66 CJ5 Rebuild

Wow! This is really coincidental, this is my exact plans for my build except mine will only have 2.5 lift, and be painted red with a 4cyl, other than that you hit my plans right on the head even down to the tires!! Will be visiting this thread alot over the next year! Great jeep!! mines a 66 too

 

Cool, look forward to seeing how yours turns out.

 

PieLut,

Great Job , looks like your enjoying it....................so how did your 33 inch tires and the 4:27 gears work for you? Off road and on Highway?

 

So far I like the tire/gear combo. I've put 450 miles on her, all asphalt. I think the combo is near perfect for city speeds.
45-50 MPH and about 2,000 RPM. I haven't spent much time on the freeway. 65MPH was about 3,000 RPM, it was fine but an overdrive would be nice if I spent more time at freeway speeds.

I did some "urban" four wheelin' near work and it seemed great. Of course the four speed T18 helps with that. Now that I will have 500+ miles on her I'm looking to plan a 4wheelin trip soon.

 

i just read through your build for the fifth or sixth time.... Awesome work!

 

I'm also in Glendale Pielut if you want some company when you hit the dirt.

Mike

 

Great! Thanks Mike, I'm excited for the first trip in the rocks. There will be a slight delay as I broke the Saginaw manual steering gear (luckily while I was in a parking lot).
I blame the guy that assembled it. Good news is that I'm switching over to power steering.

 

two questions, where did you get your towbar and what did you use to grind your welds down? i'm starting to prepare to fixing up my 3B and 5 tubs and havn't done body work before. Thanks, Geoffrey

 

The tow bar came with the Jeep when I bought it. Nothin' fancy, just thick angle iron welded to a hitch.
For grinding welds down on the body work I used a 90* die grinder with small abrasive pads.
For the grinding pads I used a 2" quick change 36 grit disc. You can get all the pieces from Enco.


Grinder

Disc pad

Threaded shaft

Discs

 

Roloc discs, pretty standard in lots of metal working fields.

Check with a auto body supply house, or order online http://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&ke...vptwo=&hvqmt=b&hvdev=c&ref=pd_sl_6gboya59gg_b

 

Just finished power steering conversion. Full write up in the Saginaw power steering sticky. Also finished swing away tire carrier, just needs some paint.
Next up and one of the last items...center console.

 

Another round of homemade parts. It was time to build a drink holder and a place to lock some valuables. I didn’t have the option to buy a center console due to the close proximity of my seats. I started with some heavy construction paper to aid in designing a console that would maximize the space I have.


I bought some cold roll 16 gauge sheet metal pre-cut to the width I needed. Then I went to town on the sheet metal brake. I drilled several ¼” holes spaced evenly at each joint and then welded each hole closed.


Another purpose of the console is to power cell phones and other random bits. I drilled two holes for the 12v sockets and added a cradle to hold my phone.


Here you can see the two power sockets. One is a dual USB charger and one is a regular 12v DC socket.
Both sourced from Amazon (Blue Sea brand).


And for the locking mechanism I chose a cam lock from McMaster Carr…part 1682A51




I found a great way to hold cold beverages…Tuffy drink holder. Bolted to front of console.
Purchased from Quadratec…part 034-01

 

Nice fabrication work there.

 

awesome fab work.. what seats are those in the front?

 

I just ordered the same tail lights, and also LED backup and license plate lights.

Did the turn signals work with these lights as is, or did you have to upgrade the flasher for the LEDs??

 

Very nice PieLut. As usual.

 

Worked great as is. I used the stock flasher with the original turn signal.

 

My seats are from a local company here in Phoenix called Renagade. The seats are designed to fit a Rhino ATV. I really like these seats. They are narrow front to back which gives you more leg room and they are a suspension seat, so they are comfortable.

 

Very nice work, it's really coming together!

 

Finished up some custom floor mats, very happy so far. Some guys on the forum were talking about "Elephant Bark," so I checked it out and had a sample sent my way.
The product seems durable and ready for abuse. I can pull these out give em' a rinse and back in the Jeep after a trip to the desert. No need for any sort of anchors. The mats fit snug around the roll cage mounts, so movement is at a minimum. The all black color does show dirt easily.

4 x 4 1/2" feet and 1/4" thick. Purchased from here..."Elephant Bark" Rubberized Flooring



Template



After using silver/metallic Sharpie





In the Jeep. Made one for passenger side and a small piece for inside center console. Plenty left over for random stuff down the road.