1967 Tuxedo Park Dauntless

Last week I picked up a 1967 Tuxedo Park with a dauntless that another member had posted on here, thanks Skip. It was neat to meet another earlycj5 member and share our passion for Jeep’s. The day I drove over started with a bunch of snow in my valley. My plan was to work a half day, drive 5 or so hours of the 6.5 hour drive and sleep in my rig.


I saw some cool stuff that day. First was a Montana traffic jam, it’s just getting unreal around here people are hogging the roads.





I had quite the excited client at my first job, he was kinda short but he smiled a lot.




It was shaping up to be a good day. I saw a few other locals out for a walk.




After a half day of work I was off to Washington. I drove about 5 hours and ended up getting a great nights sleep in the back of my wife’s F150. A few thick sleeping pads, and put the drivers seat all the way up and it’s possible to fit a 5’11” person at a slight angle for a great nights rest.





Next day the sun was up and I drove the rest of the way to East Wenatchee to get the Tuxedo.




The rest of the drive was pretty, lots of fruit trees and a very large Dam. East Wenatchee is a beautiful area.





I met Skip the Jeep’s owner after picking up a car trailer from uhaul and grabbing some breakfast. East Wenatchee has a lot of cool sites to see. This Airstream coffee kiosk was neat





Chatted with the owner for a bit and test drove the tux. It drives but it’s a bit rough. Everything is there though. From the padded rear fender covers to the chrome bits. It’s also got a warn overdrive. $2500 is fair to me for this.





Drove all the way back to Missoula MT area and it was uneventful.





My plans for this Jeep are to just drive it and fix things here and there. I’m not going to disassemble the Jeep as I already have my Renegade 1 on a rotisserie in the garage.











I did start to clean the Jeep, I removed the old wet carpet that was rusting out the bed.





The giant hole in the rear passenger quarter was bugging me so I patched it.





After a lot of hammer and dolly work I was ready to weld to the still wavy metal. It’s not a restoration.





I decided to try a cut and butt technique I saw on a YouTube channel, fitzees fabrication, instead of using cardboard you basically tach the patch over the area and then slowly cut in and weld the patch. The key is to cut at a 45 degree angle. It worked pretty good. After a few hours I ended up with a decent patch.





I changed the oil yesterday too, it looked like it had been a while. All the diff fluids are dirty as well.

 

Did some more work on the tuxedo park. I'll start off by saying how amazing my wife is. I heard her describing the Jeep to a girl friend of hers that had stopped over. She mentioned to the gal something like " this is the tuxedo park model it's got a larger front seat and chrome".
I thought that was neat because I didn't really think she paid attention to the details I was telling her.

I pulled off the air filter and there are some pine needles in there and it's pretty dirty. I inspected the carb and it looks ok in terms of it's not actively leaking fuel. But judging by the air filter, oil etc it's probably due for a rebuild.



The over drive is nice to see.

 

wonder how long that'll last.

i like the idea of padded fenders, makes hauling more than 2 people less painful. not more comfortable, as comfortable and jeep don't go together.

 

i'd really like to have that jeep.

 

Nice find!

 

Congrats on getting a Tux

 

Did some work on the tux. Checked the compression in the engine and it’s got compression. I’m at 3300 ft and I am happy with these numbers considering the age of the Jeep. They are between 130-150.


I inspected the Jeep and found one of the shackles is worn very badly and un safe. My plan is to throw parts here and there at the Jeep but have a put around Jeep for town. So I’ll order some shackles.



Tailgate is rusty but has four tux license holes.


the front frame horns are pretty beat up, the Jeep was plowing at some point and still has the plow bracket underneath that I’ll remove.

 

A few more photos. It appears my tux may have been that pinkish color, Indian ceramic

The fan has seen better days. The fan and fan shroud are both plastic/ fiberglass material and or non metal.

 

The frame has the usual problems up front but nothing that appears really bad.
There are cracks and the drivers side frame rail is deformed, you can see it’s pushed up in this photo.

Surprisingly the frame is square in the front, on top, but deformed on the lower drivers side horn.


There are also cracks behind the spring hangers on both front springs.


I’ve been doing a lot of research on here and have seen some great repairs and repair suggestions. Again my plan with this Jeep isn’t a restore. I frankly just want to drive it. I’ll be addressing the frame and then the other items that are safety related, brakes etc.

 

Weren't they all Indian ceramic?

 

Good question but I don’t think so I’ve seen survivors that were other colors. Someone else may know different. But I believe there was white, a turquoise, and Indian ceramic, also blue I believe.

 

Mine was "Gold Beige" or "Prairie Gold"

 

I had to fix all of these same issues that you're facing. Not too bad to handle if you can weld and can get/borrow a port-a-power to push things back in place. Happy to help you make any reinforcing plates/brackets on the CNC plasma if you want to add anything just PM me.

 

Grant,
Thanks for the feedback. I’ll keep that in mind about the CNC pieces I appreciate that. It shouldn’t be that bad to fix. I’ve been researching how others have done it. I’m gonna repair what’s there and not replace both horns for now.

 

I removed the front bumper to get a good look at the damage. What a PIA. At some point the Jeep was “repaired” and a large piece of angle iron was welded across the front blocking access to the bumper bolts/nuts for both the bumper and the tow rings. The tow rings were classics but they had to go.

I ended up cutting off the tow rings with angle grinder which allowed me to get to the backside of the nut for tow rings holding the bumper on. I’m not sure this bumper is original tux bumper as it has carriage bolt holes on top of the bumper and most of the ones I’ve seen do not.



lots of damage, the Jeep was a plow Jeep at some point in its life.


Both sides are the same

 

That’s a Tux bumper, someone just added the two extra top holes. It was common for an extra brace to be added to the front frame horns to “lock in” rather than just relying on the two face carriage bolts of the Tuxedo Park bumper. Here’s what mine looks like, does not interfere with the carriage bolts.

 

I did the same thing behind mine but with box tube (which was probably overkill):

 

@truckee4x4 and @Beach66Bum, thanks for following. I’ve got some ideas for the repair I’ll keep this updated as I go along. It’s neat that this tux is all there. I have the rear bumper and brackets and the license plate holder. It’s also got he chrome clamp for the hood, three across seat etc.

 

Yes! That's awesome. How is the pot metal and glass lamp on your rear license plate light?

Also FWIW my bumpers look to be about the same shape as yours. I got a quote from a re-plating shop in Sacramento (Sherms) to re-chrome all the Tux parts (including the bumpers) for $1,700. Not in my budget now but maybe one day.

 

I like ITLKSEZ's method of frame horn repair but luckily haven't had a frame that's needed it yet: Front Frame Rail Replacement And Crossmember Repair... And Ford Steering Box Install