2X4 frame for my CJ2A

Once they burn the first time, those frayed ends might as well be doused with gas!

Once I was doing floor repairs in a pit under a garbage truck. I had coveralls on and felt heat on my legs, look down and see no fire. Keep welding. Still hot. Look down again. No fire. Getting hotter and smelling burning hair and fabric. What the ?

My jeans were burnt half way up to my knee under my coveralls.

 

Back in the '70s I was in welding classes .I would walk towards the instructor to have him approve a weld. A few times I had to stop and tap another student on the shoulder. "Hey, your pants are on fire." My favorite pair of shoes look like a pair of rabid Dobermans had a war with them. I have several socks that are equally burned.

 

Caught the trash barrel on fire at my first"real" job the rest of the crew just stood there and laughed. Lesson learned keep extinguishing equipment near by.

 

Made right side toe board support and frame mount.

Bigger triangle, bigger holes. Don't know that i like it, but its done.

This side doesn't really need to be out boarded, doing it anyway. Going to tie in a support to the battery box. Needs to be tacked up. Rain/snow maybe this afternoon and I might actually have to go to work, so its time for a haircut.

 

You don't have to like it. We do. That's all that matters.

 

Ha, funny!

 

You can always tell an old welder by looking at his Work cloths & shoes............the unmistakable burn holes and black spots from a Devil like spark or piece of slag that has found cloth and even skin to torture.
Ever try taking away and old favorite burned shirt from a welder? My wife tried once!......then found out these are Sacred Items to some , that require a proper service in order to see an old friend retired to the garbage can......
I have several I use , including leathers that hardly get used.............Arc welding is by far the worst followed by Mig on not so clean materials.

 

I don't really want to talk about the scars on my legs and arms. WTF, I'm a geologist and carpenter after all. What is there to worry about some some slag on your body?

 

fabricated a battery box support to attach to the right side toe board mount and tacked that in too.

you can see some of the "body" work I did years ago. It was awesome! i would love to get rid of it all, but I would have to make an entirely new body. Sometimes you gotta just say "good enough" and move on.

Tacked in the dash I cut out. I will need filler rod manually inserted in conjunction to the mig wire to fill those gaps.


I have a good tilt steering column from a wrangler. My last one was kind of wrecked insomuch as turn signals and ignition switch. Since I have a lot of legroom, why not go old school with the original steering wheel with an original style column. I know that a lot of you guys have power steering and the original wheel. what do you think?

 

An old welder told me that if you do heavy starch on your clothing, You won't get holes. Years ago, I was out on a building site and a co worker was doing some overheat welding. He suddenly dropped everything and started disrobing while standing on some scaffolding within 20 feet of one of the busiest streets in town. I believe the chunk of slag that was down there by his nads wasn't pleasing him very much.

 

Had a hot blob fall into my crotch a couple weeks ago. It was exhilarating! didn't do any damage because it burned through the other side of my pants.

A long time ago in a place far away I had to do some temp work to get by. This agency sent me to Bagdad mine in Arizona to work replacing a rail for the main conveyor that fed the crusher mill. We had to cut out the old studs that kept the rail in place. It was winter and cold, so i had on my usual many layers of flannel. I used to have a goatee that was the style for young guys in the early 90's. I was using a torch to cut out that 1" bolt from the concrete it was anchored in and it popped free, shot into my goatee, fell into my shirt and while I was going nuts doing some sort of funky chicken dance on top of a giant crusher mill, it fell out of the bottom of one of my shirts. It burned a couple holes in my shirts, but didn't burn me too bad and did nothing to the asbestos fibers that grow out of my face.

 

Me too chris

 

When I was student teaching in my senior year of college, one of my host teachers had a mantra he would repeat to our ceramics students whenever their perfect clay pot would flop into a pile of worthless mud on the potter's wheel.

It has since become my mantra to my kids:

"Accept it and move on."

 

fixed some random uglies, some got uglier and welded this on.

I guess the MB's had a bit larger of a logo, but this one is free from a destroyed hood. I was going to buy one but they were 50 bucks with shipping, so free is great. It will get fixed a bit, then blended in with bondo.

 

Ha! I like it!

 

You're getting there. I see no problem with you be back on the road by spring. Great progress.

 

A PO drilled four holes through the tailgate on my 3B right through the Willys logo. I think I had about 20 hours in it to weld and reshape the letters so it looked original. Lots easier to start with a straight piece. My brother wondered why I spent weeks welding in new metal insted of just slapping some diamond plate on. Diamond plate is just a bandaid. Yours should look good when it's done.

 

"Good" is in the eye of the beholder as you all know.

I should be done by spring, but I still have a lot to do to make it drivable. I will need to make a wiring harness, finish exhaust, make cover for transmission (dreading that actually), make 2 driveshafts, make seat mounts, install new steering column, make brake and fuel lines, body work and paint. Probably left out a lot too.

Its a bit overwhelming if I think of it in a big chunk, so i just try and concentrate on one thing a day. Today was transmission cover, but I just couldn't commit to it. Its ugly and will be an ugly job.

I appreciate you guys being so nice and following along. Thanks!

 

I am running the stock wheel and column in my GPW with power steering. If I recall we shortened the tube a little bit and then had to angle it up a little to make it easier to get in and out. I really like the way it works. When cruising on a trail I just hang on to one of the rods that connects the wheel to the hub. It's sort of like a tiller steer. Also blows old timer's minds when I can turn around on the trail using a finger to spin the wheel. All that said, I like the feel of smaller diameter wheels with thicker, comfortable gripping areas too.