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Converting A Cj2a Into A Truck

cj2atruck

cj2atruck

Member
The picture below is how it all started.

About 30 years ago, three friends approached me to help them build flat fenders, as they knew I had built a lot of Jeeps. I agreed as long as the arrangement was to transfer my fabrication knowledge, not just the guy who built Jeeps.

On the first Jeep, My goal was to teach them how to do a motor and transmission swap, build custom steering, changes to the frame, etc. Once we had a rolling chassis, I painted the body and built a new wiring harness on my own.

On the second Jeep, the three friends completed a lot of the drivetrain work, although I provided guidance to some degree, and I taught them how to paint a Jeep. I built the wiring on my own.

On the final Jeep the three friends finished the drivetrain work without any help and painted the Jeep. Wiring is difficult for the vast majority of people, but I was still able to transfer a lot of electrical knowledge building the wiring harness for the last jeep.

After about 22 years later, one of my friends was involved in a bicycle accident and needed to sell his Jeep (this is the second Jeep). I wasn’t really looking for a flat fenders, as they don’t really fit my 6’4” frame, but decided to buy his Jeep, knowing I could always sell it if I decided I didn’t want it.

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While this looks good from 10 feet, the body under the diamond plate is junk. The color is 1976 corvette yellow that I painted years earlier, and the paint held up well.

I have been a fabricator dating all the back to my early 20’s when I did my first motor swap in a 1942 cj2a…this first one was trial and error. Since then, there have been a lot of jeeps, as well as two motorcycles that I built from scratch.

I built this bobber for my youngest son for getting home alive from Iraq where he was a medic on an 8 man QRF.

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I built this 10 inch stretch chopper for myself and it is still in ownership 14 years later.

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  • Date added

So, I have a pretty good background in fabrication. However, on the conversion of the cj2a into a truck, I made a lot of mistakes that I fixed later, and I am 100% confident that other builders would to much of the build differently. With that said, this is how I completed the project…

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After I brought the Jeep home, it sat in a car port for over a year until one day my wife asked if I was ever going to do anything to the 47. Well…I didn’t really know, so I pulled it into the shop, sat in front of it, on the side of it, at the back of it and waited for something to come to mind. After a week or so of doing nothing, I settled on the idea of cutting it up and building a truck that would have a cab that was big enough to fit my frame. So, the first thing was to cut off all of the body that I wouldn’t need.

IMG_1525 by Rick, on Flickr

IMG_1524 by Rick, on Flickr

IMG_1523 by Rick, on Flickr

After the unneeded body panels were cut away, the next step was to cut the frame…
 
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After cutting away the rear of the body, it was time to figure out how to stretch the frame. Unfortunately, I had never done a frame stretch before, so this would be new ground.

As I stared at the Jeep with the body cut away, it seemed pretty obvious that the frame needed to be cut between the spring hangers so I didn’t have to deal with remounting the springs. I also reasoned that it would be best to keep the transfer case cross member so I didn’t have to deal with supporting the back of the drivetrain during the frame work. So, I settled on the frame cut in the pictures below. I cut the frame with a sawzall using a metal blade, and it was pretty easy to cut.

I reasoned that even if my frame cuts were not in the exact same spot, as long as my frame splice pieces were the same length I wouldn’t cause the frame to be out of square any more than had originally been the case.

In addition, in the pictures below, I am trying to figure out the wheelbase of the frame after the stretch. I had read that it was a common opinion that a wheelbase around 105” was optimal for rock crawling, so decided to make that my initial target.

However, at the same time, I had to consider how long the truck cab would be and how long the bed would be, as the finished product needed to look dimensionally correct. I knew I wanted to add 5 more inches to the cab for comfort, so spent a lot of time with a tape measure to determine how long to make the bed.

I settled on making the front, middle and bed in roughly thirds.

It was at this point that my lovely wife came down to the shop and asked “what have you done?” Well, I wasn’t sure, but I was already knee deep in the project and heading to neck deep. Fortunately, after more than 4 decades together, she was accustomed to crazy projects and knew I don’t have quit in me, so the project would be finished in some form or another.

Next up is the frame splice…

IMG_1529 by Rick, on Flickr

IMG_1527 by Rick, on Flickr

IMG_1526 by Rick, on Flickr

Side note: I’m going to post pictures and comments slowly as this would have been the way the build progressed, and this will give folks a chance to ask clarifying questions.
 
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Next up was building the new frame sections. For some reason, I didn’t take a lot of pictures, but this took A LOT of work…probably 15 hours of fab, measuring, measuring again and again and welding. My poor wife no doubt got tired of measuring the wheelbase on both sides over and over and over again…she is actually a great help in the shop after 4 decades. In addition, I can’t even count the number of times she would show up with food since I had no concept of time and would probably just work myself until I dropped, so she keeps me from dying from starvation while I’m in the shop.

First, a piece of rectangular tubing was not going to work, as I wanted to use the inside to marry the two frame sections instead of just using a fish plate on the outside of the frame, so I needed a “C” channel, but I wasn’t going to spend the money to get this formed out of 1/4” steel. Instead, I had a piece of scrap 2x4 tubing from a long since finished project that I could split down the middle with a saw to use as the outside sections of the new frame.

Note: I should say here that I am not a welder, I am just a guy who owns a welder. Because for this, I tend to overbuild everything to cover any welding sins.

So, I started with one half of the rectangular tubing and tacked it into place on each frame rail. I had cut the tubing before I split it down the middle, so I knew it was the exact same length (see early post why this is important). Next, I used two pieces of formed angle with 3/16” wall (formed angle does not have a sharp corner) that was in the shop as scrap and welded them insisde the new frame section top and bottom, overlapping the original frame 4 inches in the front and back. You can see the heat marks on the original frame where the formed angle was welded top and bottom. With these three pieces on each frame rail, the new frame is stronger than the original frame.

After I welded in the three new frame rail pieces into place, I welded a piece of 1/4” strap on top on bottom of the formed angle where it was missing on the inside, which is really just cosmetic since it is welded on top of the formed angle. Finally, I boxed the frame on the inside with a 1/4” flat stock, and overlapped the original frame front and rear, which you can see in the pictures. Essentially, this frame isn’t going anywhere. You will also notice that I drilled holes on the inside box piece so I could run wires and brake lines when the time came.

I now had a rolling chassis again with the correct wheelbase for the truck conversion. I didn’t realize it at the time, but there was probably 1,000 hours ahead on this project…good thing the shop is my Happy Place.

I now have a 4 post lift in my shop and it is heated/AC, which would have been a Godsend so I wouldn’t have to lay on my back to weld in a cold shop…but I survived.

IMG_1531 by Rick, on Flickr

IMG_1530 by Rick, on Flickr
 
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With the rolling chassis complete, it was time to tackle building the truck cab. I knew how much distance I wanted between the dash and the back of the cab, so just needed to build new body panels. However, I wanted to have the same radius on the rear of the truck that was on the rear of the original body, but here again, I didn’t have any interest in paying someone to form this back corner.

So, I started with a flat piece of steel which I believe was 18 gauge. I determined where I wanted to bend my corner and thinking about how I would make this radius. I started with a large piece of angle iron with 3/8” wall, a piece of scrap pipe that was just longer than the body panel was wide, a piece of 2/4 and two big dewalt clamps. Here again, I didn’t take any pictures of the jig or bending process, probably because I wasn’t sure it would work and I tend to get trapped in my head on a project, but I used the same jig later to bend the aluminum diamond plate on the bottom of the Jeep, so will use those pictures since it’s the same process.

IMG_4459 by Rick, on Flickr

IMG_6327 by Rick, on Flickr

Quite frankly, I thought this was pure genius, and it worked out so well. I used a square against the angle iron edge and plate to make sure the radius would be straight, and I marked the spot where I wanted the radius on the steel sheet to help line up the pipe. I also measured from the pipe to the closest edge of the steel sheet. Once satisfied, I started compressing the clamps a little at a time. You can see that I had to weld two short pieces of pipe together to get enough length, but I ground down the part that would be against the steel so there was no damage. I also put a kitchen towel (thanks to my lovely spousal unit) on the angle iron to protect the steel on the outside.

The radius was complete and it was time to start assembling the new truck cab.
 
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With the two body panels created with the corner radius, it was time to weld the panel in place. Now, I’m NOT a body man. In fact, I hate body work, so decided I was going to minimize the bondo on this build.

I started by removing all of the extra structure inside the body that was left after I cut the back of the body off. This gave me a flat floor and clear panels on each side. The tunnel had terminated at the lift behind the seats, so I know I was going to have to deal with that spot. There were already new floor panels in place from the original build years earlier, as the floors had a lot of rust, so I decided to just leave those in place. So, my tasks to build the truck cab were as follows:

1. Attach the new body panels with the radius to the original body.
2. Build the frame for the new floor
3. Shape and install a new floor and weld to the original floor panels
4. Build a transition for the transmission tunnel
5. Add structure to the walls
6. Figure out how to build a rail around the top of the body that looked like the original rail.

IMG_1532 by Rick, on Flickr

IMG_1533 by Rick, on Flickr

I started by building the new floor structure out of 1” square tubing, 1/8” wall, as this would give me something to which I could attach the bottom of the new body panels. You can see the welds down low in the corners.

As I attached the panels, I overlapped the back, and would later cut both panels at the same time with a jigsaw. Once cut, I welded a piece of 1x2x1/8” tubing at the cut, leaving the small gap that would be covered when welded, which would also ensure good penetration against the support tubing. I used the same method to attach the panels to the original body. Once attached, I fully welded the panels together as well as welding the new panels to the original body. I had to go slow to avoid warping any panels, so this was a slow process, switching from one section to another until all panels were fully welded.

With the basic structure in place, I use 3/4” square tubing to build all the straight section of the top rail, and you can see in the pictures above that the drivers corner is still incomplete while the passenger side is complete. For the corners, I drew the radius on scrap steel and cut with a jigsaw, so the corners were essentially built by hand. The radius corners makes it look like this was built by Jeep instead of some guy in his shop, but my goal with these types of projects is to try and make them look as factory as possible.

Now was the time I installed the floor and welded in place, and it was time to provide structure to the walls with the rectangular tubing.

IMG_6337 by Rick, on Flickr

This picture is later in the build, but you can see the transition to the floor and the wall supports I built. It was important to have the top rail finished so I could attach the wall supports, as well as welding the supports to the floor.

In this picture, you can see that I build a small transition for the transmission tunnel. I didn’t get fancy, as I knew this would be covered by seat.

There were other sections of the original body that needed to be addressed because of prior modifications or rust. For example, at the door opening where the body bends in, the support were rusted, so I cut them out and just built new ones. I also had to address the hack job on the floor from long ago before I got involved with this jeep, and it was a mess as you can see in the pictures below.

IMG_6278 by Rick, on Flickr

IMG_6343 by Rick, on Flickr

The drivetrain is still sitting on the floor of the shop at this point, so I used cardboard to trace the transmission opening that I could use to build the top plate once the transmission was installed and I could take some measurements. The cardboard template was put on the shelf where it would sit for several months until it was ready for the transmission. At this point, all I had was the cardboard template as if I were going to cap off the opening.

This entire process took 4 or 5 weeks working nights and weekends, but the truck cab was basically done and ready for paint. Next up was to build the truck bed.
 
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cj2atruck said:
With the rolling chassis complete, it was time to tackle building the truck cab. I knew how much distance I wanted between the dash and the back of the cab, so just needed to build new body panels. However, I wanted to have the same radius on the rear of the truck that was on the rear of the original body, but here again, I didn’t have any interest in paying someone to form this back corner.

So, I started with a flat piece of steel which I believe was 18 gauge. I determined where I wanted to bend my corner and thinking about how I would make this radius. I started with a large piece of angle iron with 3/8” wall, a piece of scrap pipe that was just longer than the body panel was wide, a piece of 2/4 and two big dewalt clamps. Here again, I didn’t take any pictures of the jig or bending process, probably because I wasn’t sure it would work and I tend to get trapped in my head on a project, but I used the same jig later to bend the aluminum diamond plate on the bottom of the Jeep, so will use those pictures since it’s the same process.

IMG_4459 by Rick Corwin, on Flickr

IMG_6327 by Rick Corwin, on Flickr

Quite frankly, I thought this was pure genius, and it worked out so well. I used a square against the angle iron edge and plate to make sure the radius would be straight, and I marked the spot where I wanted the radius on the steel sheet to help line up the pipe. I also measured from the pipe to the closest edge of the steel sheet. Once satisfied, I started compressing the clamps a little at a time. You can see that I had to weld two short pieces of pipe together to get enough length, but I ground down the part that would be against the steel so there was no damage. I also put a kitchen towel (thanks to my lovely spousal unit) on the angle iron to protect the steel on the outside.

The radius was complete and it was time to start assembling the new truck cab.
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How close to the original tub rear corner radius were you able to get with that jig? My CJ has the usual rust hole where the spare tire bracket once sat, and it is currently covered with an old license plate as the rust extends onto the curve and any metal fab work that isn't flat or simple angles is beyond my current ability. I might steal your idea some day to make a patch panel for my Jeep.
 
T. M. said:
How close to the original tub rear corner radius were you able to get with that jig? My CJ has the usual rust hole where the spare tire bracket once sat, and it is currently covered with an old license plate as the rust extends onto the curve and any metal fab work that isn't flat or simple angles is beyond my current ability. I might steal your idea some day to make a patch panel for my Jeep.
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My ideas are all open to “steal” if they are helpful on your project. This is one reason why I am going into so much detail on my posts.

As to their accuracy to the original radius, I think it’s pretty accurate, as I used a piece of the original body as my guide. The key is to find a pipe that is the correct radius, as it will be transferred directly to the panels you are building.

quite frankly, it was pretty easy to bend the radius with the jig. I also built a small brake press (it will be seen in future picture), so my backup plan was to brace the inside of the pipe, build a way to stabilize the angle iron and use my press to built the radius, but the dewalt clamps did the trick.

let me know when you are ready to start your project and I will take measurements of my “jig”.
 
It appears that a lot of my posts were lost during the downtime, so I will work to bring these back to life to get to the finished truck.

The conversion of the front axle from leaf springs to coil springs should be finished by tomorrow night, as I just need to finish building a sway bar out of an old torsion bar and complete final assembly. I will start those pictures and explanations after I finish up the posts on the original conversion to a truck.
 
Building the frame for the bed was pretty straight forward, as it is just a rectangle. During college, I built a lot of 6x12 dual axle trailers for wood haulers to help fund college, so building the bed of my new truck wasn’t difficult.

IMG_4503 by Rick, on Flickr

IMG_6461 by Rick, on Flickr

With the basic frame finished, it was time to add risers so I could bolt the bed frame to the jeep frame. I was also paying attention to the distance between the cab and the bed to ensure it look right when finished. The risers are just pieces of pipe, a cap cut with a hole saw and a bolt welded into the cap. Weld everything together, clean things up and weld to the bottom of the frame. I also used a piece of rubber between the riser and the frame mount to control squeaks.

IMG_4449 by Rick, on Flickr

IMG_6450 by Rick, on Flickr

With the risers in place, I added supports in the middle for the bolts that held down the wood.

IMG_4519 by Rick, on Flickr
 
It was time to tackle the sides and front of the bed. I knew I wanted a step side bed with a flare at the top like old trucks, so I had a local steel yard bend the top of the future sides of my bed. This was pretty cheap and saved me a ton of time building my own jig.

IMG_6457 by Rick, on Flickr

After I tack welded the ends, I used wood to press the entire side to the frame so I could weld the side to the frame without any warping.

IMG_6453 by Rick , on Flickr

With both sides welded to the frame, it was time for a test fit on the jeep.

IMG_4534 by Rick , on Flickr

The last step for the sides was to build a pattern to follow the frame at the bottom and cut each side.

IMG_4712 by Rick , on Flickr

IMG_6448 by Rick , on Flickr

There was still more work to do on the sides, as it needs a top rail of some sort, but the front was next on the list.
 
The front took more time that I expected, as I was handling the large steel panel by myself while trying to use various clamps to hold it to the front of the sides. I started by bracing the sides with 1 inch square tubing to keep them straight. You can see that I used a piece of angle iron on the top to allow the sides to support the steel.

IMG_6454 by Rick, on Flickr

I was able to get the future front panel attached to the front of the sides so I could mark it for cutting. The top is a straight edge, as I didn’t want to deal with making a straight cut in the future, so just cut the sides and bottom to fit the front of the side panels

IMG_4566 by Rick , on Flickr

IMG_6467 by Rick , on Flickr

IMG_6462 by Rick , on Flickr

It’s hard to tell in this picture, but the sides are 1/4 inch longer than the frame, which would be filled with a piece of angle in the future to provide a place for the back edge of the wood to slip under to give a smooth transition from the back of the bed to the wood to keep from chipping the wood. I would cut a little notch in the top of the wood so the wood would sit level with the angle iron.

The rear corners needed support, and I used angle iron that followed the shape of the bed. While I didn’t take any pictures, you can see that I have also added a piece of 3/4” square tubing to the top of the front of the bed to give a finish look and add strength.

IMG_4512 by Rick , on Flickr

At this point, the bed is starting to look like a real truck bed, but it’s still missing the top rail. However, it was time for a test install on the jeep and check the gap between the back of the jeep to the front of the bed.

IMG_4398 by Rick , on Flickr

Yup, that’s what I was planning.
 
The top of the bed was giving me grief, as I had not figured out if I wanted round pipe or square, nor had I figured out the diameter, so I tabled this section and moved to the tailgate.

I wanted to try and use the original jeep tailgate, but it was way too tall for the bed configuration.

IMG_6446 by Rick , on Flickr

With a chair and a cup of coffee, I noodled how to deal with the tailgate. I thought about adding a small section at the top of the bed on each side to use the tailgate as is, but decided that was not the look I was trying to achieve. As I have said before, I don’t like using bonds, and I’m not a body man, but decided the tailgate had to be shortened by 3 1/4”, so I started cutting. I built a little fence on my wood bandsaw converted to use metal blades and removed a section of the tailgate.

IMG_4527 by Rick , on Flickr

IMG_6464 by Rick , on Flickr

The two sections were tacked together for a quick test fit.

IMG_4414 by Rick , on Flickr

Now for the hard part, welding and grinding the seam so it looked right…without bondo.

IMG_4705 by Rick , on Flickr

IMG_4598 by Rick , on Flickr

The tailgate was a lot of work, but it was finished, so time to tackle fenders.
 
The fenders were pretty easy, as I had used cardboard to design the fenders right after I attached the sides to the frame. Fenders are pretty pronounced, so I wanted to make sure that I knew the direction as I was building other sections of the bed.

IMG_4480 by Rick , on Flickr

IMG_6459 by Rick , on Flickr

I used the brake press I had built over a decade ago to bend the steel too match the configuration of the cardboard.

IMG_6399 by Rick , on Flickr

IMG_4721 by Rick , on Flickr

IMG_4559 by Rick , on Flickr

IMG_4685 by Rick , on Flickr

The fender now needed an outside edge. For this, I used 1 1/2’ square tubing and cut it on the bandsaw with a fence.

IMG_6405 by Rick , on Flickr

IMG_4543 by Rick , on Flickr

This profile gave me a longer leg that would be on top and a little leg on bottom to give a finished look.

It was finally time to tackle those top rails.

IMG_4575 by Rick , on Flickr

Nope, not the right look. Maybe if I rotate the angle iron…

IMG_6403 by Rick , on Flickr

A swing and a miss…

IMG_6378 by Rick , on Flickr

Much better. Let the welding and grinding begin…I actually burned up an angle grinder trying to blend the pipe into the sheet steel…remember, no bondo…

IMG_4407 by Rick , on Flickr

IMG_6404 by Rick , on Flickr

IMG_4698 by Rick , on Flickr

IMG_4536 by Rick , on Flickr

IMG_6379 by Rick , on Flickr

IMG_4423 by Rick , on Flickr

It’s finally time for paint…
 
Painting the bed was pretty straight forward. I hung it from a cherry picker, primed and painted with Rustoleum tan bed liner. Unfortunately, it’s no longer produced, so need to find a way to match the tan paint since it now needs some attention.

IMG_4714 by Rick , on Flickr

Fenders are painted with Black Rustoleum bed liner, and I like the contrast with the tan paint.

IMG_6406 by Rick , on Flickr

IMG_6321 by Rick , on Flickr

It was time to turn my attention to the truck cab. I mentioned earlier that the bottom of the body was in pretty rough shape, so covered with aluminum diamond plate I found at the scrape yard. I arrived just after it was dropped off so bought it all. One again, I used my DIY brake press to bend the angle over the step and my DIY corner jig for the rear radius.

IMG_5199 by Rick , on Flickr

IMG_6333 by Rick , on Flickr

IMG_4459 by Rick , on Flickr

IMG_4691 by Rick , on Flickr

Since I’m a rock crawler, I also added a rock slider using formed angle and 2” pipe.

IMG_4699 by Rick , on Flickr

Next up was the roll cage. The jeep I started with had a roll cage, it just needed to be modified to work in my truck. The top bars needed to be lengthened and the down tubes behind the seats need to go all the way to the floor. I also needed to configure a rear down bar, and this would require adding extra length. I was fortunate that the original roll cage had the correct bends that I could repurpose. Splicing in additional tubing was straight forward, an interior tube at all the splice joints, plug welding the inner and outer tubes and welding/grinding the seams. I also used black ABS for conceptual design before I started cutting tube. The final step was to use roll bar splice joints so the roll cage could be disassembled for removal from the jeep.

First step, cut it apart in strategic locations.

IMG_4545 by Rick , on Flickr

Next step, use ABS to mock up the final design.

IMG_4432 by Rick , on Flickr

Yuk, this was not a winning design.

IMG_6319 by Rick , on Flickr

Yup, that’s a much better design. I was already thinking about the soft top that needed to be built, and knew the rear panel could be built with a pass through for the rear down bars.

In this picture, you can see the ABS pipe held in place with hose clamps, and wood supporting the bed mounting section so I could measure for final assembly and welding. You can also see that I have removed a small section of pipe on the top tube and aligned it with a piece of angle iron. This is where the front splice joint was installed, and the other right behind the top hoop so I could remove the rear down bars.

IMG_6338 by Rick , on Flickr

Time for paint.

IMG_4467 by Rick , on Flickr
 
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More painting, this time to paint the cab, windshield frame, grill, hood and fenders. Since everything had been removed from the cab, grill and windshield, this was a pretty straightforward process. I started by painting the inside of the cab and firewall black, taped off the interior and firewall, and painting the outside tan.

IMG_6268 by Rick , on Flickr

IMG_4445 by Rick , on Flickr

IMG_6285 by Rick , on Flickr

IMG_6263 by Rick , on Flickr

IMG_6280 by Rick , on Flickr

IMG_4515 by Rick , on Flickr

IMG_4401 by Rick , on Flickr

And now let’s see what it looks like with the bed installed.

IMG_5200 by Rick , on Flickr

And with the roll cage installed…

IMG_4530 by Rick , on Flickr

IMG_4692 by Rick , on Flickr

When starting a project of this type, most folks underestimate how long it will take to complete the project. The pictures you see here represent about 6 months work, and it’s not even ready to drive down the road. Nope, there’s still about 3 months work remaining.
 
With most of the body painted, it was time to turn my attention to the mechanical side of the Jeep. The engine and transmission are solid, so no reason to make any internal changes, but I wanted to move the entire drivetrain back as far as possible to get more room for the cooling system. When finished, I was able to gain 5 inches. This meant removing all of the cross members and mounts and making new ones, and I wanted mounts and cross members to be removable for easy removal of the drivetrain. I also like orange engines…

IMG_4577 by Rick , on Flickr

IMG_6264 by Rick , on Flickr

IMG_6281 by Rick , on Flickr

In these picture, you can see that the front cross members is removable and I have plenty of room around the motor. At this point, I had already removed all of the old steering system and built new mounts for the box in front of the grill.

IMG_4492 by Rick , on Flickr

IMG_4546 by Rick , on Flickr

I had also already built the new motor mounts using factory rubber mounts, but this was a failure, as the rubber mounts started to sag right away, and eventually let the motor drop by more than an inch. These mounts have been redesigned with the coil spring conversion, but worth posting a picture so folks can see the original solution.

IMG_4523 by Rick , on Flickr

IMG_6184 by Rick , on Flickr

When I finished the wiring and cooling system, I designed everything so I could remove the fenders and grill and still be able to run the motor and all of the electrical except the lights in the grill. This meant building radiator mounts off of the front cross member using 1” square tubing. I am using a pusher fan, but this wasn’t sufficient on hot days rock crawling, so I have since added a flex fan on the front of the water pump. The electric fan comes on at about 210 degrees and has a manual override, but I have found that it rarely comes on except in the summer.

IMG_4609 by Rick , on Flickr

IMG_4716 by Rick , on Flickr

In these pictures you can see that I have the power brake unit installed, which is from a 1979 Toyota Corolla. The clutch is cable operated and comes from a 1977 Chevy Monza, and I replaced both of these with new units from Rock Auto. I should also note that the radiator is from a 1965 Mustang with the v8 and is a brass radiator. In my opinion, after market aluminum radiators are not long term solutions, as they are hard to repair when they start to leak. On a Hemi swapped Jeep that I did for my son, we went through 5 radiator (the first one was expensive, but the others were replaced by Summit under warranty) before we received one that lasted more than a few months.

The rest of the project was straight forward, assembling the dash, installing seats from a VW (and they are heated), using a steering column off eBay that was a failure since the key was in the column and was so finicky that I finally bought a rebuilt column from a 1968 Camaro for $800 to remove the frustration. I had built the wiring harness for a GM column and didn’t want to rebuild the switch wiring section. A few pictures of the dash wood bed and seat bracket.

IMG_6274 by Rick , on Flickr

IMG_7293 by Rick , on Flickr

IMG_7294 by Rick , on Flickr

IMG_7295 by Rick , on Flickr

This wraps up the build, except for the custom top. I used the doors from the original top, and a local boat upholstery shop built the top retaining the bow behind the seats, and the rear panel is removable for summer driving. They also added windows on the corners to improve visibility. Oh yes, the fuel tank is a 15 gallon bladder type fuel cell with a roll over valve. This tank works for either carb or fuel injection and was an excellent choice. A few final shot of the 9 month project.

IMG_7299 by Rick , on Flickr

IMG_7298 by Rick , on Flickr

IMG_7297 by Rick , on Flickr

IMG_2614 by Rick , on Flickr

The next phase of the project is converting the leaf springs to a long arm coil spring suspension system. My wife had a 4 level neck fusion a few years ago and can no longer take long rides on the Harley and driving a leaf sprung jeep results in days of neck pain. Since I prefer to drive the 47 instead of one of our new jeeps, I had to make it more comfortable for her to enjoy. The next post starts that build…
 
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