JP Jeep YJ build, Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada (Another JP41)
Posted: May 21st, 2020, 5:34 pm
Hello all.
I joined the forums back in early July 2018 after I had committed to building a Jeep, (though I had been lurking around quite a long time before that).
I haven't created a build thread until now because progress has been pretty slow until recently and I figured there wasn't any point in having 2 JP41 threads going if mine didn't have anything interesting in it, (and I didn't want to steal jp41's thunder. His thread is here in case you clicked here by mistake). Now that I'm getting closer to being finished I decided to post a few pictures to show what I've been up too. (It's pretty image heavy)
I had been searching for a decent looking YJ for quite a while without much success. Couldn't find anything near by that hadn't rusted to pieces, but I suppose that's just the way it is. I eventually expanded my search outside of the Maritimes and Maine, and in July of 2018 I found a suitable candidate posted on Kijiji in Woodstock, ON.
The Jeep was a 1992 Islander automatic, with no doors and had clearly had some body work done in the past. What I liked about it was that for the better part of it's life it hadn't been driven in the winter and had had an undercoating applied annually. I decided to get it, so my father and I drove the 1480km from Fredericton NB to Woodstock ON, made the purchase and drove back within 5 days I managed to get off work.
Next came trying to collect some of the parts I'd need for the conversion. I managed to get a set of doors on Ebay and some aftermarket mirrors that had to be modified slightly to accommodate my aftermarket hinges. I did get some OEM windshield hinges off of a wreck in a junkyard but couldn't seem to find the correct combination of oil and heat to get them unseized.
The rims were a bit of a hassle to get a hold of too. Ended up doing on a couple more excursions in early 2019, picking up 4 in Moncton NB and 2 more in Cape Breton NS. Obviously paid for it in gas, but still cheaper (and more fun) than getting refinished ones online
During a vacation in late August I took another road trip searching for Sahara seats. Managed to find a pair of front seats north of Chicoutimi QC and another set and a bench out of a wreck in Barrie ON. I pulled most of the carpet out of it too as well as a set of mirrors in case I really want OEM ones on someday.
I took the driver side seats to an upholstery place and had them replace the foam and cobble together one seat out of the material from both other of them. I got the carpet detailed and while it's still a little rough in places, it's 100 times better than it was before. It should be a decent stand in until I can get a complete replacement kit. The only oddity is the gap for the stick shift.
I picked up a new Bestop soft top and after getting it installed, I immediately took it off again, and brought the jeep to the garage for bodywork and paint.
I'm more a movie fan than a car enthusiast and certainly not a professional painter, so I didn't really want to try to turn a garage into a paint booth and do it myself. It's clear that one of the previous owners had done a less than ideal job painting the Jeep white in the past, (I'm still scraping white over spray off the rubber parts). I can't even imagine trying to sand all that off by hand.
As you can probably tell from the photographs the passenger side body panel had been replaced with an aftermarket one (missing the Jeep stamp), and as the driver side was warped and rusted in a few places, I got a pair of OMIX replacements.
I spent the next few weeks working on stripping it apart in my spare time. They weren't going to have time to work on it until the winter months anyway so I tried to save them some labour for being gracious enough to let me keep the jeep in their shop over the winter.
We picked away at it during our spare time but it really wasn't until the start of March 2020 that most of the work was done. The paint went on the first week of May and this is the result.
Many of you will probably notice the base isn't the same sand beige, it actually the newer Chrysler White Gold. It gives it a little bit of a warmer colour. The red is the Ford Performance. I decided to get the inside of the tub done with a bed liner and I'm really happy with how that turned out. Looks pretty sharp even though it's mostly covered with the carpet.
Over the next few days my father and I worked on putting it all back together.
I brought it home and waited a few days for it to be warm enough to get the soft top on. (It actually snowed here last week, (second week of May 2020).
I then got the rims swapped out with the red ones.
The tires are 31x10.5 and are honestly a little larger than I'd like to be running. Also I forgot the factory spare tire mount wouldn't able to accommodate tires of that size on stock rims, so until I find a spacer or something to make up the extra inch I need, I'll have to leave the spare off. Eventually I want to pick up a (smaller) set of KO2s but if anyone has any ideas of a solution for the spare, let me know.
I also pulled out the factory switches for the rear window defrost & wipers and replaced them with some rocker switches I plan to wire up to the lights.
The centre console is still the same, I yet to see a Sahara console that wasn't broken, so it will have to do for now.
The interior door panels are the same ones I had before. They painted them with a forest green which will make them a nice stand in until I can find something better.
I've got a set of Delta 100 series fogs that I'll put on as soon as I can find a mounting solution. The back lights will probably be a set of Unity night eye halogens.
I have the decals for the doors but still have to get them applied. I'm not sure I'm confident enough in my ability to apply them strait and without bubbles or wrinkles, but I may have to as it seems many of the local sign shops are only offering a pretty limited range of services these days, for obvious reasons. Hopefully I'll have time to tackle that before too long.
Eventually I'd like to get a winch plate and winch although that's not very high on the list right now. Next comes a lot of cleaning and detailing, (still so much dust everywhere).
Anyway, I just wanted to thank everyone who has contributed here on the forums and elsewhere to the huge amount of detailed knowledge about these vehicles. I'm glad I didn't have to be a pioneer, figuring everything out and documenting it, but I sure am grateful to those that did.
I joined the forums back in early July 2018 after I had committed to building a Jeep, (though I had been lurking around quite a long time before that).
I haven't created a build thread until now because progress has been pretty slow until recently and I figured there wasn't any point in having 2 JP41 threads going if mine didn't have anything interesting in it, (and I didn't want to steal jp41's thunder. His thread is here in case you clicked here by mistake). Now that I'm getting closer to being finished I decided to post a few pictures to show what I've been up too. (It's pretty image heavy)
I had been searching for a decent looking YJ for quite a while without much success. Couldn't find anything near by that hadn't rusted to pieces, but I suppose that's just the way it is. I eventually expanded my search outside of the Maritimes and Maine, and in July of 2018 I found a suitable candidate posted on Kijiji in Woodstock, ON.
The Jeep was a 1992 Islander automatic, with no doors and had clearly had some body work done in the past. What I liked about it was that for the better part of it's life it hadn't been driven in the winter and had had an undercoating applied annually. I decided to get it, so my father and I drove the 1480km from Fredericton NB to Woodstock ON, made the purchase and drove back within 5 days I managed to get off work.
Next came trying to collect some of the parts I'd need for the conversion. I managed to get a set of doors on Ebay and some aftermarket mirrors that had to be modified slightly to accommodate my aftermarket hinges. I did get some OEM windshield hinges off of a wreck in a junkyard but couldn't seem to find the correct combination of oil and heat to get them unseized.
The rims were a bit of a hassle to get a hold of too. Ended up doing on a couple more excursions in early 2019, picking up 4 in Moncton NB and 2 more in Cape Breton NS. Obviously paid for it in gas, but still cheaper (and more fun) than getting refinished ones online
During a vacation in late August I took another road trip searching for Sahara seats. Managed to find a pair of front seats north of Chicoutimi QC and another set and a bench out of a wreck in Barrie ON. I pulled most of the carpet out of it too as well as a set of mirrors in case I really want OEM ones on someday.
I took the driver side seats to an upholstery place and had them replace the foam and cobble together one seat out of the material from both other of them. I got the carpet detailed and while it's still a little rough in places, it's 100 times better than it was before. It should be a decent stand in until I can get a complete replacement kit. The only oddity is the gap for the stick shift.
I picked up a new Bestop soft top and after getting it installed, I immediately took it off again, and brought the jeep to the garage for bodywork and paint.
I'm more a movie fan than a car enthusiast and certainly not a professional painter, so I didn't really want to try to turn a garage into a paint booth and do it myself. It's clear that one of the previous owners had done a less than ideal job painting the Jeep white in the past, (I'm still scraping white over spray off the rubber parts). I can't even imagine trying to sand all that off by hand.
As you can probably tell from the photographs the passenger side body panel had been replaced with an aftermarket one (missing the Jeep stamp), and as the driver side was warped and rusted in a few places, I got a pair of OMIX replacements.
I spent the next few weeks working on stripping it apart in my spare time. They weren't going to have time to work on it until the winter months anyway so I tried to save them some labour for being gracious enough to let me keep the jeep in their shop over the winter.
We picked away at it during our spare time but it really wasn't until the start of March 2020 that most of the work was done. The paint went on the first week of May and this is the result.
Many of you will probably notice the base isn't the same sand beige, it actually the newer Chrysler White Gold. It gives it a little bit of a warmer colour. The red is the Ford Performance. I decided to get the inside of the tub done with a bed liner and I'm really happy with how that turned out. Looks pretty sharp even though it's mostly covered with the carpet.
Over the next few days my father and I worked on putting it all back together.
I brought it home and waited a few days for it to be warm enough to get the soft top on. (It actually snowed here last week, (second week of May 2020).
I then got the rims swapped out with the red ones.
The tires are 31x10.5 and are honestly a little larger than I'd like to be running. Also I forgot the factory spare tire mount wouldn't able to accommodate tires of that size on stock rims, so until I find a spacer or something to make up the extra inch I need, I'll have to leave the spare off. Eventually I want to pick up a (smaller) set of KO2s but if anyone has any ideas of a solution for the spare, let me know.
I also pulled out the factory switches for the rear window defrost & wipers and replaced them with some rocker switches I plan to wire up to the lights.
The centre console is still the same, I yet to see a Sahara console that wasn't broken, so it will have to do for now.
The interior door panels are the same ones I had before. They painted them with a forest green which will make them a nice stand in until I can find something better.
I've got a set of Delta 100 series fogs that I'll put on as soon as I can find a mounting solution. The back lights will probably be a set of Unity night eye halogens.
I have the decals for the doors but still have to get them applied. I'm not sure I'm confident enough in my ability to apply them strait and without bubbles or wrinkles, but I may have to as it seems many of the local sign shops are only offering a pretty limited range of services these days, for obvious reasons. Hopefully I'll have time to tackle that before too long.
Eventually I'd like to get a winch plate and winch although that's not very high on the list right now. Next comes a lot of cleaning and detailing, (still so much dust everywhere).
Anyway, I just wanted to thank everyone who has contributed here on the forums and elsewhere to the huge amount of detailed knowledge about these vehicles. I'm glad I didn't have to be a pioneer, figuring everything out and documenting it, but I sure am grateful to those that did.