Cj6 Body Rework

Spent the day yesterday removing spot welds and prepping the new floor from Classic.
Company Christmas party is today, so only a half day at work, but I should get it welded in. The tub is racked something fierce. Ratchet strap for alignment.

 

I ran out of vice grips trying to get this floor flat and worked into place.



Side note: The front edge of the floor is meant to wrap around/capture the riser. Since I moved the riser forward, the front edge of the floor was unsupported. I cut one of the hat channel sections out of the old floor and welded it up under the front lip.



I got the rear section of floor all welded in and cleaned up.



I had a little extra time, so I finished welding all the floor pans to each other and to the riser.



Hopefully the bead roller dies show up on Monday; I’m ready and waiting.

 

This is beginning to look like an expensive restomod.

 

Thank you? I guess that’s what it is.
The guy spent $60k on this thing and was scammed before it got to us, so he’s just thrilled to see work being completed on it.

 

Wow! Thanks for the backstory. It's in good hands now.

 

I think the only surprise is you being surprised by that. I mean, you can see every spot weld and body seam on a CJ.

 

That's terrible!

 

Doing great work like always Ryan.

 

plus or minus a 1/2 inch according to the old frame books...

 

The middle-floor section was kicking my butt. I burnt nearly a full day yesterday trying to figure out how to make the ribbed section with a bead roller, and without an English wheel. We received the new rollers to make ribs that somewhat match the ones in the new floor from Classic. But they only address the straight runs; I had to get creative to finish the ends of the rolls.

I took the jaws out of the vice and made some bolt-in replacements out of bar stock. I had my coworker cut some dies out of 1/4” on the cnc, and I welded them to the jaws.



The imprint it makes is on the left, a completed run is on the right.



Doing all the ends first…



As I was running it through the bead roller, the problem was obvious. It was turning into a taco from all the shrinkage. The standard is to pre-stretch the panel with an English wheel so it returns to flat as you roll your beads, but we don’t have one. I could barely get it into the finger brake to bend the edges. It was so bad that clamping it flat buckled the one edge. Junk.



Attempt 2.0 was today, but more on that tomorrow. Spoiler: it worked much better applying what I learned on the first run.

I was so sick of the floor at that point that I had to work on something else, so I completed the firewall aprons.

 

x2. .......I can really appreciate your craftsmanship,im in the process of replacing the rear panel in my '42 MB....there will be no pictures of my workmanship,I make Willys look like Packard quality

 

Will you need to put relief cuts in or drive across the sheet?

 

Can't wait to see the end result. Does he know the color? Does your shop paint it?

 

The jaws on the vise are cool. I did some floor pans making the buck our of plywood and hammer forming the ribs. It was hard to flatten out the edges and smooth out the ribs. That was labor intensive for sure. It looks like this worked well.

Dave

 

I think it’ll be some sort of blue. In reality, I think it will be wrapped in his business logo like a rolling billboard. Some kind of window company. After I’m done with my part, it will be sent to a body shop for a skim coat of filler and final paint.




Sunrise as I was walking into work at 7:30



So this was what worked for me on the big section of floor. I made the runs 2” shorter, I didn’t go as deep with the rolls, and I broke the sides and welded the corners before starting. It still warped like crazy, but it wasn’t so bad this time that I couldn’t clamp it flat to the table and tack some bracing to it to hold it flat. Success!



We got this cool tool for punching 1/8” holes for Cleco clamps. I’ve been using it hard for making pilot holes for spot welds.



Underbelly…



I whipped out the side panels before quitting time today. The floor should be mostly done tomorrow.



Oh, and we ordered some stretching wheels for the bead roller… we’ll see if it works as well as an English wheel. Now that I’m done.

 

I bailed on those panels and made new ones. The openings were just out of square enough that it was warping the outside of the body to make them fit. I made templates and made new ones. I also left room for the side supports in these.



Flex test of the jeep it belongs to, to check clearances…

 

This is looking good.

 

Most Flexly! That should climb over anything.
That is now a new body. Great work.

Dave

 

I finished up the floor and moved onto the rear, where the most rot was. The tail light panels needed to be replaced.



I formed some new ones out of 16g rather than 18g because I’m building the new rear body mounts into that area.



I found some factory white oak inside the spare tire bracing.



Next up was the nasty rot where the troop seat wheelhouse dropped below the opening; that panel trapped a lot of moisture. I left it long since a lot of it will be cut out anyway to fit the 42” tires.



Next up was deleting the recess in the body for the spare tire snubber.



Since we only have a simple finger brake, I had to make the panel in two separate bends and weld the pieces together. Major PITA.

I made this jig for the brake to make the proper radius for the bend. It worked well.



Here’s the upper strip clamped in place.



I ran out of time and could only tack the lower piece in place before we had to move to body back on the frame for some checks and balances.



One more check for clearances before I start chopping the wheel openings. This was the first time this Jeep was sitting on its own springs!

 

Funny It's been 1 year and 6 days since I broke my side panels to stretch mine a little longer. They are still in my basement...
Tell us more about the passenger side bootlegger vent.
And what's the deal with the long nose?