1970 Dj-5a Lhd Dispatcher 100 Ex-postal "rattletrap"

Well the Mason Dixon rally kept me busy last weekend so I haven't gotten as far as I'd like. Still tonight I managed to assemble the original wheel cylinders with rebuild kits and bench bleed the new master. The rear cylinders are 13/16 and the rebuild kits from Kaiser Willys are NOS from 1975, government surplus. The fronts are 1 1/8 not 1" and the rebuild kits came from NAPA, will see how they hold up. It's an interesting little thing with big 1 1/8" wheel cylinders on 10" brakes.

Matt

 

No pictures today. But wheel cylinders installed, front bearings replaced and hubs put back on. A 1970 West Virginia tag is in the mail to me, Hagerty insurance bought and new tires arrived yesterday. I'm down to days away from getting this old fella back on the road! I'm getting giddy.

Matt

 

Today the new tires were mounted and the brakes bled. Sorry no pictures of the tires in place, by the time I finished with the brakes it was getting dark. I did go for quick trip around the yard and up the lane I live on. Headlights appear to be for decorative purposes only and the high beams are burnt out it seems, neat that when I step on the dimmer switch I get either lights out or the low beams. Anyway I got fed up with the little hand pump for bleeding the brakes and brought out my HVAC vacuum pump. That got things done!

Tomorrow will be pictures of Rattletrap sitting right on his E78-14LT tires.

Matt

 

sounds like a bad dimmer switch

 

Jeff,

Thanks! I'll look into that. I wouldn't be surprised. it is not only 50 years old, but all the wiring connections to it are under the floor exposed to the elements.

 

Dad picked up some industrial epoxy paint at the auction. I did a test on the bumper to get an idea how it would be to work with. I’ll need some reducer and some rollers but it should do ok. I mean if it's is good enough for nuclear weapons facilities it should be good enough for a ratty old Postal Jeep!

Also replaced the choke cable & choke cable, tidied up the brake switch wires and started on the battery hold down.

Finally I located the original hold down, it is 90 degrees to the CJ 12v hold downs, going across the battery with a J hook by the fire wall and another in front of the battery, more like a common "modern" hold down. The J-hooks are pretty worn though, but I looked at my reproduction MB one and realized that they are just about the same, only the hold down frame had changed over the years. So that's easy enough!

 

be sure to read the instructions epoxy is finiky to a lot of stuff...time since mixing,tempture,humidity etc

 

Jeff,

Absolutely! I work with urethane resins pretty regularly. Epoxy is similar, but not quite the same. The one that shocked me, was the 30 minutes to let it 'sweat in' after mixing before use. Still I followed the directions precisely except that for my sample test I'm ignoring the weather and have left the bumper outside as the temps have gone down overnight etc. Still after 24 hours it was "fingernail hard" though I could chip it with tools. Directions say that at 50 degrees it won't be fully cured for seven days. For the actual application I'll have to work to control environmental conditions a bit better. Probably set up to do the application in my shop on a Sunday afternoon/evening and let the heater keep it warm while I'm at work for the week so that nobody has to be around the VOCs put off by this stuff. (shop is detached from the house).

 

Today's project was rescuing the floor for a couple more years. I'm not ready to take this thing down to bare bones yet. But that's what it will eventually need. Rattletrap needs front floor pans, transmission hump and the floor riser. The floors had rusted out along the outside before I ever got him, and the previous owner had bolted on some angle iron. As you can see in the picture below, they hadn't affixed it to either the A or B pillar, only the floor, so as the floor rusted more it stopped being of any use. This makes the seat mount all wonky.

In addition to that, the body mount on the riser failed on both sides due to rusting out:

As a stop gap solution I cleaned up everything, clamped, jacked and cajoled the metal back into place. Welded the angle iron to the A and B pillars and put an 18" long by 6" wide piece of 16 gauge metal folded 90 degrees on each side. I then put a piece of angle on the backside of each for the body mount. (not pictured). I figure that should hold for a couple of years while I work on my sheet metal skills starting from the top down with the body still on the frame. Then eventually give in and pull it.

 

a little more motivation for you

 

I was just going to mention the risers and saw you found it. That section of the DJ is all the support of the body. You will need to get it taken care of to get your Jeep all straightened out again. Obviously, the frame will keep the suspension together but the body will shift a lot with the center weakened. I have a shop and restored several DJs, and I have seen them collapse right on that seam. I think you have started taking care of that really well, that is a great place to put in angle iron for support.

Just some thoughts. On your year Jeep the front axle is a modified Dana 30, not a Dana 27. That makes it far easier to order parts.

You have 10" brakes because your Jeep had 14" rims but many came with 15" rims and those had 11" inch drums. Those are way easier to find parts for, John has them pretty often. For what it is worth I live near to John and know him personally.

Also, if you want to lift it, your front springs are identical to an early CJ5 but the back are the same as a YJ but with the wrong bushing. You can move the shocks outboard, weld CJ5 spring hangers on the frame and use CJ5 springs in the rear also, that way your suspension is basically all CJ5 and cheaper to maintain.

Just some thoughts

 

Bob,

Thanks! I have considered going to 15" rims but will probably stay stock. I plan to restore this mostly to how it would have appeared new, though with some subtle tweaks such as painting the body all one color, not two tone and some under the hood upgrades. I have no intentions of lifting it though. I haven't looked at a B or newer model up close in 25 years, I wonder how much the body is different from the A models once they went to AM General. Everyone knows the hood and grill, and there's small differences such as the change in the side vent and the doors going from slam locks to rotary handles but I don't know if the body is actually all that different. By everything I've been able to discern the front floor on the 69-70 models is an M38A1 with a fuel tank delete panel and the riser looks the same as the CJ risers I see available from the restoration supply places. When that day comes that I rebuild the floor with the body off I am thinking of preemptively adding in angle iron there, so that in 20 or 30 years after I do that it isn't having to be done again.

 

Most DJs were one color when new. They tended to be either dark blue or white, very few were the iconic white and navy two-tone. It is odd to think about it because we all remember the two tone models. I believe that is because the big cities tended to order them that way, and movies are generally filmed in big cities.

After the DJ-5 the bodies mainly stayed the same through the entire range. DJ-5C through DJ-5M all share the same sheet metal, only the engine/transmission combos changed.

The 69-70 are a CJ5 model, not a M38A1. The M38A1 is different because they had tube seats that folded from the wheel wells, whereas the CJs had seats bolted to the floor.

What you have done so far looks really good and has stayed true to the original.

 

Bob,

The factory manuals (pictured up thread), factory photos I have in my collection and the vehicle itself all indicate the two-tone paint scheme. My floor pans, and the floor pans on the donor 1970 I obtained both have the gas tank sump delete panel the same as the Tuxedo Park CJ-5 discussed here: http://www.earlycj5.com/xf_cj5/index.php?threads/157188/

There's a pretty good Postal forum on Facebook. But they don't have much to offer me as mine is a Kaiser made one.

 

Here's a photo of a trainload of brand new DJ-5A vehicles. Vehicle numbers start with a 9 so that's contract year 1969, as is mine. So this was probably 1970. You can see the license plates that match the vehicle number. The fender skirts are very distinctive in this photo as well. That's one of the features I plan to restore to mine, no other Jeep model has them. I know it was answered on the forum I mentioned above, but I'll have to look again, I think it was 1973 they stopped the two-tone. There's several people on there who were Post Office mechanics and at least one former AM General employee who built the things. They've discussed that.

 

I'm one of the original members of the Facebook group. I would say the majority of surviving DJs in the southern states are Kaiser-made. I personally have owned 7 1970's and 2 1969's.

I saw the other thread. I have no comment on it, I have learned through the years to not waste my time on those threads.

DJ5s definitely came in several different paint schemes, with solid dark blue, solid white, and the two-tone being the most common. I have never found a DJ that came with the two-tone paint scheme. None and I have owned a lot of DJ's. When I say a lot I mean a lot.

But, its not important. You clearly have your mind set on that matter, the advice was just ways to make things easier for you.

 

Steve Magnante (formerly of motor trend, now has his own youtube channel) did a review of what appears to me to be a 69 Kaiser and a 70ish AMC postal DJ5's. Both are two-tone blue & white. Just FYI, I happen to watch this one this morning.

 

Those are both northern DJ's. He has lost his mind if he thinks DJs are lighter than a CJ5. Not even close. DJ's are easily 750lbs heavier. He was also wrong about the frames concerning the boxing.

 

Interesting video. Though he has quite a few details wrong. Both of those are DJ-5A models. The one on the right (facing them) is a 1970. Sometime in there the side marker light changed to the fender mounted one. The GM engine is a 153, not the 151 that is later. I just did a deep dive into the paint schemes over on the Postal Jeep group with several Post Office fleet mechanics chiming in. 1975 was the last year of two-tone system wide for any new vehicles. After that they were all white out of the factory. There is a 1974 factory photo showing both on the assembly line simultaneously. (Probably going to Northern or Southern cities as Bob said) As vehicles went in for major overhaul they were repainted to all white. So the ones in this junk yard probably never made it to that major overhaul before being sold off.


I can confirm that 5A model frame has minimal boxing to it. No idea about a CJ.

I can also tell you that right in the manual the curb weight is 2330. I don't know what the CJ-5 curb weight is. Wikipedia says 2665. I never for once thought it was lighter than a CJ though. The front axle is very heavy, even if it's not live and the doors, glass and top add quite a bit of weight. It's offset by the baby tires on it, no transfer case, the relatively light Powerglide transmission and the unreinforced hood. So I'm not surprised if they are very close in weight. I'm confident as they went to the AMC 6 cylinder and the 15" wheels that the weight on the AM General ones climbed up a couple hundred more pounds.

To the best of my knowledge no letter suffixed DJ was ever offered to the public, while the manual transmission coupled to the F-head DJ-5 was sold to the public.

 

Gotcha! I used Dana 27 oil seals, spindle nut kits and bearings last week to rebuild the front hubs. As that's what the numbers in my parts book cross referenced to.