Jeep Grand Cherokee Truck Build

Show off your work! Anything from final results to full start-to-finish project journals.

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PostPosted: Mon Feb 28, 2022 11:18 am
By any chance are you keeping track of your man hours and material cost on this build?

Curious as to what this custom truck will be worth compared to the amount of time and materials you have in it.
1968 Coronet R/T


ACTS 16:31

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PostPosted: Mon Feb 28, 2022 11:29 pm
Yes, I am pretty much tracking it all. I do this even when I build vehicles for myself. The "rules" with my wife are that I at least break out of a build with only my time being the thing that may or may not be reimbursed because this is my hobby. So on about the last 7 kit builds/rebuilds I've made about $2000 to $7000 above all of my raw costs (that would be the donor car, the kit, needed parts, minor professional services, and some paid labor).
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PostPosted: Sat Mar 05, 2022 6:15 pm
Well, we all wanted our weekends for different activities so we did a night session last night. We got just about 4 hours in and made good progress on figuring out a "better" look/solution to that rear bumper. We'd have gotten a little farther but our air rivet gun decided it was not going to drive anymore rivets for the night. Riley had to go get his hand riveter so we could get that bumper in place. The answer to finishing out those bumper edges was a $9 piece of specialized rubber trim which has steel reinforced legs inside of it for holding power. I got 3 feet of it but we just neeed about 6 inches of it per side. I've also got another style of that same type of OEM rubber for trimming out the tailights. So things are looking pretty good. Getting some accesories ready to go, check out the pic.s The plan past here is a couple of hours of masking one night and maybe a hour or so epoxy primer shoot session another night. Once that is done, I'll turn up the heat for 3 to 4 days and we'll get it put back together so Dalton can do a week or two "shake out" run. Then it will be back for in for inspection, final disassembly/tape out, and final paint work....whew!, now I am tired....
Attachments
IMG_20220305_172507044.jpg
So yep, this rubber trim was the answer for finishing off the bumper sides....
IMG_20220305_170956395.jpg
I will normally recondition headlights BUT those new Japanese made ones up top there are like $80 a pair. Just cheaper to replace....
IMG_20220305_171006458.jpg
On this Jeep this comes off in about 3 minutes. This will be done in a textured black.
IMG_20220305_172251655.jpg
Again, decent... here you can easily see the rubber trim. It will look very OEM when we are done...
IMG_20220305_172235752.jpg
Not a bad fit.... we'll tweek it later...
IMG_20220305_172306293.jpg
So we are looking good here, things are squared up and gapping well.... bumper thing was a pain but we survived....
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PostPosted: Wed Mar 09, 2022 10:50 pm
So the day is finally here....we are pretty amped up to get this Jeep into primer. We are all getting together after 5 tomorrow for doing a little more masking and the primer shoot. If all goes well we should be done with that tomorrow night. I will then crank up the heat in that building for about 3 to 4 days, get the interior back in, and have Dalton driving it for a week or two. We are indeed going to be doing a Upol Raptor bedliner style coating on the whole truck. We are just driving the truck some before that to check for any movement or vibrations that might shift or affect the body panels. The main color will be Basalt Gray with all the lower trim going black. I picked up Upol's more advanced texture gun which gives you more control on just how fine your textue is. We are going to go with a heavy texture on the lower black and a finer texture with the gray.
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PostPosted: Thu Mar 10, 2022 12:39 pm
Another fine custom job.
Looking forward to seeing the finished results.
1968 Coronet R/T


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PostPosted: Thu Mar 10, 2022 5:12 pm
ME TOO........ I'm tired, heading out to shoot tonight as we speak.... :lol: :wink: :pcorn:
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PostPosted: Fri Mar 11, 2022 12:24 am
We got it "almost" done tonight. I still need to hit the other side of our tailgate which we have out separately. We were using my portable 6 stage turbine system with the Sprayfine gravity gun for this. Did a tad over a 10% splash of 1370 reducer since we were easily able to crank the shop up to near 80 degrees. Honesly, the 6 stage could have pushed this stuff with just about no reducer. About 2 coats 40 minutes apart. This 700 series high build epoxy continues to impress. Thick stuff in the can though....had to put it in our air shaker for about 15 minutes per part gallon A and gallon B. So we shot about a gallon and a quarter of mixed primer. Got a good 2 coats on and actually 3 on some trouble areas. So I'll finish up the tailgate and we will de mask tomorrow morning.
Attachments
Jeep in Primer 1.jpg
Epoxy primer lays down pretty nice....
Jeep in Primer 2.jpg
Stuff will flow for several hours....
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PostPosted: Fri Mar 11, 2022 10:45 pm
Went out early this morning and got the outside of the tailgate finished up. I had one mixed batch of epoxy left from last night. Put it on a cold concrete slab overnight and it slowed the chemical reaction so I could use it this morning. Flowed out beautifully for primer. Take a look.... oh, and those 3 holes is where the Overland badge will mount.
Attachments
Tailgate in Primer 3.jpg
I'm telling you... this primer is a real time saver....
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PostPosted: Wed Mar 16, 2022 9:42 pm
And, we are ready for a week or possibly two of "shake out." We are now fully in primer and all assembled. The guys got together Monday night and along with a few things I had done over the weekend and Monday day.... we have a functional vehicle. So, about 9:30 my Grandson walks in and says..... "Give me the key, we're goin' to Taco Bell." Granted our local Taco Bell is only a couple of miles from me but the Jeep did have to idle for about 15 minutes through the drive-thru and he, of course, had to drive it around the neighborhod. The Taco Bell mission did show a minor hiccup that I did not anticipate... using the original smooth style bumper allowed heat to climb up under the bumper and "vent" through the right side bumper turn down in the aluminum underneath the fiberglass. So that concentrated heat and slightly distorted that fiberglass bumper cap. Luckily I caught it, so we now have that area insulated, did some exhaust wrap on the pipe itself, and installed an aluminum heat shield just over that pipe.
Today, I grabbed my wife and we did a 20 mile loop of highway and local road. Speeds from 15 up to 85. No shakes, no rattles, and man, this thing is quieter than my Dodge Charger build and is a bit quieter than my 2017 Santa Fe. Cool.... So he picks it up tomorrow and we take a look at it next Thursday to see when we'll finish it up....
Attachments
IMG_20220316_111806947_HDR.jpg
Looks pretty good from any angle...
IMG_20220316_111953366_HDR.jpg
Functional bed....spare is under that rear section. Just click the two black latches ad lift.
IMG_20220316_111932718.jpg
This looks very factory.
IMG_20220316_111919308.jpg
Primer, primer, everywhere.... we like this stance as well..
IMG_20220316_111848841_HDR.jpg
Check out the new headlights, they are from Japan. Very high quality and now all Led. We will be doing the grill in black along with the bumper. We'll leave the chrome tow hooks as they are....
IMG_20220316_111834421.jpg
My Granddaughter stopped by and thought it was "done."
Metal, wood, fiberglass, we work it all... www.furniturephysicians.com We can restore the irreplaceable!

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PostPosted: Sat Mar 26, 2022 9:30 pm
So we are coming down to probably the last 10 hours or so of the Jeep build. We had a minor setback last week. My Grandson was indeed driving it daily so we could pin down any movement in our panels or fill work. We found 2 fairly small cracks that can easily be addressed and we fairly sure we can either isolate or "stop"the movement that caused them. So that was not the setback.... Dalton's apartment complex said since he had 3 vehicles on the property he had to park one in this more remote area...... wait for it.... UNDER TREES. So he didn't think anymore about it. Well, when you combine moderately heavy rain with spring trees you get this great looking natural dye that is chlorophyll based and you guessed it.... his vehicle got slimed. I found it rather terrfiying at first. I got some good advice from some old mentors/instructors and a chemist friend of mine. We were all on the same page and I was planning to do some testing. Well, so we did get some more rain and that slime was weak enough in the presence of water that about 80% of it is gone and the rest will sand up when we level this coating..... So we dodged a buttlet on that one! We should be shooting bedliner this week. While that is curing for a week we will try to knock out a bed cover for the Jeep.....
Attachments
green slime 2.jpg
Yep, bright geen slime was just about everywhere....it was worse that what you see here initially.....
Metal, wood, fiberglass, we work it all... www.furniturephysicians.com We can restore the irreplaceable!
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