65 CJ6A Tuxedo Park purchase/restore

Thanks Windyhill, PM sent...

 

I kind of have some downtime waiting for parts to come back. I went down to the motor shop and I got the thumbs up from the doctor. He had it torn down and just out of the parts cleaner. It almost looked new. He is going to make it run better than new and address about 6 small issues.

I still need to get going on finding the rest of the powertrain. My Tux at some point got switched over to a top shift T90. I want to go all retro and column shift. That adds a ton of money over just rebuilding what I got and adds playing find the part game. If I go with a side shift, I would need to swap over to a small hole Dana 18 , and then get the ebrake since mine was removed at some point.

So Im going for it. All I currently have is the shift column. My fellow Jeeper Bruce, got me in touch with a guy who makes an awesome repro of the shifter lever. I think I might just have to get a pricey rebuilt side shiftT90 with a small hole D18 unless I can get a used one. I still need the shift linkage.

I also need to find the chrome license plate light, tail lights and bumpers and I will have all of the tux parts, I think.

 

Too bad you are way out on the west coast. Coming up in April is the spring swap meet in Carlisle, PA where there will be literally hundreds of acres of car stuff. I always say, if you can't find it at Carlisle then it never existed. Of course, you may have to walk a hundred miles and to find what you are looking for but that's the fun of it.

You can also check many of the standard Jeep vendors like kaiserwillys.com as they have a decent selection of used parts. The problem is, since they are Jeep experts, they know how rare the things are and price them accordingly. Whereas sometimes you can find stuff at swap meets like Carlisle where the guy doesn't know what he has.

 

Bumpers and tail lights are tough to find. There are painted Hall repro tail lights out there but not chrome. I don't know if the license plate light I have is a duplicate of original but it works. Maybe someone will have numbers/photo of the original. The numbers on mine are SAE-L-88-D.O.T.


I have rear bumper brackets and I think you could make or have them made with dimensions. Let me know if you need that.

 

Notice the different painted area on the hood badge. Which one is correct or did they change between 65 and 66? Anybody??

 

Is that a reflection making it look reverse of yours?

 

My passenger side is the same. It is original and not the photo.

 

Today I tore into the body using a 7 inch grinder and a DA. It was very hard work and I have several hours to go. To my surprise, the body was pretty straight under a ton of bondo. There was evidence of a spare tire mounted on the passenger side of the body. Major damage around the passenger side wheel quarter panel. Still trying to figure out what colors the Tux's came. I like the 65 Artic Blue poly and the spruce tip green. Does anybody know if those colors were offered on the Tux. I want the color to be correct.

 

Really? I love Carlisle but have found very little Jeep stuff there over the years....now that gut did find those original 2A lights there last year though! mehh Believe me I was looking but I missed them.

 

Are mine painted the same as yours? I am the second owner and the Tux was only 4 years old when I bought it. I re-painted mine back the way they were when I bought it but are mine correct with the lettering being black?

 

To be honest, I have never gone looking for Jeep stuff. But I have been there many times and, from my experience, what you need is most likely there but may be impossible to find.

 

So I scored this week and got some hard to parts like the side shift linkage and the chrome license plate light. I have all the parts need for the side shift trans. Im still looking for the tux bumpers, mirror, and tail lights. Today, I shot some primer for the first time. I used an Harbor freight gun and it failed near the end of the first coat. It was clogging, dripping and spraying like orange peel. Today was practice anyways, shooting the underside of the body before rubber undercoat, so It was fun. I ended my day by tossing the gun in the trash.

 

Did you clean out the vent hole? if this clogs it won't work very well if at all. or it could just be HF junk.mehh

 

So I got the front driveshaft ujoints and I included a picture of the part number for later reference. Pricy at 28 bucks a piece.

 

So I have made some major progress on the body. I have taken all the paint off. I tried several different ways to strip and found the Home Depot 4" paint remover pads for the angle grinder are the best. I went through 8 of the $10 pads and it was money well spent.



After the paint came off, I made a couple patch panels and removed the rusty metal.


The passanger side rear spare tire carrier killed the rear quarter pannel, so I grafted in another corner from a later model.

 

Since this jeep had a sidewinder winch, the installer placed the mount about an inch to close to the grill. Easy fix for them, they just bashed three of the grill slats back into the engine compartment. For the winch wires, I dont believe they had a large drill bit so they drilled a small hole and opened it up with pliers. It all had to be fixed!

 

Another amazing thing about an old jeep is the amount of holes drilled into the body over the years. I am carefully plugging every non factory hole on the body and dash. When in doubt, I fill because I can always drill a hole out after paint . I decided to stay with original white with hurculiner in the cab and the eastwood rubber coating underneath. If all goes smooth, I hope to be done with the body and paint by the end of April.

 

Great work! Keep the pictures coming.

 

Great metal work. The grille looks great.

 

Outstanding! You, Sir, are handy...bunny with a pancake