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The Descrambler Project

Randy: after a trip to Pepboys today i finally found the stuf tha t cuts the weather stip Goo

CRC electrial parts clean in a spray can.

I got my windows completely disassmembled today and got all of the crap (mostly) removed.

Tomarrow I''ll talk to Statewide Alum to see if I can get them to redo them for me.

They were talking like the major stickin point was the glass. my glass is good, but I was going to have Airway Glass in VTA cut me new windows to match the windshield they are making for me, out of tinted glass.

It would be much cooler inside with tinted glass. and it won't cost but $25 bcks for the 4 small pieces.

I'll update tomarrow.

Randy
 
Heck of a price for the windows. :thumbsup:

CRC huh? I finally remember I used 3M adhesive remover.

I've got to find good weatherstrip for mine- my hardtop windows mount like the CJ front window, with a gasket.
 
Randyzzz said:
I've got to find good weatherstrip for mine- my hardtop windows mount like the CJ front window, with a gasket.
Click to expand...

Ask jeff what he used for putting the windows in the World Cab he did. Same deal there.
 
Randy: make sure it's the CRC Electrical Parts cleaner

The CRC Brake Clean wouldn't touch the stuff.

Plus who knows, your goo may be different than my goo and require a different solvent.

I went to Diedrich's paint counter prior to going to Pepboys, and the guy sold me some stuff that was supposed to be identical to the 3M Stuff you were talking about. it was Naptha based and wouldn't touch the GOO, I returned it.

I tried everything that pepboys had before I bought anything, I think this is the prudent thing to do in this case, as most adhesives are solvent type specific.

I will probably use the 3M goo to reassemble which comes in strips about 12" long and 1/8" thick and 3/8" wide.

We'll see.

Any Glass shop that does Industrial Equipment glass, like windows for cranes etc should be able to supply the gasket material. Airway Glass in Ventura said he had it, and would replace the lower windows in my doors easily. They had a door from one of OST's cranes in the shop and it was held in just like my windows were. The gasket was the standard H section but it also had a "Key strip" whcih held it tight in the door frame.

Randy
 
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Ordered Rally Top

Ordered My top Monday 6/21/10 will be a full month before it arrives. Turns out his Scrambler tops are made in Tennesee. He is going to waive shipping due to him telling me all of his product was made in LA CA. 70 miles from my house.

I don't think quality will be a problem with this top, as I've seen several other Rally tops and they were all decent stuff.

I am trying to come up with a nice way to tie the top down to the body. I have several ideas but won't be able to really sus it out until the top arrives. Will probably just use his existing over center latches and put 3 down each side and two on the windshield.

We'll see how it goes. Stay tuned.

Randy
 
Well,,, I have finally been successful in mounting my doors to the Fiberglass body.. I'm talking the Acme doors which I purchased about a month or so ago.

This was not and easy project. In fact it was, and still, is a major PITA! But I have at least gotten to the point where there are no more surprises, and now it is just a matter of fixing all of the small things to make these doors really become part of the body.

The Drivers door fit the hole in the body really well. Lined up well and when I drilled for the hinges, it took the new holes precisely. This is after I completely disassembled the doors down to just fiberglass and fixed all of the cracks and filled all of the wallowed out holes for the the hinges and latches. :thumbsup:

The passenger door was completely another matter. :evil: I diddled with it for 2 days trying to find the best "compromise location" in the body for it so that eventually the door seal would actually do something. I kept looking at it and measuring the body and the drivers door, and cogitating, and generally didn't feel good about it one bit. Finally I said F I and just drilled the holes for the upper hinge. Well one went thru fine but the lower one was exactly half way into one of the previously filled holes, and since epoxy drills harder than dead plywood, the hole walked. I managed to salvage the install with the rest of the holes, and ended up with a door that "kind of fits" . At least it is "adjustable" , so it will work.

I also cut the bottom hinges so that they only utilize 2 screws. this was because left full length they would have interferred with the lower window in the doors. The top hinge takes the majority of the load and the bottom hinge kind of prevents the door from swinging around, so it should be fine.

Also I drilled and tapped the fiberglass to temporarily mock up the positions for all of the holes. When final assembly takes place all of these holes will get drilled thru and replaced with thru bolts and steel backup plates both in the dooors and the body also. That should last for the rest of the life of the Jeep.

It was about that time that I finally figured out why the doors were different.

The front edge of the passenger door where the seal goes tapers about 3/8" from top to bottom. The drivers door is strait. See Pic below. :banghead:

This will have to be filled so it matches the drivers door and also so the seal will work right.

Randy
 
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Mounting the Door Latches.

Mounting the door latches made the mounting of the doors look easy.

It took nearly 2 hours with a die grinder and burrs to cut the place in the door jamb for the striker plate. Mind you this is fiberglass!

I 've got to tell you that,,,,,I have finally, after 45 years, solved the problem of working with fiberglass. You have a vacuum cleaner suck everything up as you work! I went so far as to tape the nozzle of the vacuum right next to the work area, and I have to say I have no itches whatsoever! :thumbsup:

I think the 2 most important tools I own in my machine shop are my air compressor and my vacuum cleaner.

I did the passenger side first and whereas it took a long time to actually gouge out the place for the plate it actually went pretty well. and fit correctly when done.

That's when one of the bigger and more unpleasant surprises showed itself. I closed the door only to find that the striker pin was a full 1" inside of the latch! I don't know how this happened as the latches are mounted exactly where they were on the doors and there is only one place the striker plate can go. Reality is not always kind. :banghead:

Anyway I looked at this problem for about an hour, using all explicatives common to such a case. I figured that if I spaced the latch off the door it would hit the seat back and also all of the external hardware would have to be changed and then my roommate suggested offsetting the pin. VIOLA :thumbsup: Good idea. So I made a proof of concept plate and it works prefectly on both doors with plenty of adjustment to include the door seal.

Then,,, I went to mount the other striker plate and found out it would sit in a completely different place than the first one. Reason is the inner wall of the body is not in the same place as on the passenger side. :angry: So after another hour of cogitation I came up with the fix for that which was to space the striker plate off the inside 1/4" which ended up putting it in the same relative position as the other side. See pics. I love this stuff :rotfl: It just keeps coming.

Incidentially, if you are considering using a fiberglass body, and are expecting an easy close fitting factory type installlation, Dream on ! :crazy: this body which is 15 years newer than my last project is nothing close to the fit that I got on my CJ5, It has been 5 times the work to get this one in the ballpark and I'm by no means done. I have had to "average" so many things on this body it is really a joke. If I had only known from the get go how it was going to be I probably wouldn't have jumped off the cliff. 'course what fun would sitting on the edge wondering be? :D

Tomarrow I will make the finished Stainless Steel Offset Striker Pins Which will actually look like they belong there.

Remains to be seen if they will gouge big chunks of meat out of me getting in and out of the Jeep... Might need one of them user warning placards stuck on the door. :smokin:

Here's pics of this part of the project.

Randy
 
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Sent windows for rebuild.

I completely dissassembled my sliding windows. this was not too hard, and it made painting them much easier.

I used an automotive satin black trim paint that I got from one of the local auto paint stores. It was $12 for one spray can of paint :eek: However the stuff worked so well it was worth the price.. You just about couldn't do anything wrong with the stuff, and it is supposed to stick on there real well. I guess well see. I know the piece parts all looked real good when they dried.

Turns out the replacement glass for my windows wasn't $25 for all the glass,,, it was $45 for each piece of glass!

So,,,, my windows are getting rebuilt using the same original glass. I'll probably have them tinted with overlay tint when the windows return. The Jeep would look stupid with all tinted glass except on the doors.

They got sent off in pieces to Statewide Aluminum in Elkhart IN last week, and hopefully will return in one piece in a couple of weeks.

I'll post some pics of the finished windows as soon as they arrive.

Randy
 
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Your work looks great, as usual. I personally don't like fiberglass for the "variation" reasons you stated. Not looking forward to the work planned on my top to bring it up to "my" specs.

Even with the offset pin, maybe you could build up a "bump" in the edge to smooth in the protruding part?

Are you sure moving the latch on the door might not be the better solution? (Is the offset pin going to bug you every time you look at it?) The stock steel doors had a latch that cleared both the seats and the pin.

How about using the latches from a set of bestop soft doors? They should mount into the fiberglass door easily. Lack of a lock is their biggest drawback, but I'm sure a lock could be retrofit in like on Semi sleeper door latches.
Just a thought.
 
Randy: I'll be able to see if moving the latches in would be a problem when I put the seats in during final assembly. I haven't altered any of the striker parts , just made additional parts so I can go back the other way if needed. What I'm making out of Stainless will look good enough to offset just being there. the spacers for the latches would have to be 1" thick which is kind of alot. We'll see.

I can't build up the door jamb around the striker like you suggest because the door seal has to go there.

I have 3 fiberglass bodies. The CJ5 went together pretty easily, but it only has a soft top on it. The CJ 8 body itself is not bad, other than the minor issue with the inner and outer body pieces not being lined up perfectly. Dimensionally it is pretty good and both sides are almost indentical. The problems have all been with the add on parts like fenders, hood, tailgate, and especially the windshield frame.: angry: These parts all looked good at first glance, the problems with these parts did not surface until I started to put them together, then I saw where all of the issues were.

The fenders and hood on my CJ5 body went together just like steel ones would except I had to drill some holes in the fenders. Everything lined up just fine and I didn't have to modify anything. That's not the case on this batch of Scrambler parts.

I've got a CJ7 body which I bought used from a buddy. It got stripped but had been a running vehicle, so I am expecting it to go back together relatively easily. It has some thin places and minor cracks, but I know how to fix this type of stuff now. I'm thinking about building it as a play Jeep with minimal equipment, like bare minimum. Wheels, engine, something to hold onto. That way fitment issues won't come up. :thumbsup:

It's really OK, I guess I just like to snivel. I really do love this stuff ! :rotfl:

Randy
 
We all love this stuff, no matter the complexity of the brain teasers.

Keep us posted, I'm enjoying watching your build.
 
The fun continues!

Well the fun continues, :rotfl: my disassembled windows arrived in Elkhart Indiana at Statewide aluminum only to find out that statewide did NOT make them and has no material to reassemble them!:angry::angry::angry::banghead::banghead:

The guy a statewide gave me the name of another outfit and i called them , and then they gave me another name and this went on 3 more times. Now I am at Blackhawk MFG in Riverside CA and it looks like they might be using a new window that is like mine.

If so I will buy new ones from them.

The problem I have found on this excercise is that NOBODY really knows what they are talking about on this subject. :crazy: I will, by virtue of my research, become the worlds foremost authority on aftermarket sliding windows and have a database of all of the known suppliers. :ZZZ: This has happened to me before with the engine in my CJ5, and I am one of the "experts" on the Mercruiser 181(Chev motor). didn't really want that title either.

All I really wanted was to get mine rebuilt. :shrug:

Randy
 
I am driving to Rialto CA tomarrow to look at some replacement windows for my doors. Just hope it is not a wasted trip, as there are no guarantees. :crazy:

Moving along,,, the painter is coming tonite to look at the project, and discuss what kind of prep work I need to do on the body before I dump it on him. :D

I finished my offest striker pins and they look and work good. They are made of stainless and will get a stainless bolt on final assembly. Burned myself several times polishing them.:eek:

here's some pics.

Randy
 
Yep, those look awesome and I'd be proud of them every time I opened the door. Great Job!
 
Yes: well my trip to Rialto (2hrs each way) was a bust. the windows they are using are completely wrong dimensionally. they look really nice but they won't fit so I matters not. :banghead:

The windows they are using are made by Hehr International. This oufit won't do business with individuals so I had to punt yet again.

Searched RV windows on Goog.

Second hit was a database of RV components and Motion Windows in Vancouver WA. was one of the glass suppliers. www.motionwindows.com.

They make windows for alot of highend equipment, like Monarch Motor homes, high end boats, Tucker Sno-Cats, and the list goes on. They have really nice products and a bazillion of them. :thumbsup:

They are very flexible in the manufacturing requirements. They also have a parallel business called "One Day Glass" which does car windshields, windows etc. They have their own tempering ovens so they are very flexible, and don't need to rely on other outfits and can do everything associated with cutting and tempering glass in house..

They will make my Custom windows,,, $300 each, a little more than I wanted to pay, but since I haven't found anyone else who will even do the job I guess its a bargain. :shrug:

These are also double sliders, which means both panes move, as opposed to the original ones which were rear slide only. This is exactly what I wanted, and will help greatly with ventalation. They will be made to order from my exact dimensions. Light grey tinted glass also.

Getting what you want the first time is usually worth the price. My dad always said,,, "Buy the best, Only cry once." I have no problem with that concept,, I guess I was born with it.:eek: History has proven him right many times.

We'll see how this thread works out., but I have to say it is the best looking shot I've had so far, and they are reliable. The guy I talked to (Jeff) was real sharp and understood what I was trying to do, better than I do. that's a good start! :cheers:

Randy
 
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Well as time passses by I am still waiting for my top to arrive in LA.

It is supposed to be here Friday 8/27/10. Shipped yesterday 8/23/10

No word on my windows for the doors yet either but I expect to see them shortly.

Will be pulling the body this weekend to take to LA to have the top installed.

I'll post some pics when I get back from that.

Then it's back into fab work to finsih the frame and final build up from the ground.

I'll have jeep parts scattered everywhere, until it all ends up in one pile, RUNNING! :bow:

Time marches on. :banghead:

Here's a pic of the list of things left to do, but it's only complete up to a point, and there will end up being much more added by the time I'm done.

Randy
 
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Can't enlarge it enough to read, but it's probably longer than my list! ;)
 
Well my Rally tops Full Hard Top has finally arrived and I am going to pick it up next week. I am removing my body this weekend (Labor Day) so I can fit the top at Rally tops facility in Gardena CA. About 1 1/2 hrs from my house.

I will post pics as soon as I have some.

Well here it is. You'll notice the finish has some minor issues. This is because I chose not to have Rally tops paint the finish color on the top. It will be done when the rest of the body is painted. Normally it would be painted with your choice of colors, but generally those colors are white, gray or black or maybe some kind of tan but all are normally a speckle finish, which I didn't want.

Randy
 
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