74 Cj5 Renegade Restoration... Progress & Pics

Love it!keeps me going

 

I'm interested to see how consistent you can get the body gaps. I suspect that jeep wasn't super concerned with it when they were originally built.

 

Yep. Or visible spot weld dimples.

 

Cool. Distinctive color and graphics. I had not noticed that the black hood center was vinyl. Maybe it was not in previous years?

 

Thanks Tyler... Been fun. Congrats #100 ! Milestone for sure...

 

Color is cross matched to 510 Renegade Yellow. The original hood graphic when I got it from TX was completely faded, all white. but was definitely a 'decal' above the paint. You could see it peeling and/or chipped at the edges. I assume vinyl. I used Phoenix Graphics. Which for those looking for graphics, use them! 100% spot on...

Gapping definitely has been the hard part...to get perfect. I hope to get it a bit closer on that Driver's fender. Agree, doubt the Jeep line guy gave much thought to it. But I hope to get closer.

When the body shop had the jeep. I went and talked with their paint guys. I specifically asked that the body does not get 'Over Worked'... I wanted to see the spot welds, and some of the imperfections of the original manufacturing of the panels. They nailed it! Many spot welds are just visible, some original imperfections are also there. The only thing that was very hard for them was the Yellow. They said the coverage was very hard, harder than they expected. Many parts had to get repainted because the gray primer would darken the Yellow. They used 2.5 Gallons of base color. Still few things to get repainted due to that grayish tone...added to the final Punch List.

 

seems like they're built in the back of a barn, when in reality you're experiencing factory work

 

That is absolutely beautiful Chris. I can only imagine what it feels like to step out in the garage and see it.

Regarding the hood gap, do you know if all of the panels are factory? I ask because my '73 had the drivers fender replaced sometime in it's presumedly sordid past.
I have a hood gap too, I think it's on the left but I can check tomorrow. I haven't looked closely at other CJ5's but wouldn't it be something if many of them had that drivers side hood gap.

Maybe a jig was off center on the assembly line, or the guy hanging the grill had one leg shorter than the other...

 

Yep all factory. And I checked my pics before I broke things down and the gap is even and as I'd expect. So it will just take me some time to figure out what has to be loosened and moved across all the front pieces. Bit of a puzzle to figure out. It's been fun so far I can say that. Look forward to driving it!

 

+ or- 1/2 inch per the body book. That’s a huge tolerance think + 1/2 on one panel and -1/2 on the adjacent one that’s an inch and would have been in spec. Compared to a modern ride most are a few mm one way or the other.

 

Please let us know what it is when you figure it out so I can fix mine
I wonder if a couple extra pairs of hands to shift and hold the pieces would help.

I left my fenders attached to the grill when I pulled the body off the frame, but I did loosen the grill support rods so it may be something in there that is throwing mine off.

 

Suggestions please...Trying to align the fender to Hood gap better. Both fender's bottom are level to bottom of tub and flat to tub at the mounting bolts. Hood gap across Cowl is dead even all the way across, about 1/8". Passenger fender has 1/4" hood gap at tub side running out to just bit more, maybe 3/8" at the grill side. I think that is good but not sure why it would not be 1/4" at both ends (level fender level hood). Driver Fender has hood gap at tub side of about 1/2" running to 5/8" or almost 3/4" at Grill. This is bad. I've tried everything to spread the distances across both fenders by adjusting hood a bit, or grill. but that didn't work. Can't think of what else to adjust. It seems the Driver fender needs to raise up leaving all else the same. But can't because bolt holes are set, with very little up adjustments. Plus that would make the bottom of the fender not even with bottom of the tub. What am I missing ? Nothing seems to work. I've got to set it aside and come back to it with fresh ideas before I do damage. Will move on to Wiring always a stress free task!

 

You might try extra washers under the drivers side front body mounts to twist the tub a little bit. You can test by unbolting the mounts and lifting the left front tub corner gently with a jack to see if it makes a difference.

 

Today was a great day.... Fired up the engine for the first time! Of course it's a Jeep...so it did not go as planned. I had to reset the distributor as I was out of phase, reset to 5-BTDC on compression stroke, and then it fired right up. Did a 30min break in which was tricky since my Tach wasn't working yet. I think I may have over revved a bit during the time, I really hope that didn't hurt things, but tried to stay in the 1-3k by ear and varied it across that range. Need to get the Tach wired in so I can set idle and mixtures and adjust any timing again if needed. Best part not a single oil leak, coolant leak, or power steering leak! Great oil pressure at Idle 18-20 PSI. But went up into the 60s at higher revs. 180-190 Temp at idle, 200s in higher revs.

Now the bad. Still have issues with wiring. My achilles heel! No turn signals at all from the Spartan. No horn. Brakes light up other things. Fuel Gauge while it works, seems way off. I put a measured 10-gal in the tank. And gauge ranges from 1/2 a tank to 1/4 tank, sometimes settles into the middle of those two but never above 1/2 with the 10-gallons. Anyone know if there is an adjustment to the Gauge or Sender I missed? My Gauge is the reverse sweep with 'F' to the left/bottom and 'E' right/top. It's almost like the sender is opposite. I'm going to try and borrow a Ohms tool that will push a set Ohms and see what that does to the Gauge. When I tested, I had 54-Ohms at the sender wire. Can the Gauge and Sender be "mismatched"...meaning did I put in a Sender that has 76+ gauge sweep which is reversed? Got the sender new and it said for a '74. Gauge is original but restored by gauge restoration shop that I trust did it right. I expected it to setting into 3/4 range.

Just imagine you hear the nice steady rumble of a 304! Can't upload the video...

 

All the little things... Details right. Decal night!

 

where can i get that warn hubs decal?

 

I found it on Ebay not too long ago... I have the original one that the dealership never installed. But it was a bit rough from sitting in a bag in the glove box with the manuals and what-not. There are two versions of this decal out on the net that I came across. The one in the pic matches the original '74. If I recall the hub icon is what was different between the years.

 

willing to part with the one that's a bit rough?

 

I am in the process of doing the same thing to mine - where did you get the decals?