2X4 frame for my CJ2A

Cut off the corner to make the triangular cover for the corner.

Made the covers too. I will drill holes, clean them up and plug weld them tomorrow maybe.

 

Yeah, soon enough. The plastic jeep palace works pretty good at keeping the rain off and the mill scale takes a bit to rust through. There are some aspects that must be attended to before a real coat of primer happens. The tunnel section for the transmission needs attention and the modifications for swinging pedals will occur. i also need to fix some hacked up stuff where the fender and tub meet. I am also thinking hard about making a battery box in the cowl from the engine side in. I could also pretty easily put it under the passenger side seat.

I am beginning to be very happy with how this bed and wheelhouse project is turning out. Very happy. The corner cut off and covers seem to finish it and make it look a bit less home made. Its so strong.

 

Are you going to seal up the seams along the edges and top of the wheel wells?

 

You may want to weld some small ribs inside the fender wells so they don't oil can and make noise. Kinda like you did in the bed floor.

 

Nice job on those corners. I didn't think it was necessary when you first mentioned it but it sure does look better with them cut out. Your plastic palace makes me feel guilty working insdie next to the wood stove.

 

nope. Its sealed as much as it was originally. Its going to get a good coat of primer and paint and I will call it good. No way to keep out water especially since I don't have a top.

I considered doing that, but the steel is so thick that i cannot do anything to it. Its kind of ridiculous. I may put in supports in the same places inside the wheelhouse, but maybe not. Its really overbuilt. I may just put them in as a deflector of road debris for the tail lights and filler hoses. Those i might make removable for service.

Thank you. I didn't think it was necessary either until I did it. Now its a necessity. Don't feel bad about my plastic palace, its a significant upgrade from what Im used to. Until recently I had gravel to pull engines and transmissions on. I would just put down 3/4 plywood to roll stuff on. I am so happy I poured all that concrete and made the plastic palace. Its also 70* here. its like paradise! I told my wife one day that I was going to put up a pole barn OVER my house and entire yard. She took me seriously.

 

cleaned up and ready to plug weld. Other side is the same.

 

I think you should reconsider this step and apply a good seam sealer to the joints before primer/paint. You have voiced your frustration many times dealing with the thin body material and rust. Why set yourself up and have to deal with it again in the future when the unprotected joints start decaying due to collecting moisture and east coast road crud?

 

I do not at all discount your and homersdogs advice to spread some seam sealer on the seams. I may do it. I do know that the original body parts, whats left, cannot be helped with seam sealer. Its so bad.

 

I don't think that body will rust out in any of our lifetimes.

 

Certainly not the new heavy gauge material Chris has added but the original body panel that the new material is attached to, I disagree.

 

the original body is like a lace skirt covered with bondo, booger welds and thick paint. No much left. I also think I will be dead before the new body panels rust out. I mean, I could always just not paint it, fill it with salt and go for that extreme patina with ventilated floorboards!

Ok, plug welded the corner cutoff cover pieces. Say that 3 times fast!


I almost moved on to an unrelated side of the jeep and I caught myself. One of the bad habits I have is leaving a part undone and moving onto something else. Went to the steel store and bought some 1/8thick by 1/2 wide strap. I cut another pattern out of 3/4 plywood scrap for a 36" circle and recut the wheel well hole. I then took the strap, drilled a hole in it, screwed it to the outside of the radius, bent it around and screwed it on the other side to hold the strap in position.

I then held the whole wood radius with the steel screwed to it up in the recess and tacked it in.

tack tack tack

tack tacky tack tacky

ATTACKED!

you can see how a hunk of rusty cracked body just fell out as I was wire wheeling it down bottom left side. What a POS. This is the good side, the other side will surely require the cut off wheels!

 

"bondo makes it strong paint makes it pretty"...kinda like" a little caulk and a little paint makes a carpenter what he or she aint"...seriously get some long strand fiberglass type stuff for the first coat it will hold the rust and holes better.

 

HahaAH, yeah I have done finish carpentry....

I hope y'all realize I will be hitting all this with 36 grit and a flap disk before any primer goes anywhere outside of the can its in.

I will fill all voids with some sort of metal welded in there and whatever unevenness will get straighter with bondo later. The first paint job on this thing, I used sprayable bondo. the pitting was that bad. It worked real well. D/A, then blocked it. Looked ok, which is better than it should have looked.

Actually I ground off all the rust I could get to, then sprayed the while thing down with phosphoric acid, brushed it into and let soak into the seams, primed it with rustoleum, hit it with sprayable body filler where it was super pitted, a 2k primer over that and then 2 coats of that terrible Imron. It stopped the rust where it was. Paint was like 3 inches thick too.

 

If you can access a scrap of copper, not a penny, but a piece of copper pipe. Pound it flat and use it as a backer when welding up little holes. I had a 2" long scrap of 1 1/2" copper pipe left from a fire sprinkler install. I flattened it out in the vise and used it as a backer to support the weld when filling holes. Unbelievable how well it works.

 

Old school no sealer i like it !!!!!

 

I started on the passenger side. Screwed the strap to the 36" radius after I recut the hole. Things move around in the rebuild process, so I fixed it.

you can see the weld where I repaired the corner before. Actually I made that whole corner the first time around, but when i put it all together there was a pucker that i filled with 1/4 or more of bondo. I cut the pucker and straightened it out. Wire wheeled out the bondo.

Tack tack tack rust explosion tack tack tack


Its very far from perfect, but has turned out better than my wildest expectations.


yes, thats a bolt sticking out the side of the panel. Shove it in the hole, weld to that bolt and allow that to take all the heat and let the puddle ooze out onto the rust hole. I will come back with a cut off wheel and a flap disk to finish.

 

yes, they sell copper spoons for this exact purpose. I have used it in the past, but this is just fubar. it is literally like trying to weld a lace curtain. What I have done is to use a bolt in the hole or take a scrap of sheet steel and hold in over the hole from the inside and tack it in there. Then I fill it with a giant blobby weld that gets ground down later.

 

dilemmas compromises and cut off wheels. I am ready to mount my swinging pedal set up. This set up is from a wrangler i believe and has the pedal mount brake switch. I wanted that provision. It is also set up for hydraulic clutch. I bought a core booster/master from a wrangler with stand off to set this all up and this might work as is. I would love it if some of you guys would chime in and comment on what I'm doing. I was trying to cut out my dash again, but I did too good of a job when I put it in, so I cut out the firewall instead. I was going to have to do this anyway to reinforce.


I have cut off the back end of the pedal mount at 11 1/2 inches, as it is to long to fit under the dash. There is plenty of room under the hood and along side of the fender for this to fit. The hydraulic master fits BEHIND the vacuum booster. I have a new one that I stuffed in there to see if it would fit under the hood and alongside the fender. it does and requires a bit more trimming of firewall to do so.


Under the cowl, you can see that the pedal mount fits over the area that is recessed for the original steering column. This is going to make it a bit difficult for me to make a mount for this end of the pedal assembly.



The pedals are really long. I don't want to cut them unless I really have to. I know they are the correct ratio for the brake system and I would rather not mess with it. I may cut the floor to allow a good swing. That is not an issue as long as the engine and exhaust will still fit. The brakes will be power and I am used to manual in this jeep, but even so I already have to dicker around with the holes. Welding in a new floor board is not that much more effort at this point.. maybe.....


Maybe I should just cut out the entire firewall on this side and the floorboards and build it all to accommodate the pedal system? ? I like advice.