Bessie's rebuild.

I have been working on this rebuild for quite some time now. This is my rebuild of my 45 MB/CJ conglomeration of a Jeep. Before I get hazed for chopping up an MB it was pretty chopped up when I got it, way to far gone for a restoration.

My Dad and I started rebuilding this Jeep way back when I was 14 years old and when it was all said and done I was 16 and ready to drive. It had a 134 F-head, T90, D18 and an overdrive, it wasn’t the fastest thing in the school parking lot, but I thought it was it was by far the coolest. I drove it up until college when my parents and I feared it wouldn’t be able to make the drive back and fourth to Pittsburg, so then it sat until after I got done with college.

The years had taken its toll on my Jeep and after college I decided to “freshen” it up a little bit and one thing just started to lead to an other and brought it the point that it at now. So here start some of the pictures and captions.



Right after my dad and I rebuilt it the first time around.


Like I said coolest kid in the lotbunny with a pancake. I think this was my senior year.


Wheeling on a local trail shortly after high school.


one of those little side projects that got the ball rolling.chainsawguy


Then at a local yard I found this little gem in a '66 Buick special and decided my Jeep needs a new engine.

Like I said small projects were promtly turning into bigger ones. like swapping out a roll bar turns into stripping all the bedliner off, applying a new finish and swapping windshields.
decided that I had to have a four speed instead of a three speed. fixing a small rust patch turned into chopping out the entire drive side front and fabbing a new panel.


Missing driver side.


Half the driver side panel.


The other half.


It's a little rough, but it was a 25$ junkyard salvage


the back side, I actully junked the inner frame.

Most everything on this Jeep is second hand or salvage


Like these rims came off the same jeep as the windshield they were a 40$ salvage and they came with tires too.


They cleaned up nice.

Then I got laid off and it got moved up to my uncles shed and sat untouched for about a year, then he said he needed his shed back. So I moved back it home to my drive way.


I didn't have brakes because I decided to swap to a hanging pedal setup and go to 11" drums on all corners and I only finishes half that project before it got moved. It's not the first time that wrangler had pulled me on a strap either


When It got home in the summer I rattle canned it OD green so it wouldn't sit outside without paint.


When I sat the frame back on I couldn't figure out why the bracket wouldn't line up, turned out the frame itself had broke. I cut the sheet metal away slid a pipe inside the one piece slid the other overtop the pipe welded in some gussets and now she's good and strong.

It sat in my driveway all summer until I finished my CJ5 which took a higher priority beacuse I needed a car and it had less things broken on it. Then I moved the it back to the garage and started tinkering again.


I put the MB grill back on because I thought it looked cooler.


Here's the drive side panel I replaced completed.


Here was a major stumbling block for me for a while. It had rotted out on the inside of the frame I had cut the rust out and made a plate to fill in the void, but I was afraid to weld it because I wasn't a very good welder but after welding on the 5 all summer I got good enough in my mind to weld in the patch.


Then I coved the whole she-bang with some 3/16 plate to make it look purty and give me a good solid base to weld onto for the motor mounts. I put a similar plate on the passenger side too.


My motor mount which is welded in as well as bolted. I figure if the welds ever fail the bolts won't. I jacked the entire jeep up on the mount and it didn't move or crack so I guess it should be fine. I ended up flipping the bolt on mount down because the entire driveline was up about 2" too high.


Here you can see the plug welds and the bolts.


My drive line sitting in the frame rails 225OF, SM420 with a pto and a D18. The drive shafts are only about an inch an a half different from stock.


Body off.

That brings it about current. The next step I guess is to find the parts I need to go over to saginaw steering and a dana 30 frontend. Then I can start buttoning everything up.

 

It's a long process that will be extremely rewarding in the end.

 

Cool.

I don't think I've ever seen a real live PTO on an sm420.

 

What motor mount kit did you use??

I like the ability to adjust the location of the engine it offers.





Thanks,

 

My very first Jeep was a '50 CJ3A that had that exact same top with the straight windshield. Brings back memories looking at that.

 

Those are the old style Novak mounts. They do offer alot of flexability.

 

Thanks.

 

Great writeup! Lot of history there.

 

I really haven't done a lot to it lately except work on cleaning the frame and scraping the 40 years worth of gunk off the transmission, and while doing that I discovered that I have Spicer PTO on it which is kind of cool8). I also decided on the brake set up I want to use. I was originally going to use 11" Cj drums on all four corners, but after playing in some deep puddles during the recent rains with my '73 I was not impressed with the braking quality when they were wet. I know the drums can be drilled to offer better performance but I'm not sure if it will give me the results I want. I was thinking of using the 11” drums in the rear and going with a disk brake set up in the front, using the calipers and rotors from a Suzuki Tracker so I could clear my 16” rims. Anyone have any thoughts or comments about this set up, or potential problems I would run into:?? Thanks, Don

 

It's been a while, But I haven't got too much done to it that has been worth posting up unitill recently.

I got the 11" backing plates on the rear axle and replaced the wheel bearings and seals.


I used the backing plates off a front axle so I didn't have to worry about the e-brake holes. Would it be proplem if I used the wheel cylinders that were for the rear brakes in the front backing plates?

It's a pretty tight fit with the factory 16 inch rims, but I think it should be fine.


And finally my spicer PTO on the SM420

 

Started working the saginaw conversion the other night and I got the bracket to fit into the frame and started test fitting everything. The bracket and box came from a 72 CJ5.


Here is the bracket and the and the steering box close to their final position wich will be about a quater of an inch towards the rear of the Jeep


it seems to have plenty of clearence between the shaft and front cross member.


looking from the front it looks a little low but's really no lower than what it would be on an intermediate model Cj.

When I get the final positon of the bracket I was going to add a steel plate between the frame rails to tie both of them together and give me the the final to mounting points for the bracket. I was going have a 90* bend put on the front of plate to make it more rigid. What do you guys think the thinest plate is that I should use? I was leaning toward 3/16" thick but I'm not too sure.

Anybody have any comments or concerns on this set up I'd like to hear them before I go on too much further.

 

If you are going to run bigger than stock tires I'd box the front of the frame with 1/4" and weld the steering box mount to that. You can buy the pre-cut plates from Advance Adapters or make your own. Kinda like this:

 

For mild trail use with the tires you are talking about you should be fine.

 

I've been making little baby steps in progress forward on the flatty lately. I replaced the in the king pin bearings and races on the drivers side front the upper one was pretty worn and the lower one was missing, wheel bearing and new seals are on the list too. After some input from memebers here and staring at my previous attempt on mounting my saginaw steering box I decided to change it, because by the time I would have had it done the way I wanted to the mounting bracket would have been rather thin and weak. So I went with a little more conventional route.


Started by partially boxing the front frame horn with 1/4" plate.



Then I made a mounting plate for the steering out of 1/4" plate as well (I wanted 3/8 but I was having a hard time getting it) and c-clamped it into place for mock up.


Side veiw. When it's all welded into it's final place I'm going to add some gussets to the back side and a brace that runs over to the passenger side

Any thought or comments on my steering setup before I weld the puppy all together

 

Worked on Jeep for a little the last few days. Finished welding up the steering bracket, installing the shifter and chopping up the trans tunnel to clear the trans and shifters. Here are the pictures


The shifter all bent to clear everything. I think it looks bad, but I not 100% sure how to make it look better and still work.


Roughing out the trans cover


Bracket to hold the steering colum in place, it's not fully installed yet.


The shifter in reverse it's close to the seat I think I'm going to bend the shifter a few more times before it's all said and done.


The bracket welded into place.


Side veiw of the bracket.

 

Spent the last few days working on the trans tunnell I filled in the holes I cut in and made a new top cover. It still needs some hole filled in other little deatails but, the trans tunnell is mostly fininshed.



The top cover bofore some primer.


After primer and looking at the rest of the tunnell.


Passenger side.

 

After coming to a dead stop in the fall I decided to start back up on it again. I have set a goal of having done mid Agust or sometime in September. I picked up a Jeepster with a 225 that should run, my Dad and I got it to crank in the junk yard but couldn't get spark, so I guess I'll see how It pans out. It also has the all the parts I need to complete the saginaw conversion, The the two hole passenger side knuckle and the tie rods.

The Partster I feel kinda bad hacking it up but it dosen't have a title so in PA it's only good for parts.
more pics to come as I progress on the Flatty.

 

Spent some time working on the Jeep tonight and I have question. If you have to replace a leaf spring is okay to just do one corner, or should both on that end be replaced?