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: Sun Feb 06, 2022 6:05 pm
Okay, so welcome to another pretty full day at the Detroit Wrecking Crew headquarters. Well, no more wrecking, just lots of cutting and assembling. First up was the install of these clever spare tire/bed floor locks with built in levers. These things are somewhat of a pain to install but they have a lot of adjustment in how they snug up when locked. They are keyed alike.
While getting those figured out cut and installed, Dalton and I moved on to refinement of the cab roof section. We did 3 markings and trimmings to get this ready for mounting. After I was satisfied with how that was going to fit I am trying something a little different. I went into several older boat building archives and found a reference to making an epoxy base kind of "bondo filler." So regular epoxy resins are always problematic because they don't surface sand that well. Bondo type filler sand up easily but have no internal strength or the ability to flex. What the boat builder guys do is take their epoxy resin and add ceramic or phenolic microspheres into the mix. You can go as high as a 1 to 1 ratio on them and it turns your epoxy into kind of a paste. The best part is that once cured the surface can be very finely sanded yielding a great surface for primer. So I'm doing that process with a couple of wet on wet layers.
So the next thing was installing those jump seats. I finally settled on an institutional medical grade wall seat rated at just shy of 500 pounds capacity. The surfaces are anti-viral and anti-microbial. They can fold up against the side wall being just 1 and 1/2 inches thick and simply flip down. These were bolted through several plates with stainless steel bolts.
Last thing on the list today was setting the tailgate gaps by using lock out plates which us move the last 6 inches of the bed wall as needed for even gaps on each side. Gaps look great. We then buttoned up the inside of the tail gate mech area with an aluminum plated and added a scuff plate along the top.
So we are just about done with the metal portion of our build. Next we will be sanding, prepping, and fitting all of our fiberglass. That will take at least a full day, then another full day of panel bonding and adjusting..... seeing light at the end of this tunnel.... :lol:
Attachments
IMG_20220206_125606123.jpg
Dalton doing one of several body saw trims for fitment...
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Getting ready to trim the Sharpie line for gap
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Keyed latches for spare tire cover/bed floor...
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Folded up position
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Just grab it and fold down....
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Fiment was great.....
Metal, wood, fiberglass, we work it all... www.furniturephysicians.com We can restore the irreplaceable!

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PostPosted: Sun Feb 13, 2022 11:55 pm
Well, I for one.... am..... exhausted. All 3 of us hit an 8 hour day on the build today. Lots of measuring, fitting, tugging, trimming, hammering, and finally panel bonding. It all started a few days ago with continued refinement of the cab top.
We got everything close enough to move ahead with the rear window install. I did that last night, and man, that was an ordeal on this kit. I think the cab fiberlgass might have picked up a minor twist when it came out of the mold. You know how you can tell that?.... your darn piece of glass is razor straight and what you are mounting it to is NOT! I was able to weight out and put some pressure on the top as needed to get a good mating of the surfaces. If you are reading this and doing a similar project here is a warning.... If you have to much bending pressure on a piece of glass like this you can either break or quite literally peel apart a piece of laminated glass. I was in an older kit car build one time and I felt that the previous builder had improperly installed a side glass. I had upgraded the suspension and was running very sticky gumball style tires on the car. I came a round a sharp curve at speed and the passenger side glass exploded. Luckily it was tempered glass so it broke up into non sharp shards.... what a mess though..... So, yeah I'm a little paranoid about getting the glass in right.....mission accomplished.
So today went pretty well. Gas cap is now mounted.... good fit. We moved the fender sides back into position, this time refining how they would need to pull in place permanently using the old door bolts. That's one thing I really like about the Smyth kits is the use of factory bolt holes to afix your large pieces like these sides. You can easily stack washers under those bolts to move the sides in and out for adjustment. Everything gapped up well. Once we got the sides dry fitted for where they would be mounted we then dry installed the cab top. You have to remember that we extended this thing about 5 inches to the front so our alignment was even more critical than a stock situation. Well, everything line up pretty well. You'll see in the pic.s we also have put on some of our soundproofing/insulation material. This is a product called AllMat. Nice stuff, 80 mils of thickness which is pretty decent. The inside of the cab in the back will get done with it as well.
So on to panel bonding. For those of you not familiar with this it's been done on factory cars for quite sometime now. I bought a Fusor dual cartridge gun about 20 years ago. Back then there wasn't a lot choices on brands and Fusor was a factory approved bonding agent. So pricing on Fusor is competitive and I go with the stuff that is workable for 90 minutes. I prefer slower panel bonding as kits like this can use some adjustments when eyeballing things. Only downside is you do have to clamp, screw, or jig it in place for at least 4 hours and I prefer doing that more like 24 hour or longer. So we got everything panel bonded and temporarily srewed in place. I'll get some pic.s of that on here tomorrow.
Attachments
IMG_20220213_140832419.jpg
Well, yes, we now have glass in that huge hole.....
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Pretty decent fitment considering that we made this extended area....
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Action pic. of gas cap door not only fitting but working....don't laugh I've seen these doors horribly aligned in some kit cars....
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Yep, you simply reuse the OEM gas cap door and the fitment was spot on.....
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After using a polyurethane caulk on all of the seams and rivet heads, we applied the AllMat.
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Dalton is sanding/cleaning up that metal roof edge getting it reading for the cab to slip in.....
Metal, wood, fiberglass, we work it all... www.furniturephysicians.com We can restore the irreplaceable!

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PostPosted: Mon Feb 14, 2022 11:07 am
This customized fabrication stuff isn't for whimps is it?

My hats off to you for being able to conjure up the idea of what you want to do and then make it happen with fiberglass and metal.

As for me, I am sticking to restorations.
1968 Coronet R/T


ACTS 16:31

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PostPosted: Mon Feb 14, 2022 3:46 pm
Ha, ha.... well, yeah, it can be challenging. I've always looked to the old masters for inspiration on this stuff... Michelangelo said, "Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it. I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free. " I have always felt that way about rigging, creating, modifying stuff. I built my first kit car when I was 17 or so because I could not afford an "exotic" car. Back then I looked to Colin Chapman of the Lotus car manufacturing... “Simplify, then add lightness”, he said. It was his philosophy, way before 'minimalism' became fashionable. “Adding power makes you faster on the straights; subtracting weight makes you faster everywhere”, was another of Chapman's premises. Building that first kit turned an regualar old Beetle into a really neat sports car. It lost almost 600 pounds in it's transformation......
So building the Smyth truck thing just comes natural to us around here. My Grandson has even better ideas than me most of the time. I'm just a little better at making his ideas "work" :lol:
Metal, wood, fiberglass, we work it all... www.furniturephysicians.com We can restore the irreplaceable!

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PostPosted: Mon Feb 14, 2022 7:40 pm
Okay, just a couple of minor pic.s of the truck after panel bonding. This involves clamping or using self-drilling screws for getting everything in place. All the screws you see get removed. We may leave a few countersunk rivets in some hidden areas. After we countersink them we bury the head area in epoxy and blend that out. You are always best just doing these kit panels with the panel bond adheasive so stress is evenly distributed. Making "hard points" with hardware can cause cracking in fiberlgass.
Minor curve ball was we got a little colder than expected Sunday night so I did crank up the heat more this morning. We are not even going to touch this thing until the upcoming weekend.
Attachments
IMG_20220214_151825690.jpg
This side will need very little further adjustments/ fill work.....
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So the way this works is...we take these panels in my shop and do a rough prep., panel bond and clamp/screw them in place, then go back and build out and trim as needed. The upper door here will need about 1/8 inch added.... The blue tape indicates needed filling...
Metal, wood, fiberglass, we work it all... www.furniturephysicians.com We can restore the irreplaceable!

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PostPosted: Wed Feb 16, 2022 7:58 am
DarrelK wrote:Okay, just a couple of minor pic.s of the truck after panel bonding. This involves clamping or using self-drilling screws for getting everything in place. All the screws you see get removed. We may leave a few countersunk rivets in some hidden areas. After we countersink them we bury the head area in epoxy and blend that out. You are always best just doing these kit panels with the panel bond adheasive so stress is evenly distributed. Making "hard points" with hardware can cause cracking in fiberlgass.
Minor curve ball was we got a little colder than expected Sunday night so I did crank up the heat more this morning. We are not even going to touch this thing until the upcoming weekend.

Nice work on that project! I wish I had the time, set up & crew you all have!

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PostPosted: Wed Feb 16, 2022 9:59 am
Thanks! I was just lucky enough to get a then 7 year old grandson excited about doing these creations!
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IM000953.JPG
My Grandson Dalton was excited when he helped me disassemble this 1986 Pontiac Fiero....
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That car became this Finale.....
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PostPosted: Sat Feb 19, 2022 5:01 pm
So I am solo by myself today. Actually I don't mind it because I knew fitting these tailights were referred to by several build guys as "a pain in the butt" step. So they were not as bad as I thought they would be. Took about 3 hours of fitting, minor grinding, fitting, more grinding, and making sure that I mounted them like I did on my Charger build. Instead of using well nuts for mounting I perfer to just carefully install rivnuts. I say carefully because you are pressure fitting these things into a plastic material which is a little tricky. Something I did with the Jeep here is also to go up to a thicker 1/4 inch bolt because of increased tension/stress from possible off road stuff. I'll also be using black weatherstripping around them when we finally put them in the last time.....
Stay tuned for a little side project in mods I am going to make to the passengers seat for more access to the jump seat area. I think I've got it all figured with all of the higher grade hardware coming in over the next few days.
Attachments
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I am glad these OEM lights were reused in the kit though....they look "right."
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Not bad....they don't just pop in there though..... I can guarantee that!
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These things are tricky to get in....there is a lot of up/down and side to side movement for final placement.
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PostPosted: Fri Feb 25, 2022 5:41 pm
So these truck conversions are pretty great but all share kind of common flaw about their utility. If you get the upgraded front seats that are full power, heated, etc., you are limited in how much "access" you have to the area behind those seats. That area was accessed by the passenger rear doors in the previous design. So if you did a build like my Charger that wasn't much of a big deal because there wasn't a ton of space back there to begin with in the original Smyth conversion. Now with my Grandson's layout we have incorporated those extra side jump seats and there is quite a bit of room behind those same power seats. My Grandson is like, "Well, in a pinch we can just jump over the center console to get back there." I'm like, "No, let's make it so ANY adult can get back there." So I've been installing/ modifying factory and high end replacement seats in kit cars for just about 50 years now. Safety is job #1. when it comes to seat modifications especially when maintaining the relationship between the factory seat and the air bag, and safety belts. The Jeeps are pretty typical of high strength rated hardware that keeps the seat in place while the air bag and safety belts do their job.
So, what I came up with was.... One set of 3 inch wide blank hardened hinges designed to hold 1000 pound steel landscape gates, 2 hardened M 10 studs, a bag of locking crush washers, large extended thread hardened stainless steel wing nuts and re-use of the factory M 10 bolts that originally held the seat in.....
So what I have done is align and drill two single holes in each hinge unit. This allows the bottom of the hinge to bolt directly into the factory threaded mount hole on each front side of the seat. The top of the hinge then bolts right into the front mount holed on each side of the seat with again factory bolts and hardened nuts. So now the whole seat rails and all can flip forward into the dash. I then took the two new studs and threaded them securely into the back factory original mounting holes. This allows the entire seat to come down over those studs, throw on the crush washers, and put on the wings nuts, poof! Give them a good twist with pliers for your normal travels. Need to get back there? Just minor twist with pliers, nuts come up fast and easy, and within less than a minute you are into the back..... Net effect....you get about a 3/4 inch height increase in the front of the seat however that is easily adjusted for because the seats have that power tilt option. I just love this option though. Take a look at the pic.s I like it so much I am going back and retrofit it to the Charger truck..... Oh, and those hinges were nice and tight on tolerances so the seat sits just as solid as it was.... Took about $30 worth of hardware to do this... Money well spent....
Attachments
Seat Mod..jpg
So this was everything I bought plus reusing the factory seat bolts....
Seat Mod. 2.jpg
Just starting to move up off the studs...
Seat Mod. 3.jpg
Kind of amazed how far this seat could tilt up. Didn't even have to extend the power seat electric harness
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Yep, it's pretty simple here at the front. Hardened hinges did require a boron drill bit though...
Seat Mod. 4.jpg
Seat doesn't even look like it has been modified. Someone would have to point it out to you.... This is with the seat all the way back...
Metal, wood, fiberglass, we work it all... www.furniturephysicians.com We can restore the irreplaceable!

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PostPosted: Sun Feb 27, 2022 11:24 pm
So we all got together for about 6 hours today. And, well, we had a minor setback of probably not getting enough of the panel bond, or clamping a little too tight on some lower areas. This time we put less tension on the panels and did more of an "in-fill" with our own epoxy mix using both carbosil and the ceramic micro balloons. We also cranked the shop heat up to about 75. I picked up a neat little powerful heater from a tool rental place that was upgrading their inventory. I've got natural gas plumbed just about everywhere. This is a small portable torpedo blower style heater rated at 150000 btu WITH a thermostatic control on it. Thing is awesome... can bring 1000 square feet of shop up from 45 to 72 in a little less than an hour. It was about half the price of a new model.

So, we got quite a bit done today. We have "most" of the body prepped for primer, probably need about 2 to 3 more hours of that. We got all of the bed aluminum hit with 80 grit by machine. While the guys were doing body work I crawled around in the bed area sealing all the seams with a high strength polyurethane goo. Last thing we did to day was start fitting the rear bumper. About the only thing I don't like about this kit build is the reuse of the stock bumper. You have to do several cuts/fits of this thing. We also elected to retain the "smooth" original Cherokee bumper as opposed to getting one that has the built in bumperettes. This creates a lot of drama at the very sides of where the bumper fits in. I think I have a "workaround" for this but we will just have to see. Next session will involve finishing up fitting that bumper, rest of the body work, and maybe, the final mask out for priming.....
Attachments
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Aluminum bed all roughed up and ready to prime...
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Now this is the side that needed more attention.
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This side has very little work in the fiberglass.
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Dalton is leveling the fill work just behind the doors.
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This is a good sized section of bumper that has to be removed.
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Riley had to make several cuts on this to get it "closer" in fitment.
Metal, wood, fiberglass, we work it all... www.furniturephysicians.com We can restore the irreplaceable!
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