• Hello Guest, we are proud to now have our Wiki online that is completely compiled and written by our members. Feel free to browse our Jeep-CJ Wiki or click on any orange keyword when looking at posts in the forum.
    To dismiss this notice
    click the top right X.

Build Thread Bill's 75 CJ5 ground up rebuild

Thanks Tonka, been struggling with it a bit lately, though.

I finally got the engine, Transmission and Transfer Case in and bolted down. Lots of swearing, sweating, and head scratching but I think everything is finally in the right spots. The Transmission crossmember was a bit of a challenge due to the number of bolt holes for the different engine & tranny combos, but finally got that in place. Still have the torque stabilizer pin & bushings to install. There just isn't any good pictures or diagrams of how that all goes together and I didn't get any good pics of it when I took it apart. The Transfer Case fought me a little but finally got it to slide on with a little advice from JR & PaRenegade (Thanks Guys).

Still got a couple of issues to sort through. I dropped the tranny crossmember about an inch to compensate for the suspension lift and now the pins for the clutch bell crank don't line up. Not sure if that's an issue or not? I'm also thinking I may have to do a bit of re-routing of brake and fuel lines, because when I test fit the headers they seemed a little close.

But I'm making progress even though it may be a little slow. :rolleyes:
 
The last thing I had to do to finish up the installation of the engine, tranny & tc was install the torque stabilizer stud and bushings. My first mistake was thinking I could slide everything in with the crossmember bolted in place -WRONG! Oh well, re-supported the tranny and dropped the crossmember down.

When I test fit the stud and bushings, I noticed that because of the shoulders on the bushings, the bushings didn't fit tight against the surface of the torque arm and that I had at least a 1/4" of play in the length of the stud (see 1st pic). I'm no engineer, but this didn't seem right. I assume that the whole purpose of this assembly is to dampen the rotation from the torque of the engine. That means the whole thing needs to fit tight together. I compared the old stud with the new one & they looked about the same, so I went about coming up with a solution.

I added a stack of fender washers on the bottom to make up the 1/4" in height I was short. Then added a washer for a 1" bolt at the top of the lower bushing to make up for difference between the thickness of the torgue arm and the height of the shoulders on the bushings.

It's not the most elegant solution, but I think it will work?

Going to Sonora this afternoon to look at paint and get some steel tube to fab up a base frame for the seats.
 
Just a quick update. While I've been trying to sort out a few issues and find parts, I've been bolting what I can back on. Got the tranny hump cover back in and the heater mounted. Bolted a few more things back on the motor. Started stretching out the wiring harness to figure out how I'm going to secure it and a lot of other little stuff. The seals were missing on both drive shafts, so those are both off being rebuilt.
 
First of all everything looks great. :chug: Very nice build. Its this type of thread that convinced me to tear mine all the way down. As far as the bellcrank pins not lining up , could it be as simple as flipping that bracket style one on the engine around? Its hard to tell angles from pics , just a thought.
 
Tonka & Pete - Thanks for the encouragement. :chug: It's getting so close to being done, I'm trying not to rush it and screw something up.

Pete- Thanks for the suggestion, but I've looked at the bracket on the engine and can't come up with anything other than fabricating a new bracket or taking the drop out of the Transmission crossmember. The bell crank pin on the engine is about 3/4" lower than the one on the frame.
 
I've been working on bits and pieces. Kind of working around stuff I'm waiting on parts for or still trying to decide exactly what I want to do.

I built a base to mount the seats on. Cut all the pieces and got a friend to weld it up for me. Then cleaned it all up, painted it and got it bolted in.

Worked some more on the wiring and got the major parts of the harness secured.

Still looking for paint. No one locally carries the color I want in flat, except in rattle cans. My buddy who's going to do the paint, wants to spray the base color for the camo scheme with a gun, so that we get good coverage on the base coat. Then we can add the camo with rattle cans. Anyway, we're going to try in Stockton, sometime next week.

Still waiting on my drive shafts to get back.
 
Bill, great forum. I have two questions i am hoping you can help me with. Undoubtedly you have considered these questions and have decided on a course.

Background on my situation. I live overseas in the south pacific (Vanuatu). I do community development kinda work (literacy, linguistics, Bible translation, kinds of stuff). I'm on a very remote island with lots of 4x4 and decided to bring over the 1974 CJ5 . Really, someone gave it to me just for this kinda work. I have access to basic tools to do most jobs at a basic level. This mechanic/body-work stuff is all new to me. Love it though!

The problem. I have bits of rust. The new climate has expedited the corrosion and has made me acutely aware of the fact that i have to do something about the little bits of rust i have. Ill be in and out of creeks. Some of the creeks mix with salt water. I will also be forced to drive on sand by the salt water a bit as well. The rust is on the floor board in rice and pea sized spots and specs. Doesn't appear to be deep. Also have rust developing in a few of the chips on the hood. Finally, there is a bit of rust in some of the seems where the engine tup joins with the main tub. Sorry, don't know the right terminology. Also some rust showing up on the springs under the jeep. All in all it is in excellent shape. An old guy gave it to me with 32,000 original miles on it. Only used it for fun and hunting a bit. Kept it covered and in the garage otherwise. My jeep friends say i'm nuts for bringing it over here to 'work', but can't afford anything else. So, what is the easiest way to deal with the rust with basic tools (drill gun, wire brush, sand paper, and 'stuff') and skill. Any suggesting on types of products like primers or whatever?

Second question. I bought a winch. Want to bolt it to the front bumper chassis. I saw that you put a nickel plate on the front. The winch wont reach the chassis so i will have to bolt a plate to the chassis then bolt the winch to it. That's my thought anyway. Got some bolts in the way on the existing 'weak' plate that is joined to the chassis now. So may need to shim it or something. Again, i don't really have a clue. Any suggesting would be great. The winch is a Warn power plant. If i remember right, it's the 9500 or something.

Tried to keep it short. Thanks for any ideas Bill and anyone else out there with some savvy.

If pics would help i can try to post them. Upload and download is difficult with third world internet. Just glad to have it.
 
manambryn - South Pacific sounds like a great place to drive around in a vintage CJ! First off, I'd recommend posting your questions in the Body & Chassis section. You will get more interest and answers (from guys with a lot more experience than I have).

If you don't have major rust, just surface stuff, you can do an awful lot of clean up with sandpaper and a wire brush. I used a wire wheel on an angle grinder and it took everything pretty much to bare metal pretty easily. A wire wheel on a drill motor would work too, just not as fast. Most all of the surface rust, I treated with naval jelly (phosphoric acid) first. The phosphoric acid turns the iron oxide in the rust to iron phosphate and makes it a bit easier to remove. Then get a good coat of primer on all the bare metal as quickly as possible so the rust doesn't get a chance to start again. I used Rustoleum Auto Primer and it seems to work fairly well.

If you are getting exposure to salt water, I would recommend getting the thing rinsed good with fresh water after each time it gets salted. I lived where you could drive on the beach, for a time, and that's what I was told and it seemed to help. As far as the springs, I don't have any brilliant ideas other than maybe keeping them coated with oil to keep down the surface rust.

On the winch, as far as I understand, you will need to get a winch mounting plate that bolts to the frame and then the winch bolts to it. I put the diamond plate down to kind of dress things up a bit. I plan to use a receiver mounted winch. There is a winch plate available that has a shaft on it that goes into a trailer hitch receiver in the front bumper. Then you can remove the winch, use it on the rear or just store it away.

Hope that helps, Good Luck - Bill :chug:
 
Bill, I want to do a one piece front cap and would love to see more pictures of how you did yours. I have a winch and grill guard so it can't tilt forward. (at least I don't think it's been tried)
 
rr41mag said:
Bill, I want to do a one piece front cap and would love to see more pictures of how you did yours. I have a winch and grill guard so it can't tilt forward. (at least I don't think it's been tried)
Click to expand...

I saw you started a thread on this in the Body & Chassis Forum, so I posted some pics and my take on one piece front ends there.

Bill:chug:
 
So I just continue to putter along on this thing trying to work out the little problems, finish cleaning up the remaining parts I'm going to reuse and hopefully get it ready for paint in a few days.

With the one piece front end, I want to be able to pull the whole thing off if I ever need to work on the engine. The hinges have removable pins, so that works pretty good, but I needed to come up with a way of disconnecting the front wiring harness. I went to the parts store and got a 7 pin plug for a trailer harness. Cut the wiring harness and wired the plugs to each end. Then I built a bracket to attach the female side of the plug to the top of the fender. Had to move a couple of the wires around because with the one piece front some stuff just doesn't mount in the stock positions. I think this will work OK.

Then I cleaned up and painted the headlight assemblies and the front marker lights.

Picked up paint last Friday and hopefully will get the base color sprayed sometime this week.
 
I've been working on getting everything ready for paint. As with most it takes twice as long as I thought it would. Once I started wet sanding, I found a few spots that needed a bit more attention to get things smooth. I did a little more filling and spot priming and it seems pretty good now. Had planned to spray it yesterday, but my buddy who is going to spray it got tied up on a paying job and put me off. Guess you've got to have your priorities :rolleyes:

Anyway, will post some more pics as soon as we get it sprayed.
 
It looks like everything is coming together. I am about to get started on my 76 in a couple of weeks, you have done an awsome job keeping your posts current. I hope mine turns out as good as yours.
 
jbhtn - Thanks, it really is starting to come together. I got the base color painted last week and now working on the camo. Will try to get some up to date pics posted this weekend. Good luck on your 76 - Bill :chug:
 
Been trying for a week to update the build, but between work stuff and computer problems (had to buy a new one) I'm just getting to it.

We painted the base color on May 24th. Set up my ez up out on the driveway and wrapped the inside with plastic to create a sort of booth. Then rolled the Jeep out of the garage and sprayed it.

I let it dry for a couple of days, then installed the windshield and put the hood back in place.

I've started working on the camo, but I'll save that for another post. Will say for now that it's not going to be your typical camo scheme.
 
billyocup said:
Been trying for a week to update the build, but between work stuff and computer problems (had to buy a new one) I'm just getting to it.

We painted the base color on May 24th. Set up my ez up out on the driveway and wrapped the inside with plastic to create a sort of booth. Then rolled the Jeep out of the garage and sprayed it.

I let it dry for a couple of days, then installed the windshield and put the hood back in place.

I've started working on the camo, but I'll save that for another post. Will say for now that it's not going to be your typical camo scheme.
Click to expand...

I like your spray booth...............and the job your doing looks great also.
:D:D:D:D
 
tarry99 - Thanks. I thought the ez up worked great. Could of used a little more room, but it went up & down fast and kept the dust off it while we were spraying.
 
I've finally got a little work going, so the last couple of weeks I've spent more time tending to my business and less on the Jeep. I'm making some progress, but the camo scheme I decided to use is kinda slow and tedious.

I had been planning on doing camo since the beginning. I looked at a lot pictures and realized that camo didn't have to be just random splotches, it could be stenciled patterns. I have wanted to build a vehicle for some time that is a tribute to my favorite NASCAR driver, so I created Dale Earnhardt camo. I think I've created a new CJ edition - The Intimidator Edition :rolleyes:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Jeep-CJ Donation Drive

Help support Jeep-CJ.com by making a contribution.

Help support Jeep-CJ.com by making a contribution.
Goal
$200.00
Earned
$100.00
This donation drive ends in
0 hours, 0 minutes, 0 seconds
  50.0%
Contribute
Back
Top Bottom