CT JP15 -

[rc88xj]

yes i understand that my jeep sets outside to and all i have is the hard top. when i purchased my jeep the motor had been rebuilt and the vac lines where all messed up i used a 4x4 posi cable lock to fix my 4x4 works great now

[fantomas]

Decided to go with #15.

This weather is driving me nuts. Too darned cold out spend any considerable amount of time outside working on the Jeep.

[fantomas]

Finally warm enough outside. Spent the last two afternoons stripping out the interior. It should have gone a bit faster than it did but I have a locking insta-trunk things and unfortunately one of the bolts to remove it was just spinning. It probably added an extra 1.5 hours of me trying to see if I could get at it through the wheel well liner.

So anyways, the interior is stripped now. It looks like I need to just replace the driver's floor pan and everything else is in pretty decent shape!

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So the next step after repairing the floor pan is to bed line the interior, and I'll be running wires and whatnot for a new sound system since all the carpeting is up. I might actually get the jeep painted before I put everything back together. On a side note, does anyone know what this thing is underneath the driver's seat? More specifically, can I remove it?

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[fantomas]

Took the fender flares off to get read to start prepping for the paint. Front passenger fender is in worse shape than I was hoping. The other three just have surface rust at worst.

Driver front:

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Rear fender (both of the rear fenders were in the same shape, this one worse than the other (just from the rust spot)

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And the front passenger which will require me to most likely replace the entire thing.

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Now just waiting on getting the seat rails back from my buddy who is removing two bolts that snapped off in them for me, then I can go and get the floor fixed up, and then bed liner!

[fantomas]

Floorboard was repaired this past weekend. I didn't grab any "after pics" but here's the "before" pic with a piece of wood placed over it to keep myself from being sucked under the vehicle while I drove it to my buddy's.

So the plan was to Herculine the interior by the end of the week, but then I remembered that I REALLY need to replace the tub mount bushings (a few are missing ). So the problem with the bushing replacement is that if any of the bolts break or if the nut starts spinning, a hole needs to be cut through the tub. I've been blasting the bolts with PB but if it's like anything else on the jeep, there is a 1.2% chance of them all coming out without incident. SO I figured I'd wait to bed line until I see how this goes.

Also, in the past week I've ordered a CB radio, 5 channel amp, dash speakers and some other odds and ends. There is a car show in my town on May 30th, and I asked my father in law about the chances of the Jeep being painted by then, and he said no way would it be ready. Oh well...

[fantomas]

Started on the tub mount bushings yesterday. 7 of the 11 mounting bolts surprisingly came out with no problem, 3 of them snapped and 1 of them the cage nut just spun. What a pain in the ass it turned out to be. Had to cut two ugly holes in the tub on the driver's side to get to two of the nuts, and the other two I had to extract were the two rear most right in front of the rear of the tub. To get any access to those rear ones at all I had to remove my trailer hitch. Snapped 8 out of 10 of the bolts, 1 bolt came out cleanly, and the last bolt I ended up rounding off the hex head and had to take my angle grinder to it. I accessed the passenger side no problem but using a metal cutting wheel on my angle grinder, but the driver's side had the gas filler and vent tubes in the way so the angle grinder wouldn't fit up there. Plus I was starting to sweat about all the sparks I was throwing at the gas tank.

In the mean time I had actually jacked up the passenger side tub and installed the 5 bushings on that side (plus the 1 in front of the grill). When I let the jack down the tub didn't move down all the way so I couldn't even get some of the bolts installed. I was getting frustrated, the sun had gone down and the wind was picking up so I called it an evening. Figured I could use some time off to regroup and come up with a new plan of attack on that last bolt. As I was cleaning up I remembered I could use a cut off wheel on my Dremel to get in there to cut a hole near the gas tubes (of course I was all out of dremel cut off wheels).

Nothing's easy I tell ya. Eventually I have to replace the gas tank skid plate, but I can do that some other time. I absolutely had to do these bushings before I bed line the interior precisely because I had to cut in to the tub. And sorry no pics for now. I'll take some next time I'm out there working during the daylight... which might not be for another 2 weeks.

[fantomas]

Finally got the tub mount bushings replaced 2 weeks ago and applied the interior bed liner this week! Killed my angle grinder in the process of prepping the tub floor, so had to do quite a bit of sanding by hand.

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Also a pic of how it currently sits. I'm going to put the drivers seat back in on Sunday and then drive it over to my in law's so we can start prepping the body for paint!

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Now it should be smooth sailing because knock on wood, the last things that need to be replaced are the gas tank skid plate and shorter leaf spring shackles. There's nothing else mechanically or structurally that needs attention at the moment.

[fantomas]

Brought the Jeep over to my father in law's this past weekend. Spent the last two afternoons working on it. First afternoon we removed the front passenger fender, tailgate, and dropped the windshield. Tonight we removed the windshield, glass from the windshield, tail lights, front section of the roll bar (to take off all the padding to protect from prepping), and I started taking apart the dash for the front speaker replacement. I also started to run the wires for the audio, CB antenna, and lights. I need to map out exactly which wires I'm running where for the highest efficiency. Weather permitting, this will probably be done by July 1st.

After the first day:

After the Second day:

[cptcrunch]

Looking good. Are you going with LJ1? If so, have you decided on a gloss factor; matte, semi or full gloss? Also, what did you decide on your red? Mine is going in for paint Saturday and I'm thinking of LJ1 semi-gloss as the base, and then radiant fire red in semi-gloss as the red for mine. Was curious what you are doing.

[fantomas]

Looking good. Are you going with LJ1? If so, have you decided on a gloss factor; matte, semi or full gloss? Also, what did you decide on your red? Mine is going in for paint Saturday and I'm thinking of LJ1 semi-gloss as the base, and then radiant fire red in semi-gloss as the red for mine. Was curious what you are doing.

The plan is to use both those colors. I'm not convinced that red is correct, because some scenes it looks pretty pink, but I'd rather have a red that looks visually appealing to me.

My father in law works at a (semi-popular?) restoration shop so I trust in his advice. My original plan when I proposed this project to him many months ago was to go with the single stage of both those colors in flat or matte. He tried to convince me to go with the two stage at that point. Fast forward to last week and I guess he changed in mind. I'm not sure he knew what I had in mind with the striping originally. So I was ok with doing the two stage but according to him, you have to top coat the base coat within 4 hours. So the tan would need to be sprayed and then top coated, then the finish would have to be roughed up again, then taped for the red, and then sprayed and the entire jeep clear coated again. Kind of a PITA for the painter. I know that really didn't answer your question, but the point of the story was that he is going to look in to seeing if he can put the flattener in the single stage paint they have. Spray the entire jeep tan one weekend, tape it off, rough up the taped spots, and spray that red the following weekend. He wants it out of his garage by the first weekend of July, which I'm ok with!