just drive across the border. At the border you just need to pay GST and PST. I priced the body out up here at National 4wd center and they wanted $8500 Can. All told with the difference of our dollar, shipping and taxes I still did it for just under $4000. I would guess shipping over the border and over to the island would cost more. Border brokerage can be quite expensive as well. It might be worth taking a trip to the mainland and pick it up over the border yourself. I hope that helps you out some.
Greg

 

Awesome project. I bought the data plate set for my A1 for the same reason, it's cool! Nice job shoe-horning that LS motor in there! Very similar to my A1 build but more radical. My body and frame are in such good shape, I couldn't bring myself to mod that much. Yet. I'm still going to do the Dana 30 front and I think I will add Herm's reverse rotation Ford saginaw box setup. I also am contemplating the 34" Swampers instead of my 35" BFG's. But that's what I had. Here are some shots. I hope to finish up most of the wiring tomorrow which leaves fuel lines and brakes. What are your ideas for the inside?

 

That's a pretty sweet machine there Mike C. What's your rig powered by?

I have not totally worked out what I will do for interior. I was planning a roll cage build yet with the seat mounting into a framework in the cage. I was thinking of a Line X sprayed interior along with Bestop heated seats and a home built console that will have the heater mounted in it. I don't have room to mount the heater under the dash because of the M38 battery box. I found a nice auxiliary heater for a tractor with 18500 btu that should heat the jeep well. I am also planning to build a swinging pedal set out of a set of YJ pedals along with a flaming river column. I will probably use a Autometer gauge set something like you used as well.
Greg

 

Thanks. Mine still has the F head, but I have a 3.0 liter Mercruiser and an SM465 I am contemplating. I'm going to finish up the "restoration" and drive it a little before I decide how to finish. I am going to put a cage in it, and I hope to fit the cage to the top and I will elininate the bows completely.

I built my battery box to put the battery in the cowl, but after I finished it and mounted it, my Optima yellow top no fit. So I re-did the box/tray and put it on the fire wall.

The AMI (Autometer Industrial) instruments were a score! I got the whole set from Surplus Center for less than $100. I like the Military dash layout better than the civilian big instrument. I put the dash light reflectors back in the holes and am using the instrument cluster.

Your jeep looks great and I will continue to follow your build. I finished the front wiring on mine today and here's how she sits:

 

It's been a couple of months since I posted last, and although I haven't accomplished much I have managed to do a few things. I have finished my fresh air intake for my engine. I swapped the underseat fuel tank well in the side of the body from the M38 to a CJ2A/3A well. I have fitted my diamond plate rear corners and I am currently working on filling the original M38 tail light holes and moving the tailights up higher on the back panels. I have also mounted a TJ style fuel filler socket about where the original tailight was so I can fill my back fuel tank. I tried to take pictures of my progress yesterday but my camera was dead. I hope to have another day to do some work on it this week so I will take some pictures then and post them later this week. I am hoping to tidy up some of these body changes over the next month then my next couple of projects are rocker guards/rock rails and then moving into the interior and building my rollcage with seat mounts. After that I can get working on getting my steering column and pedals sorted out. Somehow I need to keep progressing enough to be able to work on painting everything over the summer. I have my work cut out for me.
Greg

 

good to hear that your still at it.
i still need more pics!

 

OK here are the pictures of a couple of the items that I have managed to do over the past couple of months.
First off I closed in the inner fenders where I had to clearance them for my shock hoops.





I completed my cold air intake box that pulls through the M38 hood hole.






I also changed the fuel filler well from the M38 with the big hole to a CJ2A/3A small well.




This week I am working on fitting my diamond plate corners, new tail lights, and rear tank filler. I welded up the old M38 tail light holes and added the TJ style fuel filler on the lower right. The arc of the wheel well didn't match the diamond plate pieces well so I had to trim the back of the wheel opening an Inch and weld it back together. It gives me just a bit bigger wheel opening for my large tires anyways. I have some nice LED tail lights to install as well. Here are my pictures so far.






I hope to have the back corners finished up this week. Then I think the next project will be to notch the wheel houses for some more legroom.
Greg

 

Looks good!!

 

I finished up fitting the diamond plate corners along with the tail lights and MB/GPA corner handles.







I am going to add the M38 fuel filler guard to my now modified to CJ2A/3A fuel filler. I think it will look good and add some detail to the side.



I am pretty happy with the look. I also received my Pioneer tool mounting brackets so I kind of figured out my axe and shovel mounting. I decided to build in some rockslider rocker guards out of some 1 1/2" tubing as well. I added a stirrup style step to it to make it a bit easier to climb into the Jeep.





The last project I got to was some tubular fender flares. I have only roughed in the basic tubing shape. I will take some 18 gauge steel, brake an edge and fill in from the tube to the fender. (They are sitting on there with duck tape) I am not sure I am crazy about the look of them yet so I am not going to drill into the fenders until I have finished them enough and like the look. I would prefer to not have a flare on there at all but I need some more tire coverage to pass a vehicle inspection. I think they might look OK in the end once I have them finished and painted. I might use some bedliner on them for a rough finished look.







It is a slow process but I try to find an afternoon here and there to get things done. I am trying to get this exterior stuff done so I can move on to the cage, driver cockpit, and controls.
Greg

 

2x outstanding!!

 

Looks awesome! I really like the swampers. Think I will do them on mine as well when I fix my trailer this summer. Will need to by at least 7. Ouch. Would you put a level across the top and measure height from the floor for me? My 35 12.5 BFG's measure 33 3/4" and are just a little too big. Thinking 33 10.5 would be good, but am considering the 34's but I think they will be too tall. I really like the way the 35's fill the wheel wells, but I have stuffed them in the front even in the mild off roading I have done.

 

I think this is the first time I've seen some one add flat fenders to a flat fender Project looks like its coming along nicely.

 

I measured the tires actual height at 32 7/8" actual from the floor. So the 34" swampers might work for you.
Greg

 

thanks for doing that. I really like the way the Swampers look. My original intent was 9.00 16 NDT's to keep the "Tonka" look going, but I think I will stick with an aggressive tread newer design.

Keep the updates coming, jeep looks great!

 

My newest accomplishments are M38 headlights and a modified transmission hump to clear the SM465 tranny. I purchased some M38 headlight assemblies from one of our members here Bill F. They turned out to be in quite nice shape. I had to knock out a couple of dings in the trim rings but after some sandblasting and a little primer they look great. I am glad to have the M38 headlights. They really go well with the rest of my M38 look and I believe it would look funny without them. I also picked up some headlight guards off of ebay to complete the look.





The big project was trying to build the center floor panel over the transmission. I really didn't expect it to be that much work and such a PITA to do a nice job and make it somewhat factory looking. The SM 465 is a big tranny and it protrudes through the floor a fair bit with the mounting I chose. I wanted to have nice rounded edges to the sheet metal, to look like the panel was formed, and not pieced together. I did not want to build a support frame, and sheet it in after, like many I have seen. I was looking through my crap and was trying to find an engine oil pan or tranny pan, that I could use for the formed shape, but didn't have anything that looked right. I ended up using a stamped trailer fender, that I found at Princes Auto (kind of a tool ad farm equipment supply). They had fenders for $15. I just cut it to about 1/3 of the fender. It had the width to cover the tranny and nice rolled edges that I could sheet in to tie to the original large center floor piece. I decided not to keep the small removable piece on top and will just remove the center floor piece if I need to access the tranny. I was very thankful to have the M38 floor, as I made this job much easier to modify over the installed tranny. I could work on it in place, and remove it as well, for easy welding and such. I think it turned out well. I will give it a skim of bondo to smooth it out a bit more. I still need to make the trim rings to hold the shifter boots. I have to say the omix boot for the twin Tcase shifters is lame. I will try to make it work for now. I still need to add some more bolts and nut plates to hold the piece down to the rest of the floor. I am going to weld up some of the other big holes in the floor for the pedals and such, then I will basically have the floor done. I think I will end up with using some Raptor bed liner for the floor when finished. Here are the pictures.






After I get the floor holes patched up I will notch the wheel wells for some seat leg room. I also picked up a set of swinging pedals from a 95 Cherokee to build up my pedal assy. Lots of work yet. I can't wait to get all the fab work done and get into painting. Hopefully I will be onto paint by Summer.
Greg