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Ugly Betty - TJ Magnum V8 Conversion and more

185K views 745 replies 48 participants last post by  Jason 
#1 ·
Ugly Betty - TJ Magnum V8 conversion, Auto transmission swap and more, if I survive this.

Prologue:

I have a 2005 TJ with the I6 that I built running 35s. When I bought it, I was looking for a super clean, low mile, unmolested Jeep to build on. It has D44 / HPD30 / Tummy Tucked / 4.56s and a bunch of other goodies. It functions really well for the kind of stuff we do around here, but is still comfortable enough to drive daily if necessary.


^^ As dirty as it ever gets. ^^

The problem is it's too nice for me to damage or drill a bunch of holes in. It gets stored in the winter because of the destructive salt used on the road 6 months out of the year. The 05 has some pinstripes and nicks from the trails, but I want to get on some harder trails and really push what I can build. I'm going to continue to "build" it, but the upgrades will be fairly minor at this point. Brakes, steering and the like.

So I set out to buy a cheap TJ. I want something that I don't feel bad about cutting holes in or generally abusing. Around here, it's next to impossible to find a running TJ of any year that isn't falling apart for under $5K. Most times cheap TJs in my area were plagued with cancerous rust. I researched insurance auctions, but found that to be very difficult without an inside man, public auctions had pretty big fees, and even wrecked Wranglers can go for close to retail cost. I checked out Davey's Jeeps, and the one that I found with potential sold the day after I called about it. I even found a few folks with bare frames and bodies, but once you add up the odds and ends, it gets just as expensive as buying a complete TJ. Needless to say, I spent much time searching.

I finally happened across a fairly solid 97 TJ with a 4 cylinder. It had a new factory style top, new tires, and the frame and body were mostly rust free. The carpet was long gone and interior was lined with the spray in liner. It was about 2.5 hours away. I took an afternoon off work and drove out to see it, pocket full of cash and trailer in tow.

It was located just north of Detroit. I met the guy at his shop near the corner of a busy intersection. I ended up parking in the lot next door to his place because it looked easier to get the truck + trailer in and out. The Jeep started, and drove around the parking lot without much fuss, so I handed the guy some money. I didn't want to try to turn left into the traffic, then left again to get into the parking lot where my truck and trailer were parked, and I don't know the area, so I did what any good Jeeper would do and just drove it over the curb through the grass. (It wasn't that big, but I still thought it was funny.) On to the trailer and home we went.

The paint scheme was unique, and certainly not what I would have chosen. She's got a few other minor bumps and bruises too. Since I am now a two-Jeep household again, I couldn't simply refer to either as "the Jeep" anymore. I started calling it Ugly Betty, and the name kind of stuck.


^^ Beauty, in the eye of the beholder. I guess. ^^
 
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#578 ·
So that's two votes for leave 'em, and none for "bust out the grinder, you half-assin' fool."

Of course, if I welded as nicely as you do Andrew, it wouldn't even be a question. There were a couple spots where I wondered, or changed my hand position, and one spot on the top where I was fiddling with the settings that looks different than the rest.

I usually run .035 wire, but switched to .024 for the fenders. I think I may do the other one with .030 to see if I can get some neater welds.
 
#583 ·
Don't make me blush! :cheers2:

Honestly, I find if you're doing anything from 3/16" to 16gauge, I love .030. Above 3/16", .035 is nice to have just for the extra bead width reinforcement without manipulating the torch.
It's very clean if you hit the sweet spot in your settings. I haven't fiddled with .024 much because I just keep a spool of .030 in. I'm sure .024 is easier to manage, but because it saves me the hassle of changing out spools, I can have the welder set low, do some sheet metal, crank the welder, turn around, and be burning in a suspension bracket.
That, and at least with the large welders, my buddy is having major birdsnesting with spools of .024 in his Miller 252.

Nothing is more fun than overhead 1/16" wire though. :laugh:
 
#579 ·
I say keep the welds. You may however want to turn welder up a bit it will help tie in the toe of the weld abit nicer. It's hard adjust with fine wire but look like its close. All this is a assuming you have infinate adjustment on your mig. With only high and low you will just have to live with it.
 
#584 ·
I usually weld 7 gauge or thicker steel, so I use .035 almost exclusively. I have spools of .024 for sheet metal, and thought it would be better for thinner metal on the fenders, but .030 seems like it would be a good middle ground.

I suck at overhead welding. :laugh:
 
#585 ·
Fenders are getting there. I put the passenger side together. Cuts and fitment sucked on that one too. Did the best I could with what I had.

Stitches on the inside:



Doesn't look terrible, but doesn't look great either. I had to nip the corner of the battery tray and ding a pinch seam on the tub to get it to fit right. Now I need to decide if I want to make inner fenders or just leave it as is.

 
#588 ·
I don't remember, so that means it must have been straight forward.

All the speed sensor is is a 5V, ground, and signal to the PCM. I seem to recall that I had to wire in all the jeep stuff from the fire wall back (Neutral sense, speedo, fuel level) into the Dodge harness.
 
#590 ·
Welllll... Since the weather is getting better, and my travel has settled down a little bit, I've been doing a little work on the ol' girl. I have many other projects that have been waiting all winter, so I won't be able to make serious progress here, but some is better than none. I also may try to move, and this Jeep might get sold at the same time, so everything is kind of up in the air at the moment. But, on to the progress:

The turn signal stalk never worked right. Turning the steering wheel wouldn't cancel it in one direction, and the other direction didn't really work at all. I finally replaced that yesterday. I know this seems minor, but it was terribly annoying.

Last year I scored a windshield to replace my very cracked one. It was so bad that the wiper blades got tore up and it wouldn't clear the windshield in a rain. Yuck. I also needed sun visors, so I asked for the whole frame which ended up being very clean rust-wise. The guy that pulled it had trouble with the bolts and torched them out. I used my impact driver and they came free pretty easy.



Since I won't likely see the bottom of this windshield frame again, I shot some primer on it and under the hinges to prevent rust. There was a tiny bit of rust that I sanded off by hand. I am going to use my existing hinges, which were also in good shape. Just needed a little touching up.

 
#592 ·
my travel has settled down a little bit
Famous last words, I suppose. I've been on the road every other week, then trying to catch up with house work and other normal things when I'm home, so little Jeep work has done. This work project should end in September, so hopefully I will be around more.

I did build some inner fenders, mostly to hold the stuff under the hood (fuse box, coolant overflow, etc.)



I'm still not happy with these things, but I continued to massage them until they were acceptable. They are painted and ready to go.

I finally cut the holes for the flush mounted tail lights:



I started sanding and prepping for paint. The black color on this Jeep was some rubberized or textured paint. Soft and cuddy; hard to sand off. I also found a little rust when sanding. These things will need to get patched:

 
#591 ·
Windshield and frame were successfully replaced. It was great to have functioning windshield wipers.

I drove it today. A few observations:

- I haven't started it in a few days. It cranked extra-long, then puffed a bit of smoke out of the tail pipe when it finally started. Ran fine after that.

- It was windy. The hood was flopping around a lot. It's held down by a bungee cord and the factory safety latch. Passing gravel trains made the hood jump enough to make me nervous. I need to engineer a permanent latch, like pronto.

- The shocks are super craptastic. I won't replace them, but I noticed them clomping around in front while I drove it today.

- I still enjoy romping around in this little *****.
 
#594 ·
- It was windy. The hood was flopping around a lot. It's held down by a bungee cord and the factory safety latch. Passing gravel trains made the hood jump enough to make me nervous. I need to engineer a permanent latch, like pronto.
So, "pronto" means 3-4 months in my world. Got some hood pins the other day. Putting the fenders on today to align everything and installing the hood pins today.
 
#595 ·
Updates:

- Hood pins are finished. The strike plate is chrome, and I'm not happy with it. I wanted to paint it to match, but I think it will get scratched up by the cotter pins. Maybe powder coat would work better?

- Found another hole to patch. Tons of dirt and **** behind. (No wonder it rusts...)



- Instead of patching another hole on the tub (under the tailgate hinge; shown in pic a few posts above) I decided that would be a handy place for some reverse lights. I tried cutting with a hole saw but the metal was too week to hold the centering bit. So that leaves me with the dilemma of cutting a somewhat round hole without a hole saw. You can see in the pic below where my saw walked and started cutting above where I wanted it.

This was my solution:

I've measured that my plasma cutter will cut about 3/16" from the edge of the tip, so whatever guide surface that I use needs to be 3/16" away from where I actually want the cut. So I found a smaller hole saw and stuck it to the tub with a magnet, and used that as a guide for my hole. I forget my calculations, but that left my hole 1/8" smaller than it needed to be. I just filed the rest out so the light would fit.

-Remember the black color on the body was some textured, rubberized stuff, so I sanded it all off. Decided that I didn't like the texture of the white paint either, so I sanded that all off too. Not real interesting work, but here's an in progress pic:



- After I got all the sanding done, I got on to spraying primer. I only have a cheapie HF gun for spraying, but it's worked surprising well thus far. My first batch I mixed was way too thick (but recommended by the data sheet), and I spent a lot of time sorting out the gun settings and mix ratio. After much experimentation, I ended up tripling the amount of reducer to get it to lay nicely. I also only have a paint tip which probably didn't help.

Since my gun was flinging some serious primer boogers all over the place, I sanded all the panels down again with 320 grit and once it was all smooth I shot another coat of primer. This one came out much better since I had the mix correct. The primer on the hood cracked (likely my fault for laying it too thick and/or moving the hood while it was wet. And there is a spot where I leaned on the Jeep. Those two areas need some attention, but after that I should be able to hit it with some color.



Then, I went fishing:

 
#596 ·
Here's some of the cracks on the hood. It peeled on one spot, and the primer remained soft to the touch. Tells me there's an adhesion problem somewhere. The bottom 1/4 of the picture was unsanded (you can see it's rough) and the top part was sanded. Going to strip it and start over.



Meanwhile, I wet-sanded the primer on everything else with 320 grit again -- got it really smooth. Burned through in a few places, so I touched them up. Clean, clean, clean. I didn't want to fuss with my junky gun that I sprayed the primer with, so I bought a newer, nicer gun.

Everything else is now in color:



The paint laid well right off the bat. Came out very well with little orange peel. There are a few specs of dust in it here and there, and it sagged on the passenger side due to a combination of poor light and inexperience.
 
#599 ·
Thanks. It's nice to see this thing moving forward a bit.

The transmission pan has been dripping a bit of fluid for a while. It's gotten worse over time, so I am starting to look into that. It was wet above the pan, so I think the culprit is the fill tube. I pulled it out and tried to reseat it in its gasket. Re torqued the pan bolts too. Letting it sit overnight to see if there are any new drips. If not, then the fill tube was the culprit. I'll re-fill and see if it still leaks after that. If so, I'll replace that fill tube seal. I would have just replaced it, but the parts stores don't have it and I'd have to order from a dealer.
 
#600 ·
Jason I am currently in the middle of a 5.9 swap into a tj. I have read your whole thread and it has been an awesome reference. I have a question about cruise control. My jeep currently does not have cc. The donor dodge ram does. My question is did you include cc into your build? If so how did you handle the wiring?
 
#601 ·
My donor had CC, but my Jeep did not. I imagine that the wiring would be similar -- the wiring on everything else is. I think the problem would be the controls. My '05 and every other Jeep that I've seen with CC has steering wheel buttons. You'd have to source a steering wheel with the buttons.
 
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