'68 Coronet R/T wrote:Front needs some adjusting but with all the frame repairs I am not expecting much improvement. At best I will create the illusion of straightness.

That's what shims are for

looks fantastic!

Fender flares and body armor on:


Trying to decide if I should paint this diamond plate black to match the body armor. Any thoughts?


Waiting for new horn and relay to arrive so I can wrap up the last bit of wiring:

Painted the Diamond plate Red and I think it was the right call.


Care to wager a guess as to why this area is cracking?


Once again I find rust under filler:



This view kind of tells the story. Oil canned metal sunk in and caked in filler.


When I got the filler off this area the metal "popped" back up into place.
Found a number of places where they used the pointed end of the body hammer to try and shrink the metal and stop the oil canning.

Not a great picture but you can see an outline of trouble lurking below:


Here's what lies beneath:


Got the stud gun out and start pulling dents and shrinking metal.


Should have read Doright's post before I tackled this one.


Look what I found under the hinge:


So much for the "just throw a paint job on it" idea.

That jeep looks great!

Cleaned up the under dash wiring:




Installed hood:



Painting windshield frame and roll cage next.

Waiting on new seal for the windshield and then I'll work on the wiper motor and wiring.

Nice work, Jim!

chevman wrote:Nice work, Jim!

Ditto... Looks outstanding.

I'm supposed to do a Jeep Scrambler for my bro-in-law this year, but it's pristine compared to what you had to work with (1 owner, original paint)... got a couple rust holes, but he'd supposed to get those fixed properly before I get it...cant wait to get started on it, he wants it bright orange

When trying to line up the winch cable with the Fairlead and lower tubes on the front bumper a problem presented itself.
You can see the cable feeds directly into the upper tube.


There was another problem. The old light mounts wouldn't fit anymore because of the winch:


I suggested this possibility for mounting the lights but the owner wanted them "inside and protected."


This meant either raising the bumper or lowering the winch since I wanted the fairlead to help cover a dent in the lower tube and need the lights to fit.


So after welding some extra frame supports, cutting and welding some angle iron to the supports, cutting the 1/4" plate to fit between the frame rails, and drilling holes for mounting the plate, prepping, priming and painting everything I made it to here:



Today I modified the bumper to accept the lights without the huge mounting brackets and to attach the fairlead so it centers on the space between the tubes. I cleaned it up and sprayed it with epoxy and will take some pictures of later.

The roll cage is painted:


Rear bench seat installed:



The front seats are going to require some fabrication to get them in. The back corner hits the wheel well:


The seats are too tall and provide no clearance for legs under the steering wheel


The lower front of the seat hits the frame rail so even after taking the sliding mechanism off the seat it is still too high:


Definitely not a tall man's vehicle and anyone with a belly would have some issues as well.