Thanks, man. It seems to be working out good so far but I've only played around in the yard with it.

I've been working on a lot of little things the last couple of nights. Door jamb switch, heater resistor, speaker wiring, door hinge adjustments & more sanding.

You can see how bad the door switch was:



The pin from the socket actually rotted away, so I took a small finish nail, cut it to length & tapped that into the socket. Works so far.

 

Nice!...Thats one serious OBA set-up.

 

It was cool this weekend. My son came up with his 4Runner. He's on his way to Denver, so we checked things over. I fired up the OBA, snapped the hose into the front air chuck & aired up all 4 tires for him. Pretty sweet.

He just sent me some pics from the Tigers stadium in Detroit, he got some Red Sox tickets on Craigslist & figured why not? Sounds like he's having a great trip so far. going to Chicago tomorrow, then off to Denver.

 

7/6/09 – Still going slow, but making progress. I don’t get as much time as I’d like, although my wife says it’s all my time on that Jeep. LOL

There were a few maintenance things I had to do. The heater only blew on high, so I replaced the resistor, pretty easy & works great now.







I also had the door jamb switch on the DS that wasn’t working so I bought a new one & found this mess when I went to replace it.



The pins inside the socket were corroded so bad that they were gone. I scratched my head for awhile but then found some small finish nails that I cut and tapped into the socket. It works, but I should get a new socket sometime.

I also bought new plugs, wires, cap & rotor from Summit. They still owe me the Champion truck plugs.

 

I’ve been concentrating on the paint. I finally got to the point where I was ready to tape. My nephew has a compressor, gun, etc. so he said he’d help when I got ready. Thanks to Scott (Rockcrusher) I decided to go with a single stage urethane in the same color, Gunmetal pearlcoat.





I went to NAPA to get a quote on a gallon of finish, urethane primer, sealer, reducer, hardener and everything else I needed. They seemed high, ~$380.00 so I took my nephew’s advice & went to Maine Auto Color which is part of Lee Auto in Auburn. I walked in, started talking about what I wanted & realized that I went to school with Jim. He was a great help & saved me $80.00 and I got a few other supplies too.



Everything I bought was Omni, which is PPG’s cheaper line. Seems like a very good product for what I’m doing.



I went to Sam’s in Augusta after that & bought a yellow top. The best price I’ve seen for them, $163.00, the blue tops were $155.

So I went home before spending any more money. Well, I did stop & buy some more sandpaper & plastic & a respirator. Expensive day. I installed the battery when I got back.


I cleaned out the garage so I could put the Jeep in & have enough room to move around it. I did some final touch ups to it & a final wash. I hung the header & cowl panels from the ceiling.





My nephew showed up in the AM with his compressor & we got it sprayed out with primer, finally. It was a good feeling seeing it one color & realizing how close it’s getting.







The rest of the day was spent block sanding the primer. I’m really impressed with the product I bought. You can just tell the primer is a high quality. I hope the finish goes on as well. I’ve got a couple of place to touch up, but hope to have the finish coat on next weekend. I can’t wait.

I guess that’s it for now. My arms are tired!

 

You're making progress. About your paint supplies, I don't know anything about the product but I like the name. "OMNI".

 

Thanks. It's PPG's cheaper brand. I was very impressed how well the primer sanded & I could tell adhesion was good too.

 

Despite the fact we had to leave in the middle of the 2nd coat to rescue my BIL who was towing his sailboat to the lake & had the axle tube break when going over the RR tracks, I have a Jeep that's all one color again.

We had a good time. A good friend came down & my nephew had one of his buds shoot it for me. Can't wait to get 'er home & start putting it back together. Maybe tonight if things go well.



Update: Didn't get it home tonight. We had to use the car dolly to rescue another member who lost the engine in his. Maybe tomorrow....

 

8/23/09:

Wow, another month gone by. I'm getting very close now. I've got to do some work on the rear dif. I think I've got a pinion bearing that's bad & the ARB needs to come out so I can clearance the bearing race so it stops blowing gear oil out the vent.

The front dif needs spider gears, so I figured get an ARB for that & a truss & be done with it.

Only other thing if $$$ hold out is a front winch bumper.


Anyway, here's some progress:

I got it back home & put all the interior panels, door handles, mirrors, etc back together. That was time consuming.



The plastic was busted on a lot of the interior door handles, so I found some aluminum & attached them with tek screws.




Here's a little walk-around video from a few weeks back:


http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v1...nt=MyXJ351.flv

I bought some flares from Doug over at NAXJA. They're a prototype, similar to BW's but only stick out about 3 1/2" & he claims are much stronger.





I also found a Warn D30 skid for $30 as you can see above.

I went shopping again yesterday to Kingfield to check out some 34 LTBS on CL. They were in pretty good shape, about 70% left, and mounted on rims that would work. Gave him $350 for all 4, which I think was a great deal. I brought them home, worked my but off getting them cleaned up, wire brushed & painted. I also had to finish the pass side flares. Then threw some stickas on it.




















Can't wait to wheel it. I've been driving it up & down the dirt road I live on but don't dare to venture too far. I've got to get insurance, registration, etc.

 

Awesome looking Jeep man! Nice stickers, where did you find them? Is that rubber in between your flares?

 

Thanks! The USFWDA stickers were free from their website. The others (Jeep, Cherokee, 4X4) were bought on E-bay.

Yeah, these flares come with an edging that goes between the body & the flare.

 

this thing is bad *** god job man

 

Thanks, man, looks like you have a whole fleet of badass Jeeps. Pretty cool, love the 2door.

 

looks good.

 

nice work on the paintjob!