Build - 1970 CJ5

I got the entire jeep polished with the meguiars "mirror glaze" ultra finishing polish 205. It looks good, not a crazy difference from the 105 compound but gave it a nice little bit of extra gloss. Mainly spent the day with my future father-in-law getting things done that having a second person was needed for like bolting in the seat frames, where having to get under the jeep to hold the nut is needed. Also the windshield hinges went on, steering column was adjusted and secured in place, saved the old original turn signal lenses and trim rings by polishing them up nice, mounted the turn signal housing's, messed around with the hood alignment since it was off a little, it's better but not perfect... Not sure it's going to get any better... I can live with it though. Decided to take the old handle from the old dash and try to save it. Wanted to get a stainless one but for now I can hopefully get this one looking good black and one day if I feel it's necessary purchase a stainless one.

Would like to add that after looking for the steering column to dash bracket, I couldn't find it.. Probably due to moving it back and forth between 2 states so many times but after looking for a replacement, which is only available from kaiserwillys.com as far as I could find for $30.00. I went to HD and spent a $1.58 on a pack of 4 conduit brackets.. They were not round but I used a piece of pipe and a hammer to round it out a bit and was good to go. Painted it red at first then changed my mind and painted it black.... Then when I tighten the bolts up the red came through... I'll have to do some touch up on that. Also bought 2 new boots for the passenger seat frame at HD, worked great.

Oh! I almost forgot. My seats, which my brother got for me at a great price from CL, have an infestation of some type of bug! Like thousands of little critters crawling around. Did some googling and I guess they are bed bugs. I was cleaning them with some conditioner and noticed a few but after turning them upside down and seeing the foam, it was crazy. This was the main reason for my Hd trip. Bought spray to kill "bed bugs?" And a pack of foggers, sprayed the seats down and soaked the foam with the spray, bagged them up and put foggers in the bags and they are sitting overnight. Probably will be nervous for a while about that... The seats are from a later Cj but still low back and will work for a long time, enough time until one day I don't have anything else to buy and will get new seats.

Seats



Seat frames painted and installed.



Winshields hinges, all the screws aligned the same way... Thanks to a man named Tim for pointing it out.


Polished



Turn signals in, with CHROME spray paint inside... Haha. Figured what the heck instead of white like original I grabbed the chrome. Turned out decent.


old crusty lenses cleaned up with the compound and then run through the dishwasher..


Steering column bracket - conduit bracket. Also cut up an old rubber body mount as a "welting" between the dash and column tube. Very thin and works nice.


Old grab handle sanded down, then primed.

 

Grab bar has been finished, I feel that I hava mastered the multiple steps involved in making these old parts look good again. Sand, acetone, prime, sand, acetone, prime, then finally a couple coats of paint. Anyways. I also finished "fogging" the seats. Still had a few scragglers that I saw after a few minutes of staring at it. Soaked them with water, pumped water until seats were full then pushed it out by stepping on the cushions. Made sense in my head, like a flush. Then soaked in more bug spray.

Feeling better about the seats I set them up on the jeep, immediately encountered a few problems. The frames I have must be for intermediate. They bolted right up but the drivers seat is positioned to the left side of the steering wheel. The passenger side does not line up with my seat's bolts. So I have some work ahead of me on that. Should be a pretty simple fix, will just try to find some heavy gauge metal to bolt onto frames and then make new holes for the seats.

Put a good couple coats of wax on it also today to bring the finishing work on the paint to an end. It felt good to be waxing the jeep. Like it's an actual vehicle again. Can't go anywhere in it yet but that will come soon enough.

Scored an OEM windshield frame from ebay at a great price yesterday. Was planning on getting an one from Walcks which I'm sure is an import which after researching don't hold up. So I'm happy to have an OEM one on its way, it's in great shape , includes upper hinges, wiper motor cover, cowl gasket, and cracked glass. I have the original glass from mine which is in good shape so I'll get that installed after I get this one back from powder coat.

Think thats it, here are some pictures.

Grab bar



All waxed up

 

Windshiled came in the mail late last week. Disassembled it and it's ready for powder coat along with the wiper motor cover. Unfortunately there was a bolt broken off on the front face for one of the upper hinges so those will have to stay in. I am afraid of damaging the actual frame by drilling it out. Hopefully I can make something work so it looks better. Also the rubber cowl gasket is in pretty bad shape, a few cracks that make it not usable so I will have to get a replacement.

 

Hey so question for ya! Where did you get those philips head screws/ what dimensions were they?

 

Not sure on the dimensions or specs as they came with my "TotallyStainless" kit which included all new stainless bolts for pretty much everything. Well worth the $110ish at 4wd.com.

 

A word to the wise. I purchased one of their stainless kits for my 85 CJ-7 years ago. I was happy with it until the purchase resulted in a breakdown on the side of the road. Long story short, providing a stainless steel bolt for the distributor clamp isn't a good idea. I was breaking a new 258 in, dialing in a new carb, and adjusting the timing to where I wanted it. I tightened dist clamp bolt using a small wrench and kept it fairly loose since I kept adjusting the distributor. After a 15 minute drive, I stopped to adjust distributor and the bolt head snaps off. It wasn't even torqued down, but the heat from the engine had weakened the bolt.


Jeep is looking good BTW.

 

Good to know, The kit didn't really come with any under the hood bolts.. Maybe they have stopped providing them for that reason. The only bolts it had for under the good were radiator supports, radiator mounting bolts, and hood latch bolts... I def won't use stainless bolts for anything with heat now! Thanks!

 

The windshield was finally ready to pick up from the powder coated I use this morning, so I grabbed it and immediate came home to install it. Also got the wiper motor cover done and it looks great. A small imperfection right on the front of the windshield but not sure if it's the paint or if it's something in the metal. I will learn to live with it. I have come to realize that it's not going to be perfect, especially since this is my first build of anything at this caliber. But I am taking pride in the fact that most if the work has been done by myself or with family. So back to the windshield, i went ahead and installed it with the haggard rubber seal just for now as sort of a test fit. Fit pretty easily, some small problems... It doesn't fold down very easily. It gets stuck like half way down and takes some persuading to go flat. Also the passenger latch doesn't tighten... I have a small rubber peice in there now to allow it to tighten but it's too hot to keep messing with it right now. Here are some pictures.

Also the windshield installed makes these tires look even smaller....

 

Finished making the brackets to move the seats over. They are now painted and installed. Seats are secured on their frames, it feels good. The passenger seats mounting rails were about a half inch too narrow on each side, probably because the seats are from a later cj. But I was able to get screws into the metal inside the foam to secure it. Other than that, I found the steering column bracket! It was in the bottom on some bucket with parts from the black jeep, and I painted the old hood latches black and installed those mainly to see if I leaned black or stainless , but I'll keep them there a while.

 

Thought I was done for the day but decided to throw the windshield glass in. Did it by myself, and it was my first time ever doing anything with a windshield. 1 small crack got a lot longer but other than that all went well. It will get replaced one day wayyy down the line. Still need to toss in the locking rubber and it will be good to go.

Installing it it took about an hour, folded the windshield down and then started at the top with the rubber gasket already placed in the frame. Took a lot of back and forth usin plastic pry bars.

 

Couple small things done. It's really coming down to just staring at it and walking around the garage trying to find something to install. I will not have anything to do without making some purchases real soon. But with a wedding coming up and trying to buy a house, the jeep is going to be lonely for a while.

Over my last 48 hours off, I was able to get the wiper motor tested and installed since it worked, put the cover on and the wiper arms on. Spent about 30 min attempting to get the locking strip in the windshield and sfter 30 min and only 6 inches done incorrectly, I put it down and will let a professional install it when I get a new piece of glass way down the road. I drilled a hole with a uni-bit in the cowl for the motor wires, then had a handy piece of rubber that worked perfectly as a grommet.

Then I got 2 of the wheels sanded , primed, and painted. Just so it's here, again I used canvas white rustoleum instead of the krylon ivory or rustoleum ivory just bc of personal preference. Once they are completely dry I will decide if I want to put a coat of clear on them but if the paint is like the black I have been using then there probably won't be a need. I def cut a corner and didn't have the tires taken off. Did some looking and it seemed to be pretty common practice and I was itching to do something... I wasn't too worried about the tires and then on the final coat of the white I had a couple close calls and had to remove some of the masking so that's why there are a couple big spots of paint on the tires. I used the rusty metal primer because it has a decent "fill" quality to it. Then used about 5 coats of white. Starting pretty light and then getting heavier towards the end. Used about 1 and a half cans of white on the 2 wheels.

Here are some pictures.

Still needs some work and water proofing but it's at least on the jeep and not laying around waiting to get scratched.

I'm not going to push the grommet in all the way until I extend the wires when I get the harness


2 coats on close one and 1 on the far one

 

Looks real good really like the color course just might be partial to red

 

Thanks!

 

Surprisingly I have found some time in between my overtime shifts lately to mess around in the garage some. I painted the other 2 wheels and they turned out nice, same as the other 2 I showed. I got bored and spent $4 on a "4 wheel drive" decal for the tailgate, then I pulled the rear axles out in preparation for the 11" brake conversion. I still need to remove the front shafts and backing plates but that's another day. I still have a lot of time before I will have the $700ish dollars to purchase the conversion. Also got the warn hubs pulled off and cleaned up. Painted them with an aluminum paint but i hope it's not too bright, we will see I guess. I soaked the rusty bolts in "the works" and painted them... Just need to find the warn decal for the hub now.

Removing the rear axle shafts was surprisingly easy. It was my first time ever doing such a thing but the factory service manual was very clear and once I finished one side, it took about 5 minutes to remove the other side since it was already on jack stands. I was able to use the drum backwards as a makeshift slide hammer as I have seen from looking in older threads. It worked well except I found that once the 6 bolts were out, the backing plate needed to be moved around before the axle shaft would come out. Everything looks in great shape which is great news. By doing this though I have pretty much made the brakes my next purchase instead of the wiring harness... Here are some pictures.









Had some trouble getting the backing plate over the bearings but after a quick search, discovered that it was a "collar" that rusted into the backing plate that wasn't allowing it to slide over. After a couple hits with a hammer it came right off.

 

Front is disassembled, I was going to just remove the backing plates but I figured since I was already that far I would go ahead and remove the knuckles and take a look. I was expecting to replace the kingpin bearings and cups but they look surprisingly good. Atleast to me, I am not an expert but looking at them I don't see a need for replacements. Maybe if I'm wrong someone can chime in. Everything looks good, there is no play in the axle u-joints so I will just purchase some new knuckle seals and put everything back together once I get the 11" drums in. I am on a waiting list from "the jeepguy", he has been very helpful and has the option for a rear drum parking brake unlike herm. So hopefully within a month or so I can get those on. Here are some pictures of the front.






All 4 cups and bearings looked like the one in the picture, if anyone sees this it would be nice to know what you think about whether the are ok. Thanks!!!!

 

Bearing and cup look ok. but for peace of mind, I would replace them while you are there.

 

Thanks for the input! Good to know they don't look bad. Very little to no experience with bearings...

 

Huge difference, read this thread from start to finish... great job!

Somewhere in your thread, I saw you went with a new dash, where did you order it from and did it meet your expectations?

I need to order one.

Thanks!

 

Thank you!! I ordered The dash from Walcks. They are correct and don't have the radio cut-out which I did not want. It was very good quality and they are made in-house by them IIRC. Also very reasonable prices. The glove box door they sell does not simply bolt in to their dash though.

 

Getting some stuff done again. It's been slow the past couple months. Lazily got the new fuel tank installed and fuel lines run. I used old brake line and cut off the double flared ends and re-flared them. Seemed to work out well. Today I put the knuckles back on the front axle with the kingpin bearings after cleaning them up, also installed new seals. The new 11" brakes for the front should be here soon, then the rears to follow in a week or so. Also ordered the wiring harness today, went with the EZ wiring harness. Few other small parts on the way, like an ignition switch, gas cap, horn kit, and a spindle nut socket. So things should pick up within the next few weeks. Hopefully it will be ready for exhaust soon, which would mean it runs and stops!





Made my own fuel tank strap


Knuckles and hubs cleaned up and new seals in place.