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Fino's 1970 Cj5 Build Thread

FinoCJ

FinoCJ

1970 CJ5
Staff member
Thought I would start a mini build thread for some projects I intend to work on over the next couple months while I have some time off. Focus will be on rust and paint. Well, for me, mostly rust repair and will hopefully find reasonable paint job when the time comes. Floor pans will be addressed which are also affected by front roll bar mounts.

Along with rust repair, intend to add a 15 gal rear gas tank as primary and keep the under seat tank as an auxiliary tank. Also intend to replace body mounts. We'll see how this goes....

Some pics of starting condition:

driver side rust where hat channel is


driver floor pan rusted through along the hat channel


more surface rust on passenger floor plan


real tail lights - problem was exacerbated by a POs tire carrier and can holder that was body mounted

 
Its not original color - its sort of a faded aqua blue (slightly greenish light blue). The original color according to firewall tag was 225 which I believe is spruce tip green. Where I can find bits of the original color under the hood etc, the spruce tip is definitely more green than the current color, but not that much different. The current aqua color looks more blue the further you are from it and especially where its faded and lost the top coat, and slightly more green the closer you are or anywhere its preserved better.

My wife loves the current color and my intent was to return to original spruce tip green - although she agreed that its not much different either way. I think the slightly more green color will look better with black top whereas the current barely surviving light gray top looks good with the slightly more blue color.

Pulled roll bar today and welded up some small screw holes from accessories brackets I don't use. The rollbar had been covered with some sort of padding that looked a lot like pipe insulation wrap that was excessively glued in some way to the tubing and then wrapped in electrical tape. Its been fun removing that and striping the glue - no way to save the paint and thinking of powder coating instead of just spray can paint.



 
Your color looks real close to my dad's Jeep-it's a 1969
As you can see, the paint hasn't weathered too well, but it was originally almost your color.

 
You think your Dad's was/is Sierra Blue or more the ST Green? Checking paint codes from random web sites (paintref.com mostly), its interesting to note that ST Green used 225 code some years and 392 other years. ALthough I am not a restoration stickler, there are other colors I would probably like better, but that is too hard a decision and sticking with something that is original seems to ease the difficutly. So I think anything that is in the general blueish-greenish tint will satisfy and will hopefully keep the kind of softer tone of color that does seem to be appropriate for this vintage and create a nice contrast with black windshield and top.

I think I've said before, but that is the hardtop I'd love to find. Off to fill in the last couple screw holes in the roll bar and maybe begin some wire wheel work on the floorboards.

Question for opinions - Is it worth the money to powder coat the roll bar or stick with spray can black?
 
That looks like the factory color to me. I have that same color and I know mine has never been repainted (although it could use it now). I have been thinking of taking the glove box door in to the local auto paint shop and seeing if they can match it.
 
Started some rust cut-out today on the rear taillight areas. The rot was located at the body mount angle brackets inside and adjacent to the taillights. There are also some old mounting holes from a previous spare tire carrier from the PO that may have made it worse. Cut-out the rotted areas which was pretty much the area of the angle brackets and cleaned up the tire carrier holes in prep to weld them up.

Ordered two new body mount brackets from Classic Ent. While waiting for those to ship I will get the repair pieces cut to fit from some 18g steel and try to fill in the old tire carrier mounting holes. So question:

Any suggestions on how to best weld the angle brackets to the repair sheet metal pieces? Looks like the originals were spot welded on each side. Should I use the trick of drilling a holes along the inside edge of the bracket and the weld through the holes to the sheet metal pieces? Or can I just put a series of tack welds along the outside edge of the brackets to the sheet metal pieces?




 
When I redid mine, I just drilled for or five holes and "spot" welded them. That is the closest to the factory method you can get in your garage without a big industrial spot welder. Just be sure to hit the surfaces with a good weldable primer so rust doesn't develop in between them.
 
For MIG 'spot/plug' welds: Using 18gauge sheet metal, and I believe the brackets are probably 16g. From what I can learn, seems like drilling a 5/16" hole on the 'top' sheet (the bracket) would be correct? Is there a specific relationship between metal thickness and hole size?
 
A standard spot weld plug remover will leave a 3/8" hole.........If I have my choice and did not have to plug a weld I just removed I like to see the panel holes smaller.........like 3/16 to 1/4". ..........smaller hole , less heat , less work to finish the panel........cut a couple of pieces of sheet metal and drill a few holes in it an practice on the bench first to get the correct heat and the time on weld needed needed to plug the hole.........1-2 seconds is normally plenty.
 
Theoretically, I size the hole I drill for the wire size I am using. In reality I often use what ever is already in my drill.:) But if I am doing a bunch of holes on a panel a 5/16" bit is usually what I grab. I like to strike an arc in the center of the hole on the bottom panel, then move to the edge and work around in a circle before coming back to fill the center in. I like to be able to strike an arc in the center of the hole without touching the edges. This way I better ensure good penetration into the bottom layer before I start stitching it to the top piece. If you drill to small of a hole your arc often just sits between the edges of the hole and never really penetrates into the layer below. I run a lot of .30 wire in my mig and find a 5/16" hole works pretty well. With .25 wire you might be able to get away with a 1/4" hole but a lot of times even then, depending on the angle, I find I don't always get the penetration I am looking for.
 
Thanks - great information and is really appreciated. Tomorrow I hope to run a bunch of practice tests - especially with some thinner wire that I haven't used before as well as how the weldable primer will affect things (assuming I can find it - wasn't able to get it today). Only intend to put it on the two mating surfaces that will not be accessible after welding. After that everything exposed will be cleaned and primed.
 
Today's progress - filled in the 5 old tire carrier holes on the right side and 2 on the left before calling it an early day - Anniversary dinner with my wife tonight.

Finish the other side tomorrow and scheduled to receive the angle bracket body mounts on Friday. Then can finish off the rear of the jeep. The driver side and floor panel is going to be much more difficult.

 
Making some more progress:

Finished filling in the mount holes as well as replaced the body mount angle brackets which I had to drill some holes and then plug welded to the small new sheet metal pieces I cut to fit - took a few calls but found the 3M weldable primer to use on the mating surfaces. Had no problems getting an arc with the primer. Then welded the angle bracket/sheet metal pieces in to the body. Also sprayed some undercoating on the new exposed surfaces on the underside. Finally masked and primed today the outside today. Chose not to add any filler, although it could certainly be helpful, but for my goal functional repair, it will do just fine for me. Paint tomorrow - found some pretty close matching Duplicolor in the can.

Angle brackets from Classic Ent needed some holes to plug weld to the sheet metal


tack welds for the repair piece with angle bracket already on back. Had some trouble getting good welds - I am pretty novice hack with welding - wasn't getting enough penetration on both sides, but was also worried about about burning through. The left side of the patch had to ground out and redone, but was much stronger the second time. Less problems on the left side although the existing damage to the panel makes the repair more noticeable.


final repairs to the right side - ready for some surface cleaning and prep for primer


masked and primed - ready to paint tomorrow
 
Quick update: been getting lots done and hoping to gets some big stuff wrapped up before it gets cold around here. The body work for this project is completely new to me - for that matter I only learned to weld a year ago and I am still a complete hack but its coming together quite well from my point of view.

First here is the final look of the rear:



Then began the floor pan work - cut out old rusty pan and support channel:


weld in new support channel:


cut and fit new floor pan - held in place for welding with sheet metal screws and drilled for 'spot' welds to underlying support channel and overlap on toe board:


And now the side panel as well:




need to touch up some of the welds and then prep for paint. Haven't used any body filler before but will try it out for the external side panel. Not too concerned about the lack of smoothness on the rear repairs or the floor pan, but think it will be good for the side panel. Will get the interior pan painted first so I can get the gas tank back in and get it running - hasn't run in 4 weeks and would like to get it going again.
 
Some updating is needed here as I've finished the body work and stripped and painted the rollbar and re-installed with improved (larger and stronger) backing plates, new body mounts and bolts etc. The passenger floor pan is still as it was, so maybe next winter. As some of you saw a bit ago, I also set up a flat tow to take it out to UT which kind of created a need to have it ready and I was out of town for most of the winter. Will get some pics posted at some point...

Other than the passenger floor pan, the next interest is to add a rear tank. Been looking into that a lot and learning about all the switching valve options. As much for my own future reference - I like this manual valve option from Toms Bronco parts - need two for fuel and return lines: http://www.tomsbroncoparts.com/product/manual-fuel-selector-valve-66-77-classic-ford-bronco-new

Also decided I should probably figure out how to get my current underseat fuel gauge working as a bit of a prep learner project.

Found at least one culprit...the variable resistor (triangular coil of wire) portion of the sending unit resistor is burned out on the small end. I first tested resistance from the top post on the sending unit directly to ground and got an infinite reading. So pulled out the sending unit (looks really new but cheap and has plastic float so probably a relatively new replacement from PO) and found this....



assume its best to just replace the entire sending unit. Saw Walcks carries one with a brass float - doesn't mention manufacturer. http://walcks4wd.com/fuel-tank-sending-unit-1967-70.html Any recs?

The gauge may still be bad as well (was replaced by PO but he said he never got it to work so maybe it was always the sender). Guess I need to do the quick 'bump' of the needle with 12v into the gauge and short out sending wire directly to ground - just don't want it to burn out gauge by holding it for more than an instant.
 
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James remember, when you want to make it a cage, it will just cost some time and the tube for you. I'll be happy to fab it up and have you help put it in if you want to.
 
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