Build Thread The '80 FrankenJeep frame off reassembly

[shum8]

Yeah, the under dash wiring is NOT on my "wanna do" list......


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[Peanut Butter]

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.

I would be sure to add some sort of rear support for the radio. That way it won't rattle around. That cage is not strong enough to support the radio by itself. I actually welded a couple of brackets on mine to support the radio. In your case a piece of light weight metal strap attached to the rear mounting post could be bent up and over the radio, then attached to the dash.

 

[shum8]

I would be sure to add some sort of rear support for the radio. That way it won't rattle around. That cage is not strong enough to support the radio by itself. I actually welded a couple of brackets on mine to support the radio. In your case a piece of light weight metal strap attached to the rear mounting post could be bent up and over the radio, then attached to the dash.

Yeah, while I have the dash torn down I am gonna rig up some kind of support bracket. Don't have a rear mounting stud, but will definitely rig something up.....

 

[shum8]

Started breaking down the dash, removing everything to swap over to the newer dash. The existing dash had extra holes in it, rust, it was warped..... it was a mess. The donor dash is dirty, but structurally is great. I have yet to tear into the switch indicators, but did go thru the speedo cluster. Turns out its a pretty easy deal to break one down, and the difference is striking! Photos don't do the transformation justice. Best part was doing this inside .

After removing everything from the old dash, I took a few before pics of the speedo cluster as a baseline:













Then the disassembly began..... the front bezel is crimped to the speedo housing in four places - just open them back up with a screwdriver and the front bezel will just lift off the housing. The speedometer itself is held in the housing with one nut on the large threaded shaft protruding out of the rear of the housing. Removing that nut allows the speedo to lift straight out of the housing, leaving this:



The temp and fuel gauges are held in with smaller nuts, also on the rear of the housing. remove them, and the gauges will come out, after carefully wiggling them past the 4WD and Brake indicator bulb housings....... This is what I wound up with:



Took a .30 caliber bore brush and hit the threaded studs on the backs of the temp and fuel gauges - they cleaned up nicely!!





There is a trim ring between the glass and speedo face, the outer surface is painted black. Mine had scuffs and thin spots in the paint, so I threw a coat of paint on that:





Dropped by the local hobby store and picked up a bottle of Testors Fluorescent Orange paint



Here's the small gauges as they came out:




New paint:



Now, after getting the housing cleaned up, I stuck the temp and fuel gauges back in - Then found this:



This is where it was, and I put it back with double sided tape - may not last long but sitting at the bottom of the gauge I'm hoping gravity helps the tape.....



Next was the speedo needle





Oh, yeah - Since my title already states the mileage is incorrect, and the history of this cluster is unknown, I went ahead and reset the odometer to read zeros..... If it's gonna be incorrect, I might as well log my mileage..... After getting the needle painted, I pondered repainting the orange line from 55 to 85 in orange as it originally was. I figured I only had one shot at it cause removing the orange paint if I screwed it up would also more than likely remove the black paint from the gauge face.... What the hell - What could happen. Here's the result....



Only thing left was to clean the glass (and it was FILTHY, inside and out) and reassemble.... I still need to address dedicated grounds, but I stuck it back together for a pic.... I still can't believe the difference......

 

[gr8dain]

Man. That makes me want to go ahead and rip my dash apart now. Great job.

 

[shum8]

Went ahead and tore the voltage gauge down and gave it the same treatment. This gauge refurb section is going to be picture heavy so if it gets to be too much let me know and I will tone it down. I seem to be getting carried away with the pics these days...... Anyway, here's the gauge as it came out of the dash:








I had to pry the bezel crimp open to remove it, then pulled the glass and rubber gasket, and inner bezel (which was still nice and black). Left the gauge face in the case - didn't figure I needed to break it down that far....







After breaking it down, I cleaned the outside of the case with the bore brush, and it cleaned up rather nicely. Then cleaned the glass, inner bezel, outer bezel, and gasket:





Here's the face before painting:



Now, down to painting the orange..... and green on this one. Masked off around the stripes as last time - thin strips of electrical tape:





All the parts are easy for reassembly:



And all done:



I don't have a factory oil pressure gauge, but do have a mechanical oil gauge - so I'm going to attempt to do the same thing to that one..... I also have a Sunpro water temp gauge...... it was mounted to the bottom edge of the dash, and I'm also gonna refurb this one as well. If the factory temp gauge works I won't need the Sunpro, but I'll probly mount it back under the dash anyway....... I'll post pics of that one and the mechanical oil gauge that will also be refurbed....... if I can.....

 

[Peanut Butter]

Awesome job on the gauges! Keep the pictures coming, I'm sure there are others out there that will follow your lead and repair theirs too.

 

[shum8]

I did get the Sunpro water temp gauge done last night - just cleaned it up and threw some orange paint on the needle. If I hook it back up it'll blend in

Before:



Well, - I thought I had an "after" pic on my phone......I'll throw one on here this afternoon....... The last one to go is the mechanical oil pressure gauge...... I'm assuming I can tear into that one as well. The gauge cleanup had been way easier than I would have ever thought. Now, because I like to do things backwards, I get to check them all for function. I cant remember if they all worked or not. HA. I'm hoping for any that didn't a good ground will fix it. That's also next...... running dedicated grounds to all the gauges.




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Lumpy Grits]

Fantastic detail and :ty: for the detailed posts.
When I have rebuild gauges. I found using a can of compressed air to remove dust/crud from the internals, to be a great asset.
LG

 

[shum8]

I agree - but lacking a can of air, I used the compressor LOL. Had to not get carried away with that....


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[shum8]

Sitting at work today, trying to find a mechanical oil pressure gauge with a chrome trim ring, I was thinking it would also be ok if I used a factory oil pressure gauge, so I started looking for one of those....... Then remembered I had a box of miscellaneous that came with the Jeep. Thought maybe if a PO had swapped in the mechanical and saved the original. Came in from work, rummaged thru the box, and viola!!



Now, I have no idea if it works, like I said I'm hoping it was pulled due to a ground issue. I went ahead and cleaned it up as well..... It disassembled the same as the voltage meter, and this one only needed paint on the needle. Got this one torn down, cleaned, painted, and reassembled in about 40 minutes - too bad I won't need to do anymore - got kinda fast at it..... LOL

Two more pics....





I also dug out the spare under dash wiring harness.... it's EXTREMELY clean.... Now, anyone know how to tell what year it's for without matching up every wire color to wiring schematics? I need a lazy man's way LOL

 

[shum8]

Oh, yeah - Here's the water temp gauge all clean and reassembled...

 

[shum8]

Another cold day here so I stayed inside..... Cleaning more dash stuff. Since I got the gauges cleaned up, I started in on the indicators. I think most are factory, with a couple either newer or aftermarket. Anyways, I grabbed the ones that came out of the dash, including the Wiper indicator that had a broken housing. Fretted over having to buy aftermarket replacement, but remembered the "spares" box. Went rummaging around in it, but didn't see any more indicators...... then for some reason I looked in the ashtray - that was in the box. FOUND TWO MORE IN THE ASHTRAY!!

Here's what I started with:



Here's the broken Wiper unit, gonna use that front plate on the newer unit



So here's the newer Wiper indicator - using the tip of an X-acto knife, I pried the tabs up on the back side of the bezel and removed the bezel then separated the panel from the bezel....







I planned on just replacing the front panel with the older one, but was anxious to see the inside - as to how dirty it was. As you can see it was rather clean, so I didn't need to remove the bulb and contacts. If I had needed to, here's the hole thru which the contact retainer is accessed - depress it with something small and push the contacts thru the inside.



Now - luckily I put this one back together before removing all the other bezels - while reinstalling this bezel, the two retaining tabs on one side broke off - had to use the newer bezel. Moral to this story is, if you choose to open these up, plan on breaking a few tabs - they're old.

And here was my helper - just offering company but good company!! She and her sister had been out playing in the snow for hours...



Here are a few before and after pics - not quite as dramatic as the gauges, but the improvements look a lot better in person:









All clean....



In this shot, the extra wiper housing and defrost front panel are also there...... Since I don't remember what the original indicator should look like for the Fan, is the one in the group a newer version or an older one? Being that it has the fan symbol I'm thinking it is a newer version - Guess I'll use it till I run across an older on to swap in.....



Also over the weekend, while watching it snow a bit, I dug out a spare interior wiring harness to see what I had. Had planned on cleaning the current one, but after looking at the spare, the heck with cleaning the old one - I'm using the spare.... This is what it looked like right out of the spares box:

 

[shum8]

Been messing with the new harness. With the help of a few very knowledgeable folks here I've been able to identify a few unused connectors, and solve a wiper switch / connector issue.... old style switch and new style connector. I also started running new grounds for the gauges that need it. One of my issues (among many others) was the Temp gauge was supposed to have a small metal clip crimped on the back of the gauge to ground to the speedo housing - mine was missing. Broke out the soldering iron, grabbed some (incorrectly colored) wire, and replaced the clip with a ground wire...







Connected that one to the ground wire for the speedo housing and volt meter gauge....



Once I get the dash grounded, I'll connect that to the ground bus on the firewall behind the dash.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[shum8]

Went ahead and soldered up another ground leg to run from the back of the volt meter to the ground stud on the dash, and another to run from the dash stud to the ground stud on the firewall.







Now, the intent was to use a brass screw and nut with stainless ext star washers, but i had a 10-32 screw and a 10-24 nut..... so the stainless screw is just a place holder. And yep - I used a speed nut upside down to hold the ring lug in place on the back of the volt gauge...... will be picking up a proper one soon.

Now, in an effort to commit overkill, I rigged up a ground pad for either side of the firewall - just in case I need to add a few small ground lines later. I found a couple pieces of copper, drilled and tapped for #8 screws, and will also have two 1/4-20 brass studs on either end, these passing thru the firewall. I plan on running a cable from the battery to one of the studs on the engine side of the firewall. Here's a couple pics of the copper pieces bolted to the stud in the orientation they will live in, and the gap in the center is where the firewall will live.

Then, after learning my wiring harness is set up for the intermittent wiper harness, I found one on eBay for 40 bucks, with the correct switch. Came off of an Eagle, so it's factory AMC.



It needs a bath, but that will be easy.....

Now that the dash is coming together, I think it's time to order a piece of vinyl and go ahead and wrap the dash, tailgate, and grill. I wanna see what the color looks like in person, and if I go ahead and wrap the dash, once the gauges go back in, it'll be done!!

Here's a Mustang wrapped in the same color I'm going with..... I REALLY like the depth - the sample piece I have looks like it's a half inch deep.

 

[Lumpy Grits]

I have found that the 'hollow' nut on the gauge GND will come loose over time. I would use a 'real-nut' in it's place.
On the dash GND-The paint needs to be scraped off where the washer makes contact. Cover bare metal with battery terminal spray.
Nice work!
LG

 

[shum8]

Yeah - That was just to hold everything in place while I was working. I'm actually gonna replace all those hollow nuts with thumb nuts..... that sounded funny, Knurled nuts you tighten with your fingers. Finger nuts? knurled nuts? :chug"

 

[Lumpy Grits]

Get the nuts that have a star washer attached to it.
https://www.grainger.com/category/ecatalog/N-1z0dvi9

LG

 

[shum8]

Got to foolin around with the vinyl cutter - bedazzled my water bottle...





Makes the water taste better


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Peanut Butter]

That's cool. You cut the entire thing out of a solid piece of vinyl? I don't think I have hands steady enough to do that.