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My 84 Postal

Mancunian

Lifetime Member
Lifetime Member
City
Bridgeport
State
WV
Happen to have some free time with the latest pandemic situation, so here's some catchup.

Purchased this in 2017 - probably should have done something different - but...

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We started to strip it down immediately, i was in no doubt that the rust bug was everywhere. I hadn't bargained for how bad the floors were though



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Windscreen was a goner

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Took me a while to figure out the diamond-plate - it covered the hinge for the Postal door of course.

The mismatched hinges caused trouble later on as well.
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Floor was not pretty, probably should have stopped there and bought a new tub,but that wasn't on the cards.

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It wasn't bad where the rust preservative had been applied and wasn't cracked, problem is they totally missed areas - did the frame well though (y)

One ulterior motive for this madness was to get one of these

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Got some strengthening added so we can lift the tub off

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This is the driver (RHD) strengthening plate over the forward tub mount - cracked in multiple places, this is what happens when the rubber mounts fail.

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3 weeks in at this point.
 

bigwalton

Alaskan Postal nutjob
FORUM MANAGER
SOA Member
City
Dexter
State
MI
This is the driver (RHD) strengthening plate over the forward tub mount - cracked in multiple places, this is what happens when the rubber mounts fail.

View attachment 81340.

My Postal punched through this last summer with a perfectly good poly mount. I think these just take too much stress with the World Cab.
 

Mancunian

Lifetime Member
Lifetime Member
City
Bridgeport
State
WV
Floor repair in work, i made the mistake of buying some parts not from Classic Enterprises and it took a while to make them work,

My trouble was the floor was rotted further than all the repair panels would have covered anyway, so lot's of patching.20170621_064207.jpg20170628_185124.jpg
Rear wings (Quarterpanels) didn't look too bad at first, thought I might have been able to save them at one point
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X marks the spot (first pass at figuring out where to cut out
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And the tub comes off, that's one advantage to having 3 boys, i knew there had to be a reason:LOL:




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Holes...

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More patches,

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Those that are observant will notice that i cut the tub cross-member and have removed both rhs rails, cutting the welds takes a while - drill a #40 hole after you find the weld center and then use a holesaw, amazingly i didn't break the cutter. Both outside rails were toast, i used Classic enterprises replacements - perfect fit.

I had to replace a fair bit of the inner sheetmetal here - took a while to beat it into shape.

10 pictures - that's it for this post.

Maybe 2 months in at this point, it's going to be a while......
 
Last edited:

jerseyjeeps

Crazy about AMC Jeeps
Lifetime Member
City
Landing
State
NJ
My Postal punched through this last summer with a perfectly good poly mount. I think these just take too much stress with the World Cab.

Yes my Overlander was punched through in the late 90s, repaired in Oz...lots of flexing and that big heavy sexy top and viola! a recipe for crackage...
 

Mancunian

Lifetime Member
Lifetime Member
City
Bridgeport
State
WV
So here's a picture of the offending pad area, the washer that contacts the tub has been distorted - once that happens it only contacts at the center.


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I decided to but weld all the patch pieces rather than make a lap joint or add a doubler, it takes a little more care to cut out but looks way better in the end.

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Hmm, various parts of the steering gear were bent also, in the end I decided that someone had dropped it off a trolley jack -or jack anyway.

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Looks a bit better with some paint on, I'm a fan of red oxide primer, but also overcoated that with epoxy primer, some topcoat and just applied Rusfre black wax over that. Didn't need the topcoat in case you're wondering.
Keen eyes will notice the lack of crossmembers under the bed floor, we took those off so we could repair the bed floor,the white is phosphoric acid stains to remove rust. With the body up this way you can repair /replace the LHS bed quarter panels - mine were all toast.

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Fairly cramped in the garage, i had Jeep parts all over the house at this point,
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My boss scraping the original underseal off the frame.
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Like many items i had hoped to buy new springs, fact of the matter is i couldn't justify that, i don't know if i have any after pictures, in the end we dissembled them. cleaned them up, painted and then reassembled with new pads and clamps, - more time and way less money.

Took a trip to Huntington WV to get some 4.1 Axles and half doors, my first time messing with differentials , hope it works.
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This is not a wheeling jeep, light weekend use only.

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This is after we coated the frame with urethane chassissaver (= POR15), looks like there's no paint on it doesn't it.

Well that's because it all came off. Lesson learned, for the urethane rust coats you must have a rust for it to coat, or it just peels off.
Even where it was moderately rusty and we had sanded it - the stuff disbonded. Personally I will never use the like again.

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Epoxy primer was the cure, we used some Eastwood coating for the inside of the frames and have since followed that with wax.
 

Mancunian

Lifetime Member
Lifetime Member
City
Bridgeport
State
WV
Stripped the engine somewhat, didn't pull the head and hence the pistons, cam and cam followers, but replaced all the other gaskets, mains looked ok as did the oil pump.
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Frame looks a tad better

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Back on the tub

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I removed the inside lower valence to do some repair work - rear mounts were gone.
The bed floor is part finished at this point, i attached the smaller crossmembers to the floor before removing the larger aft crossmember as i had some concern about the bed floor buckling with the supports removed and the amount of patches.

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You can't really see it but the tub is supported on 2x4 at strategic intervals, - it's nice having flat sides.

Oh and the main crossmember under the front of the floor was extensively repaired, in fact it was completely removed to do that, just don't have pictures. The outboard 6-8" was rotted each side.

About 15 months to get this far, working 4 nights a week and Sunday afternoons,
 

Mancunian

Lifetime Member
Lifetime Member
City
Bridgeport
State
WV
Some more pictures of the floor repair in work
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What to do about the wheelhousings? Toast adjacent to the wheelarches, both the mating surface and about 1" in.

Classic sells them, but again difficult to justify

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Well the anser to that will have to wait, apparently i have to organize my pictures
 

Mancunian

Lifetime Member
Lifetime Member
City
Bridgeport
State
WV
I decided to try to repair the wheelhousings by fabricating new outside portions.
First the offending rusty parts were removed at a suitable break point
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Then a wooden former was made and some 18ga steel cut and welded to make the repair pieces. - Then welded in using the quarter panels to provide exterior location.
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Heres the passenger side wheelhouse complete
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And turned over ready for the other side
Wish we had a spit to rotate it on - would have saved a deal of time. the disadvantage for this build would have been the need for a lot more temporary reinforcing though.
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Fast forward a bit on this part, I was pretty pleased with this -especially after we applied Rhinoliner coating to the bed area.
 
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