walkerhoundvm's rebuild thread

[walkerhoundvm]

Whelp, after 8.5yrs, my build thread is finally a build thread. Drove her the 5 miles to Drew Norman's Jeep Farm for its extreme makeover. New tub, new 5.3 vortec engine, ax15 transmission, and all the fixins.

Here's the way she looked when I left her, halfway torn down already. Those 5 miles were... Interesting!

 

[walkerhoundvm]

Spent the weekend reworking the 5.3 harness. The end result was very refreshing:

 

[tower210]

That’s some work!

 

[walkerhoundvm]

That’s some work!

About 8hrs so far, but I'm being super thorough. Not including reading, which I'm doing a lot of. There were three unknown wires I spent a couple hours reading up on, just to be sure they weren't important.

Still have to reloom and assemble the fuse and relay bundle.

 

[mysunnshine]

The problem is that when you are done giving that harness a haircut, you still have brittle old connectors and crunchy wire insulation. The best money you will spend is on a new harness.

 

[walkerhoundvm]

Builders got everything off already. Needs new frame-tub mounts. Parting out the old drive train pretty quickly.

 

[walkerhoundvm]

Nearly finished the harness. I expect there'll be some post-install shortening, but it's a start. Just waiting on another roll of tape and finishing up the relay/fuse panel.

 

[tower210]

Nice work!!

 

[walkerhoundvm]

Been working on a number of take-home projects: heater box rebuild, seat bracket painting, and rock slider painting.

Rebuilt the heater box, and for the first time in over a decade, it's in complete working order:



Also went to work on a set of Rocky Road rock sliders. They came with a glossy powder coat, but the rest of my trim is textured. A little 200 grit, some self-etching primer, and paint to finish them off:



More waiting up next. This week the frame had the tub mounts replaced (from Rusty's Off-road) and the Dana 44 rebuilt. Soon, we'll mock up the tub and do some preliminary drilling for the top, tonneau, rails, etc.

 

[tower210]

Make sure you dry fit the RR Sliders for your body lift (I had 1"). They shipped mine with the mounts wrong and it required alot of work to fix (and they still aren't perfect).

 

[walkerhoundvm]

Make sure you dry fit the RR Sliders for your body lift (I had 1"). They shipped mine with the mounts wrong and it required alot of work to fix (and they still aren't perfect).

No body lift for me. Did a mock up prior to taking her to the shop, but the new tub may position differently. They looked spot on with the old tub, but I've been wondering if they need to be welded to the frame. They're pretty dang heavy.

 

[tower210]

No body lift for me. Did a mock up prior to taking her to the shop, but the new tub may position differently. They looked spot on with the old tub, but I've been wondering if they need to be welded to the frame. They're pretty dang heavy.

I used the strange anchors they sent but wasn’t happy with the ( a couple broke when seating with my impact ) so I had them welded on.

 

[walkerhoundvm]

I used the strange anchors they sent but wasn’t happy with the ( a couple broke when seating with my impact ) so I had them welded on.

Mine came with about a dozen large self-tapping screws for each side.

 

[sevensandeights]

Your heater box looks great! I've spent 4 hours this weekend trying to find a replacement for this bolt:



It's a shoulder bolt with a hex head. Thread is #10-24 and overall length is 3/4". The shoulder diameter is 5/16" and the shoulder length is 5/32". After looking everywhere online, I'm going to make my own using a bushing. Most shoulder bolts are socket cap head and I couldn't find any of those with these specs either. I'd like to add this little bolt to the list of Jeep CJ unobtanium!

 

[sevensandeights]

For posterity:

 

[walkerhoundvm]

Working on the tub mount alignment, more mocking up next week!

 

[CJ7Pilot]

Working on the tub mount alignment, more mocking up next week!

Don't tighten your body mounts until you have it fully assembled.

While I had my grille removed for an engine replacement, I installed new body mounts. I shuffled the body around until it looked just right, then tightened all the bolts. When I finally got the grille re-installed, my hood wouldn't latch, and it was skewed to one side (I never removed the hood, and the hood hinges were not moved from their factory setting).

I loosened all the body bolts, and bumped it around until the hood lined up correctly.

In retrospect, I suppose I could have just adjusted the hood hinges... oh well, food for thought!

 

[walkerhoundvm]

We've got a long

Don't tighten your body mounts until you have it fully assembled.

While I had my grille removed for an engine replacement, I installed new body mounts. I shuffled the body around until it looked just right, then tightened all the bolts. When I finally got the grille re-installed, my hood wouldn't latch, and it was skewed to one side (I never removed the hood, and the hood hinges were not moved from their factory setting).

I loosened all the body bolts, and bumped it around until the hod lined up correctly.

In retrospect, I suppose I could have just adjusted the hood hinges... oh well, food for thought!

We've got a long way to go yet

 

[mhinchliffe]

Dang, this thread is getting some legs now. Progress looks AWESOME!

 

[wm69]

Looking good!