1972 CJ-5 Almost Restoration

Thanks - What part of Texas are you in. I lived in Dallas for 8 years or so. Got to hot for me - I remember it not falling below 100 deg for weeks at a time. mehh

 

I'm in Lufkin, 20 miles from Nacogdoches, 15 miles from Zavalla - in other words, I'm out in the sticks. About 2 hours north of Houston. It got so hot last summer, the ponds dried up and all the catfish moved to Louisiana. I have some cousins in the Newark area that I haven't seen much of for years. Nice folks - I wish I was closer.

 

looks GREAT!..

SO far ahead of mine its not even funny...

its threads like this (with excellent pix) that help keep me motivated...

 

Wow! Great build. I hope to have mine looking this good some day.

 

Thanks for the encouragement. It goes a long way to keeping me motivated.....

 

Thought I'd give a little update from the weekend work. Moving solidly along, mechanical has ended for the moment. Now it's time to focus squarely on the body and all the fab work.


As you know, I have a Repli-Tub from WO. And for the most part I'm happy with it, the "extra" work they did all measures up; mounts, lights, steering column, etc. The tub itself leaves a little to be desired, lots of bent metal where it shouldn't be and not quite bent where it should. So the next couple of weeks will document my struggles and learning about body work. Bought a book that I think will help a lot;
The Key to Metal Bumping. We'll see…


A couple of photos from last week should give you a good idea on how the tub and fenders fit. I'v still a little alignment work to do on the drivers fender. And the cowl to hood section will require a fare amount of work. But the big task is closing in the tail gate. It seems you can't order the tub without a tail gate. So if you want to replace a Renegade tub - or you want to create a renegade tub, you are in for some work.


So lets begin…


The first task was looking around to see if I could find the panels to replace the rear of the tub. No luck so far. I emailed Classic Enterprises and they can supply the back panel internal stiffener and bent hat channels. But not the external stiffener, and not having that looses a lot of the detail. Not to mention strength for hanging a spare of the back. I also have an email out to Greens Panel Works - formerly Jeep Panels Plus - but haven't heard back yet. So while weighting I decided to see just how bad the back of the old tub was. Two days of cutting and drilling out spot welds later, and I managed to extract the external stiffener bar from the old tub. It's not in the best shape, but I think it can be used. Although it's going to take a lot of metal filling and some pounding. The internal stiffening bar is completely shot, so no salvaging that part. And the overall back panel from the old tub is about as worse for ware as it can be and still hold paint.


Old External Stiffener



External Stiffener over reverse light hole



Old Internal Stiffener



The current working plan is to remove the tail gate surround form the new tub. And have a new peace of metal fabricated to cover the tail gate opening with an overlap on the sides and bottom of about a 1/2 inch. The new plate will have the top lip bent in but be flat otherwise. When I lay a flat bar across the rear of the new tub, it seems that current end panel and tailgate dip in slightly - the corners are further out than the center. So my hope is that I can fare in the new panel with the current tub and create a "flat" plain on the rear. I suspect it won't be perfect, but I think it will be a lot easier than trying to take the entire rear panel off the tub and have that fabricated - or ordered.


I also got a very cool gift from the wife, who didn't know I had already "found" an ignition. She ordered me a D.U.I. in black with Yellow live wires. She is the coolest wife ever.





So I have an HEI Distributer and a set of 8mm wires that I'll be putting up in the fore sale section tomorrow - just need to snap a photo of it. Along with a couple of other extra parts that I'm not going to need. Like Oil Pump gears, and an uncut dash.

 

I also managed to score a new tool over the weekend. Although I'm not sure if it's going to work as the PO left it out in the rein for quite some time. To the point that when I picked it up, I got covered with rust colored water. But if it works it should make blasting the tub a lot easier - at least the clean up bit.


Uni-Ram Blast Vac



Filter

This will need to be replaced. It's full of water, and has little things growing on it.


Will it run

Wiped most of the rust out, and blasted the motor with WD-40 to displace the rust. It's sitting now, drying out. Next weekend we should see if it works.

 

Long&Low, think you may be interested in this posting - as I follow your path to splicing in Jeep logos.


Took a fare amount of time to get the old logos out of the tub, and squared up. Lots of grinding, some drilling and a fare amount of filing resulted in two extracted logos. Opened up the new tub as well, and got the logos lined up and ready. The plan is to low temperature brass braze them in. Access to the welder is a bit of a pain - it's to large to move around and I don't have the power in the workshop.


Logo



Hole in the new tub



New Home











Also installed new glass in the blasting cabinet. Wow, what a difference!

 

You cut that hole in a new tub, wow, not sure I would have been brave enough to do that, but it'll look good.

Thinking of cutting down a JTruck tailgate to make a tailgate for mine. I like the big J E E P letters.

 

After 2 weekends off it's time to get back to work….


This weekend was all about finishing up the splicing in of the Jeep logos, and installing the plate over the rear of the tub. We now have "tailgate deleted"!


I opted not to order a panel from Classic Enterprises. I was having a hard time justifying another spend in the $500 range - the wife was also having a hard time justifying that. I did manage to find a local sheet metal fabricator to make the rear panel, as well as the internal hat channel braces in 18 gage steel. Total cost was $125.


I opted for this path as the rear of the repli-tub was not actually flat - the center of the rear quarter was further inboard than the out side edges. Not good. But in this case it was exactly what I needed. I ordered the plate to vive me a 1 to 1 1/2 inch overlap around the old tailgate opening. With the 18 gage steel the runout to get a flat plain from the new panel to the original tub is about 2 to 2 1/2 inches. That's an except able amount to fill and blend in.


Test fitting the panel



Runout between new panel and tub



As an alternative to welding in the panel, I thought I'd have a go at panel gluing. Simple, effective and no heat. So no panel waving, just glue and clamp. Ordered a tube of LOARD Fusor 108 from autonbodytoolmart.com along with the gun. The gun is not cheep at $40, but I couldn't find an alternative source that I thought would fit the cart rage.

LOARD Fusor 108b



It comes with mixing tips to insure proper mix. Advising you to squeeze out a bead about the length of the tip to make sure you are correctly mixed. Then its as simple as laying a caking bead and placing the metal panel on.

Mixing with the tip



No pictures of the bead - didn't want to stop in the middle. But some shots of the clamped up parts.


Make sure to grind and clean surfaces before gluing



Rear Panel Glued In



Gluing in the internal hat channel









Used the same process to splice in the Jeep logos
















If your interested in trying the sam approach. These are the plans that we used to fab up the parts:

 

This weekend was all about getting the spliced in logos "smoothed out". The metal glue seems to have worked very well. No amount of banking and grinding had any affect, so I think this is a good long term solution. Especially is you don't have access to a welder. Now on to the pics


Prepped the area with an 80 grit orbital, to remove the primer and prep the metal. Then a little bit of metal shaping with the die grinder and an 80 grit pad. To smooth over any rises where the plates met.





Then it was on to body filler, and sanding - so much sanding. This is the 3rd iteration or add filler and sand it off. I think I'v another to attempts to go - I'm still learning to get the right amount on. But it's smoothing out very well.





Next week I need to tackle the outside brace for the back of the tub. The original is in sad shape, but I can't find an aftermarket one. So…

 

That would look real nice with the big letters. :drool:

 

Not a lot of progress over the weekend. Seems I'm suffering the steep learning curve of body filler. Finally managed to get the passenger side pounded out and filed smooth - mostly. Still need to do a skim coat next weekend. Lets hope the rest moves along a little faster…


Also managed to finish mocking up the tailgate delete. The outer channel is ready to get attached next weekend. I painted the inside of the channel and the non mating surface of the body panel with POR15 to prevent the inevitable. It looked like the original had no paint on the inside, so if that can last 40 years. I think the POR should hold up for a little wile.


POR 15 Racing Stripe



Some POR15 on the inside of the channel

Hard to see. I applied it with a long wire with a ball of cotton on the end.


Also managed to get the internal vertical channels fabricated

Not an exact match for restoration. But I don't have a way to bend hat channels to make it look OEM. So this will need to do.

 

Quick update - I'd like to say things are moving along quickly but despite the holiday weekend I still feel behind. The learning curve for working with body filler is starting to flatten. And so are the sides of the tub. Lots of filler has gone on, and a lot has come off. I suspect I could be doing this more efficiently, but in the long run the only thing that matters is that it's smooth.


All the sides are ruffed in. Just a couple of areas to re-visit next weekend. Then a coating of finishing putty to fill all the deep sanding scratches. And a quick coating of primer to stabilize everything while I turn my attention to the cowling, interior and underside.


The tailgate-delete came out well









Still need to clean up the notch at the bottom of the rear panel, and open up the light hole in the lower right - neglected to keep that clear during the spackling process.

Drivers Side

Took a fare amount to get it level. Mostly…

Passenger Side

The passenger side was in much better shape to begin with.

 

Continuing to push forward, but not a lot of photo documentation.


Spent most of the weekend working on the honey do list. But managed to sneak away to the workshop for a couple of hours. Most of the time was spend with the blasting cabinet and the remaining small parts; gas tank brackets, and things like that. I wonder if I will ever be don sandblasting?


Managed to mock up the spare tire carrier, and get the back braces mounted in. So thats all wrapped up. Just some clean up around the seams, and a a lot of seam sealer.







Ordered more body filler, and a couple tubes of seam sealer. Hoping to finnish up most of the body work on the tub next weekend. Planning on doing a skim coat on the outside of the tub with finishing putty to fill in the deep scratches and air bubbles. Then a good coat of epoxy primer. That is if everything I ordered shows up by Friday.

 

The last BIG issue to deal with, with the tub is where the vowel meats the hood. I am not overly happy with this…

The drivers side is the worst. The bend from the cowl to the side panel feels like it was bent over a pipe - 2 big ridges. And the profile is not even close to the arch of the hood. On top of that, the edge of the cowl is the furthest thing from straight. Again the drivers side is the worst of the two.

Drivers Side

NOTE: The hinges are loose in this shot as I was trying - in vane - to better align the hood and the cowl



Passenger Side


I think I can get behind the fire wall and try to point out the lip to form a straight line that matches the hood. But I don't think I can make it truly straight as it's further forward where it meats the side panel than it is where the hood hinge mounts.

Any one ever solve this before? Or am I just going to had to learn to live with this?

 

Doing a great job, i must say. Look forward to more progress!

 

Thanks for the encouragement. :stout:

 

No prob. My '72 wont look as purdy as your '72 when the dust settles, thats for sure.

 

Thats not that bad to fix...if you can get behind the are just lightly work the metal back out. Have a helper watch to make sure you are concentratng on the correct area. Go slow and check your work often.