Build Thread Goin Postal

[gliryan]

Just got it yesterday. Haven't had any more time with it other than loading, hauling, and unloading really. 1970 Postal body on a pre-72 CJ5 frame, not sure of the year yet on the frame. So left hand drive frame with a right hand drive postal body.

Missing motor (looking at an AMC 360 right now, how well does that fit in that little bay?). It needs a rear drive shaft. Its got the offset to the right rear axle, not sure what it is but I've been reading Dana 44 but have been told early Dana 20 and d41. Twin stick of some sort Transfer Case . And thats all I know so far.

Plan is to keep it really basic and inexpensive. So tips, parts, and help are appreciated!

Looking at 2.5" wide leaf conversion with somewhere around 4" of lift. Going to run 33's and a rear locker. Will build a cage and box the frame this winter. Get the steering mounted up on the left and whatever else to make it drivable. Thats about it for now.

 

[GoldenEagle36]

Nice i went postal a few weeks ago!!! picked up a 56 Dj3a! anxious to see how the build goes

 

[Petescj]

Looks like the postal body but they kept the CJ5 front clip. Should be the short nose version. Tight fit for a V-8. It is definately doable though.

 

[gliryan]

Nice i went postal a few weeks ago!!! picked up a 56 Dj3a! anxious to see how the build goes

Glad I'm not the only one with aspirations of wheeling a postal vehicle hehe.

Yeah the bay is pretty short, the radiator shroud extends a long ways back… Can probably pretty easily get that modified pretty easily.

 

[SrBeaver]

The 69 CJ5 I had back in the day I stuffed a Chevy 350 in it is a really tight fit. IIRC I wasn't able to use the flex fan and had to go with electric pushers in front of the radiatior. If ya need any parts let me know I have that 73 that I just picked up, may have some usable parts on it. The frame isn't that great of shape, looked at it after I pulled the AMC 304 out and from being a plow Jeep the front has been repaired more than once, and not very well at that.

 

[gliryan]

The 69 CJ5 I had back in the day I stuffed a Chevy 350 in it is a really tight fit. IIRC I wasn't able to use the flex fan and had to go with electric pushers in front of the radiatior. If ya need any parts let me know I have that 73 that I just picked up, may have some usable parts on it. The frame isn't that great of shape, looked at it after I pulled the AMC 304 out and from being a plow Jeep the front has been repaired more than once, and not very well at that.

For starters do you have some shifter knobs for the twin stick and Transmission ? lol

 

[GoldenEagle36]

Just got it yesterday. Haven't had any more time with it other than loading, hauling, and unloading really. 1970 Postal body on a pre-72 CJ5 frame, not sure of the year yet on the frame. So left hand drive frame with a right hand drive postal body.

Missing motor (looking at an AMC 360 right now, how well does that fit in that little bay?). It needs a rear drive shaft. Its got the offset to the right rear axle, not sure what it is but I've been reading Dana 44 but have been told early Dana 20 and d41. Twin stick of some sort Transfer Case . And thats all I know so far.

Plan is to keep it really basic and inexpensive. So tips, parts, and help are appreciated!

Looking at 2.5" wide leaf conversion with somewhere around 4" of lift. Going to run 33's and a rear locker. Will build a cage and box the frame this winter. Get the steering mounted up on the left and whatever else to make it drivable. Thats about it for now.

at first today when i saw the pics, i thought that was the rare M38A1 mail carrier conversion. my dj had the 4x4 conversion, which i find as an amenity. but still a nice find! Good luck on the project!

 

[SrBeaver]

I'll se if the PO left any laying in there, Transmission and Tcase were gone when I bought it, but there was parts of the blowed up Tcase in it. I'll be out working on the Scrambler tomorrow so I'll see what I can find.

 

[Petescj]

Yeah the bay is pretty short, the radiator shroud extends a long ways back… Can probably pretty easily get that modified pretty easily.

There was probably a 4 cylinder in it originally. They had pretty large fan shrouds. You can just unbolt it and take it out.

 

[3QuarterTon CJ]

That is a frickin cool looking lil Jeep! I love the huge tires wedged under that thing. What are they? like 35's?

 

[gliryan]

Thanks guys. I thought the tires were 35x14, but my dad was checking it out yesterday as thats where I dropped it off and said they were 36x14.5's. So pretty flippin big. I really like (love) the way it looks, but I'm going to lift it up and wheel it with probably 33's.

I can't wait to go and actually look at this thing and start figuring out what else I need. I know I won't be driving it this year, but there are some things I can do like fix the floor and get the seats in and mount up the steering. I'll take some pics when I go up there, maybe tomorrow afternoon if I'm itchin bad enough haha. I love this cj community.

 

[Project86]

That's just BA lookin'! Looks like a beast, it needs a hoss of an engine.

 

[gliryan]

Thanks!

In terms of the motor I'm pretty open and currently unsure of what to do. What do you guys recommend? I have a friend that will be selling a low mileage 350/th350 chev setup. I'd need to buy an adapter for the tcase then, looking at over a grand I'm assuming for everything. Or there is a running amc 360 nearby that I'm sort of interested in. For $350 he has the 360 and accessories with a T-15 3 speed and Dana 20 on it. I like this option as its much cheaper. Would love an auto for wheelin though... Going to miss that about the xj

I also didn't realize these old cj's have narrow front AND rear leafs...I'll be buying stuff to swap that to 2.5" leafs for sure. I wish it was at my house so I could mess around with it, but no its 20 miles away.

 

[Petescj]

The chevy combo with an auto Transmission plus the adapter is going to be way long for your jeep. You'll have real driveshaft problems. Ive seen the Amc V-8s dropped in the short nose Cjs with a manual / Dana 20 combo. In my opinion thats definately the better choice.

 

[SrBeaver]

No dice on the shifter knobs

 

[gliryan]

Well I got myself an AMC 360 and accessories for $AMC 150 . Need a carb though. Looks like one of the best on the cheap options is the Motorcraft 2100? And I'm trying to find out how much this thing weighs, looks like a ton...

Thanks for checking on the knobs! My girlfriend's dad has a bunch of old stuff from his cj days. He's going to be giving me a couple d18's and a Dana 20 tcase, GM Turbo 400 -d18/20 adapter, and a "small block" ford adapter for a 3 speed (or so my gf told me thats what she remembers him saying). I'll be picking the stuff up tomorrow afternoon!

 

[gliryan]

Finally got some time to go check out the new cj. I was very pleased to see how solid the frame was! The body is in plenty good of shape as well. All the steel is basically just flat sheet metal, so rust spots shouldn't be able to be any easier to fix.

Noted a few things that I needed though. Needs the collar for the steering column (maybe an entire new cj steering column though), gas tank of some sort (have someone tracking down his fuel cell that might work perfect), repair quite a few broken wheel studs, need to find a rear drive shaft,

Here are some pics, quite a few but its always fun to look at stuff.





































so what kind of Transmission is this? It is a 3 speed


The gas tank will likely be cut into the floor and mounted on the triangulation here in the back. I'll put a piece of steel and weld it for a base


yay Dana 44 !




So I'm quite happy after checking it out today. And excited to get it together and wheeling next year.

 

[jeepboy45]

WHAT AN AWESOME PROJECT.!!! (envious!)

 

[gliryan]

Got it home today! I went to change out the wheels and tires to my 33's that I plan on running. Well I wish I had know the drivers side studs were reverse thread. So now I need to order 10 new studs and lugs. It looks like for the rear there are two choices of stud styles….I hope I choose the correct ones.

Here is what I've got the think about. I want to run a wrangler 2.5" wide leaf, 4" superlift leaf with probably their shocks too since they are inexpensive. I measured the body lift and its 3"! I don't need 7" of lift…so those might have to come out. I also want some wider axles, but found wheel spacers for only $70 a set. I'm leaning towards those instead of an axle swap. What diameter are these wheel studs, 1/2"?
My goal is to spend for sure less than $1500 lifting and getting this thing ready for the trails. I need to figure out what rear axles I have so I can order a locker for the Dana 44 back there.

So plans:
4" wrangler lift
some new spring pad mounts for the axles
new shackle and leaf hangers
front shackle reversal
1" or 1.25" wheel spacers (for now)
auto locker for the rear Dana 44
1 piece rear axles if they aren't already
Dana 20 with a twin stick upgrade
Thats about all I think I need to purchase, big ticket items at least.

The Dana 20 twin stick brings me to my next question. My Dana 44 axle is offset, can I run a Dana 20 (no offset output) tcase to my offset Dana 44 on my short wheel base CJ5 ? I'm missing the whole rear axle anyways, so I need to get a new one from somewhere….

I'll post up with more questions in the following days as I start to work on this thing.

 

[73CJ]

Nice project.

The DJ frames were actually thinner than the CJ. Weight means mileage.