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Ol' Brown finally getting the treatment it deserves. Fatcaaat's Jeep Rebuild Thread

jmarkel

Scrambled for Life
City
Fairfax Station
State
VA
Hi all. My username on all other forums is Fatcaaat, and hence the thread name for easy search and recall.

The plan is simply....frame off restore/mod if my 1982 Jeep Scrambler. I've had it since 2001 with 38k miles on it and today it has right about 90k. What I want to say is that this build is more about preservation than about restoration, meaning I'm not planning on putting it back together the exact way it came from the factory, but I'm also not planning on axle swaps, lift kits, and all that either. The goal is to have a daily driver, that's quiet, safe and can take mild offroading without too much issue. I'm going to retain the original baby poop brown color but I'll be spraying it myself. The frame will be blasted clean and coated with POR15. The body will have all unexposed metal painted in POR15 as well. Bits and bobs, hinges, etc will be powder coated black.

All parts that were originally chrome or aluminum in color will be changed to black. Braided stainless steel brake lines, dynamat to keep it cool and quite, heater motor blower upgrade, full tub spray of Linex.

Body has a few holes here and there and all of them will be repaired with metal. Only dent in the whole thing is a small one on the hood from me stepping on it in the wrong place while putting the soft top on it.

I plan on taking pictures of progress along the way. But I do have a few questions and hopefully someone can help me with the answers.

1. The whole thing is already to take the body off. But I can't get the stupid emergency cable off. Outside of that I can now remove the body. How do you take that cable off?
2. POR and Linex? do they mix? I plan on sandblasting the whole body down to metal. I certainly will be covering the undersize with POR15. If I coat the inside of the body with POR15 will Linex stick to it?
3. Speaking of linex? Is there any specific advantage to lining both the underside and topside with Linex essentially encasing it? I assume it will have better heat retention and less noise. Is it overkill to do that?
 

gr8dain

Old and Slow
BENEFACTOR
Gold Member
Lifetime Member
SOA Member
City
Ashburn
State
VA
Where is the emergency cable stuck? At the pedal or at the splitter? At the pedal you should be able to use pliers to get it out of the notch in the pedal assembly. Especially if the other end is unscrewed from the thing that splits it into 2 lines to the wheels. At least that is how it works on my 84.


Dain
 

jmarkel

Scrambled for Life
City
Fairfax Station
State
VA
At the pedal...there is seriously no slack. However, I didn't know about detaching at the splitter. I didn't notice anything while I was under there, but I'm sure I just missed it. Once that is out of the way, the body will be ready to come off. Now all I need is some people to lift it!
 

jmarkel

Scrambled for Life
City
Fairfax Station
State
VA
wasn't planning on it. It is in perfectly fine shape as far as I can tell. I suppose I'll figure it out.
 

regular guy

Basic User
City
Cameron
State
NC
Take some pictures of where you're having the problem. It'll help troubleshoot a little better
 

jims chop shop

Scrambler Junkie
Lifetime Member
City
stafford
State
va
Just unhook it from here and you'll be fine
nadymagy-1.jpg
 

jmarkel

Scrambled for Life
City
Fairfax Station
State
VA
Everything is in order now and the body is ready to come off the frame. here's a few questions regarding preparing the body for the linex coating and POR15.
1. There are a few holes in the body here and there. All of the holes are on the floor...nothing exposed to the paint work. Most of them are very small...like less than the cap of an eraser. there are two that are about the size of a quarter. The question is...should I repair those small holes or just assume that blasting, prepping, POR15 and the Linex will take care of them? Of course I'll repair the two quarter size holes with metal.
2. Should I be concerned with floor waviness? From about the front of the wheel wells in the tub to the tailgate, the floor is a little wavy...should I care?
3. What should I do with the extra holes in the body that were once openings for the little side steps or the wooden railings? Weld em shut?

Finally, how much force should be required to lift a body off the frame? I can easily lift the front portion and sides, but I can barely get the rear section to move at all. There is nothing holding it to the frame other than the body rubber grommets? Anyone know how much a tub weighs?
 

Dave The Sparky

Rebuilding my CJ8 very,very slowly...
Member
City
Halifax
State
UK
Two people can lift it (as long as you dont have a bad back), but its far easier with four people,one in each corner.

Have you removed those two sneaky hidden body mounts in front of the fuel tank?
 

AdamH

Scrambler Junkie
BENEFACTOR
Gold Member
Lifetime Member
SOA Member
City
Mt Holly
State
NC
or you can do it yourself with a engine hoist and holding your mouth right. not easy but can be done if you take your time. I did it that way. Used the seat belt bolts and seat frame bolts to attach the chains.

photo.JPG
 

jmarkel

Scrambled for Life
City
Fairfax Station
State
VA
Well, it's finally getting started now...body is off the jeep and secured for the winter. Now the easy part will be to tear the rest down.

Question for you metal guys out there....any videos or hints on how to repair the rust holds on the body? I have some holes ranging from dime size to smaller here and there. I need to repair these but never tried to do so before. I have a flux core mig welder, a bottle gas mig, and a cobra torch and am pretty good with all of them for welding parts...but not for filling sheet metal holes. WOuld love to have some advice!
 

gazzo

AMC Jeep nutjob
Lifetime Member
City
Fremantle
State
WA
Power right down low, 0.6mm wire, solid with gas rather than flux cored is my preference and lots of spotting rather than runs. Go from on side them to the other rather than working around the circle from start to finish. This help reduce the heat build up in one area. Deformation results from that.
Good luck.
 

jmarkel

Scrambled for Life
City
Fairfax Station
State
VA
So I finally got back to this today. I do want to start posting pictures, so I'll need to figure that out.

I pulled the motor today and will be sending it off for a rebuild. Anyone have any good people in and around NOVA? This is my first rebuild project so hopefully some of you that have been through this before can help me through it a bit. I am sure I"ll have some questions along the way...and here is the first one.

What is the best approach to the frame for maximum longevity? My jeep won't be a show jeep when done, but will need to look pretty good. I also don't want to ever have to redo the frame. Should I blast it and POR15? Flap disk it? Sent it out for PC? Just curious what will give me the best and longest lasting result? The frame is in really nice shape with no rust through.
 

jmarkel

Scrambled for Life
City
Fairfax Station
State
VA
Another question: Springs. Is there any real reason to replace my stock leaf springs? They are not saggy that I can tell. I can blast them and give them a coat of paint and replace the bushings and the ubolts and such, but not sure I have a reason to replace the springs themselves. Any reason to believe that the stock original springs would need replacing? Jeep was used 95% onroad since new in 82. I will be replacing the shackles with daystar greasables.
 

John N

Addicted....Ex-SOA VP
BENEFACTOR
Gold Member
Lifetime Member
SOA Member
City
Rockville
State
VA
I'd have to believe that 33 year old springs are sagging. Mine sure were 10+ years ago.
 

jammer1

Scrambler Junkie
Lifetime Member
City
Maple Hts.
State
Oh
On my cj7 I had the frame sandblasted. 5 yrs latter it looked like swiss cheese. It rotted out from the inside out. Sandblasting does nothing for the rust in the frame. On the cj8 I'm building I had the body and frame acid dipped. This way I found out the frame was perfect and the body had metal spot welded in and wouldn't have taken long to rust. If you sandblast I would at least use a product like eastwood sells (never used so don't know how well it works it sounds good in theory). On the dipped frame I poured epoxy primer in the frame and rotated it to coat the inside. Then I did the same with enamel paint (with hardener). I used a garden sprayer and extended the wand with fuel line. Ran it in as far as I could and sprayed as I pulled it out. Then rotated the frame.
 

jmarkel

Scrambled for Life
City
Fairfax Station
State
VA
I'm finally getting back around to my jeep and this thread. So I'll be putting some more regular updates on it.

For now, I have sent the engine out for rebuild because I didn't want to do it quite frankly. I"m keeping the original inline six with the 4.0 head, ford tfi, MSD, borla, and clifford intake with TBI injection. I'm just getting it all fresh as I loved the engine just the way it was.

The frame is going to be cleaned complete with a stiff wire wheel and then blasted clean. I"ll also blast out the inside as well and I'll hook a sprayer up through the frame and spray thorugh there. The rest of the frame will be done in POR15. I have 4 bolts that have snapped off during disassembly, so I have to deal with those first.

As for they body, I"m not sure how I'm going to do it. I am undecided as to whether I will paint it or powdercoat it. I am going to linex the interior of the body.

What is the recommended treatment for the bottom of the tub? Should I do that in POR15? Linex both sides?

UPS has been busy delivering my suspension components. Since my axles were rebuilt about 3 years ago, I do not plan on doing anything to them other than clean and POR15 treatment.

I'm planning on powdercoating all brackets and small parts, the original front bumper, tire swing, and other things. All of that is sitting here waiting to take in.

Color scheme will be gloss black on all the brackets and hinges and such, and the paint will be a chestnut brown, darker than the original brown. I will PC the original wheels brown as well.

So, that's what's going on here.
 

gr8dain

Old and Slow
BENEFACTOR
Gold Member
Lifetime Member
SOA Member
City
Ashburn
State
VA
Good to hear. Can't wait to follow this.
 
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