Build Thread The '80 FrankenJeep frame off reassembly

[shum8]

I helped a neighbor wrap an older Mercedes. Dang thing looks fantastic. He went with Avery Dennison and I'm probly gonna go with 3M


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[FLYNHYCJ7]

Cool, I seen your color chart in post #207 I like the colors you came up with. I'm leaning towards Camo Skinz desert digital. Everything is pre cut, kinda high dollar though.

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[shum8]

None of this is precut - it would show up in a 45' roll..... I drew up a bunch of templates in Autocad to see just how much I needed. I'm still messin around with the graphics - I want something similar but different. HA - That sounded funny in my head too


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[shum8]

Alrighty - Got a little more done tonight - fixed something that's been buggin me for a while...... one of those things ya just gotta fix. The cowl surface where the windshield gasket lives is a straight, continuous width on a CJ, and has a recessed area for the defrost vent on a Wrangler tub.



When a CJ dash panel is installed, it has no support in that area, and that bugged the outta me. There are also a few holes along the top, not sure what they were for, but they had been filled with blue RTV........


Another example of the RTV hole plugs, and a shot of the neatly cut out slots for the defrost.....



And my favorite - the hole covered with a piece of Velcro - LOL





On to the filler piece behind the dash. Picked up a couple feet of 3/4" angle, cut it to length, shortened one leg, then contoured the ends to fit the recess......





And here it is in place. Since it's gonna rain tomorrow, I'll get some welding done.




Once I get the filler welded in place, I'll dress up the cutouts with a die grinder......

 

[Scooter402]

Looks like you could use some more practice...I'll gladly sacrifice my Jeep so you can get some more hours in!

Obviously kidding... awesome looking work! Definitely some motivation to dig up some time so I can start catching up with y'alls progress!

 

[shum8]

Got the filler angle welded in tonight - Clamped it in place and tacked one end





Got it all welded up. everything fir nicely but the center two inches...... That had been banged up pretty good when the vents had been cut in, so I welded a little, beat it with a hammer a bit, welded some more, etc.... Finally got it nice and flat.

Cleaned it up (I use the term clean loosely here....)







Once I got the filler in place, it was time to test fit the dash. Had a high spot where the vents had been cut in.







Figured that called for the persuader, so I got it out and beat the top of the cowl into submission. Ahhh, that's better...



While cleaning up the top of the cowl, I discovered another RTV filled hole.....




I guess the next thing is to clean up the vent slots..... They could definitely use a little help.

 

[shum8]

Got the dash filler drilled and tapped for the dash mounting bolts....... And I'm short a couple. I need to start looking to see where I can get 3 or 4. Also took the persuader and "persuaded" a few high spots where the dash mounts back to where they were supposed to be. After getting that squared away, I got the vent slots cleaned up a bit - there were areas where the sheet metal overhang was almost a quarter inch - Basically I just reduced the overhang to maybe a sixteenth, straightened and smoothed up the openings in the hope it would give me as much airflow as possible.



Another thing that needs attention is the treaded holes for the windshield "retainer" knobs are both stripped.



I think I'll drill em out, thread em, and install heli-coils. Thought about tacking them in place with the welder, but decided red Loctite might be an easier option that will work just as well. And since the holes in the CJ dash do not line up properly with the hold down bolt holes, I'm going to add holes to the dash where they need to be. The windshield knobs will cover the new dash holes, and it allows me to use the original windshield hold down brackets. Since the tub, windshield frame, and brackets are YJ, this will be the easiest fix.

I think my next endeavor will be to clean up the "rain flange_ under the rear of the hood. It's pretty cruddy. I'll get smoothed out and ready for primer along with the door openings and the top edges of the tub.

 

[Belizean]

You got that dash looking almost factory looking. Good job on bring this back.

 

[shum8]

Well, I know what you're thinkin..... Shum8's been abducted.... You should be so lucky LOL. I haven't posted anything lately cause with all the body work goin on, pics wouldn't have shown any progress. So today I took her off the dollies, and put her feet on the ground - first time in months.





Trying to decide what to do with the factory antenna mounting holes - I will be mounting the antenna on the rear of the Jeep and won't need these. I wanna weld 'em up as a cover plate would look like .



The red arrow points to one of a couple chips in the gel coat on the fenders - I got those patched up today as well.

I found another low spot on the cowl on the passenger's side.



Sanded all the stuff out of the way, got a skim coat of filler over it, sanded it flat, then turned my attention to the body glaze. The weather here was warmer than forecast, so I took advantage of it. Got all the spots needing glaze marked with a sharpie, spread glaze here and there, and sanded it all flat.

Once the sanding had ceased, removed all dust, wiped the bare metal with MEK, and hit everything with automotive etching primer to keep the bare metal spots from rusting till I can hit everything with the good primer all at the same time.







It's nice having everything nice and flat, and smooth. Another reason I wanted a preliminary coat of primer was to show flaws I couldn't see / didn't notice beforehand. Found a couple - one was a small dent on the top of the tailgate



Found a couple scratches along the top of the driver's side - they will be covered by the side rails for the top but I guess I'll fix them as well.



Here's the top of the cowl after a little TLC....



Now - I noticed the "caulking" is broken up and a lot is gone.





My first thought was to make a fillet of body glaze..... then I thought about using seam sealer....... I can't come up with anything better than body glaze..... Anybody have a better idea? Or better ideas??

Anyway, after a good bit of progress, and with the exception of a couple small fixes, the tub body work is done..... Had a celebratory "Joop" garage beer

 

[Belizean]

Your jeep is really looking great. I can tell you are going the extra mile on this. Let us know what you use for the caulking. The original caulking looks like a house caulking. I some areas mine is still rubbery

 

[shum8]

I bet it was seam sealer. I think it never truly hardens - stays just a bit pliable.


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[Peanut Butter]

Looking like a real Jeep again. Nice body work! Something I'm not looking forward to. I hate sanding, my arthritic hands don't like it either. Keep going, there's light at the end of the tunnel!

 

[shum8]

I'll tell you a secret - just don't tell anyone else...... as a buddy always says, I'm not building a piano here....... I used an orbital sander, went slow, and kept checking for flat with my hand. It is surprisingly flat. Any body man worth his weight a
In rocks will tell you I committed a cardinal sin, but if it had been a Rolls Royce restore I might have block sanded it - but it works for me.

And I gotta say - every time it hit that thing with the green epoxy primer, I like the flat green. I gotta hurry up and make it RED......

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[daddyusmaximus]

Reading through your thread. Made it to page 10 so far. The new "to me" '79 CJ5 I have coming in Jan is sort of a FrankenJeep too. I will have quite a bit of work to do on it. Impressive quality of workmanship on yours. Pretty sure I won't be able to match it, but I'll get her trail worthy. Gotta crash for the night, big doings with the VFW tomorrow for Veteran's Day. I'll be back to see how it comes out.

 

[shum8]

Thanks for the kind words, sir. As for the workmanship - if I had been smart, I would have never painted the new frame and just used it dirty. Then I could have just swapped everything over and would have been driving it by now..... Once you pretty up the first part, you're done. I had set a goal of driving it again by this Christmas..... may have to slide that to summer......

R

 

[codyjim509]

Thanks for the inspiration! I'll only had time to skim, but this is a great build!

 

[shum8]

Well, I finally snuck out to the garage for some Jeep time..... Not much, but some. The fiberglass fenders I picked up a couple years ago (that sounds really depressing) had quite a few holes here and there that I'm going to fill in and just redrill what I need, and in the process of mounting them and aligning the grill, hood, and fenders, which, by the way, is more fun than it sounds..... I found the drivers side lined up perfectly, but the passenger side did not. At all. When bolted the tub, the front of the fender drooped a ton. Like over an inch ton. So, to rectify the situation, I decided to cut the fender ahead of the mounting flange, mount the front of the fender to the grill in the proper place, then glass the gap. Sounds easy, right? Well, not for me.... The garage is cold, cluttered from Christmas, I'm a wuss, and it gets dark early.... and colder. Then I get wussier. Anyway, my plan was to follow plan A up to but not including the glassing. Then I invoked plan B, which was to affix the gap as it needed to be, then remove the fender, take fenders to work with me when I go back next week, and play with glass cloth and resin after I get off work. In a nice, uncluttered work room. In heat.


So, here's the fender mounted and the gap secured:



The plan (both A and B) was to keep both edges aligned when glassing the back side, so the block screwed to the outside did just that. I'll lay a few pieces on the back side to hold everything where it needs to be, remove the screws, then finish laying up layers.





Can't for the life of me figure out why this fender was so off..... tub is level and centered on frame, grille is level and centered on frame - beats me. I thought about building up the back side of the mounting flange to fill the gap, then decided this would be more difficult and less strong... LOL.

Also had a brain fart just before school let out - the Wood Shop at the high school has a nice spray exhaust setup for spraying wood finish - not large enough for the tub, but definitely large enough for everything else, so I'm going to spray all the smalls there.

Well, the rain is moving back in here for a couple days so progress will slow to a crawl again......

 

[gr8dain]

Wow. That is really off. Glad mine wasn't like that. Good luck getting it all done and finding the time.

 

[shum8]

Wow. That is really off. Glad mine wasn't like that. Good luck getting it all done and finding the time.

Thanks - I'm squeezin time in where I can. As for the fender - I double checked everything I could think of..... Everything measured like it should have, so I butchered it. Nothing a little glass and resin won't fix.

Dug the replacement dash out and got ready to open the radio cutout.....

Here's the mounting sleeve:



Got the cut lines marked out



opened up the cutout with a grinder, cleaned it up with a dremel



And viola.... fit's like a glove.



That replacement dash looks like , but it's 99% cosmetic - dirt, paint, spider poop, scratches, etc. No extra holes, no dents, and flat. A good sanding and some primer and this one will look great.

 

[gr8dain]

I need to start looking for a dash myself to start my project to refurbish it and redo the gauges and wiring. Not looking forward to it.