Spent most of the day working on the CJ. It's amazing how much time these things take, but it's enjoyable and rewarding work.
If you've ever watched that show called "Hoarders" you may notice that many of the people express dismay at figuring out where start cleaning their mess. I don't feel that way, but in the back of my mind I am always thinking about how long the to-do list is. For me, though, half of the fun of a CJ is working on it.
My left and right blinkers are a bit fast, so I decided to look into that. The right front turn lamp had become water logged at some point. Here's what it looked like when I opened it up:
I wire wheeled it, but the tough part was cleaning the lamp socket. I had to buy a small wire brush for the Dremel, and it fit perfectly. The inside of the socket looked new. The reflector part looked OK but will be fine for real-world use:
The wagon wheel spare needed some work, so I figured that would be a fun project. Here's the before:
The tire actually looks OK and is in workable shape. First, I scrubbed the whole thing with dish soap and a stiff brush. Then I wire wheeled the front/white side and the rear which was already black. I used orange paint stripper on the front after wheeling it. Then I used rust converter on the back. Finally, I used paint thinner to clean all of the metal.
Here's the front masked off for painting:
Here's the wheel after the first coat of white:
I will apply 1 more coat tomorrow and post a final photo. I also polished the lug nuts. You may have noticed that I pulled off the balance weight before painting. I decided to go ahead and do this and just get the thing re-balanced after the paint has cured.
The Jeep came with 33" x 12.5" tires on 10" wheels. Those were too big for my liking, so I had new 31"x10.5's installed on new 15x8 wheels. They look fantastic. I took a bunch of 'before' photos of the old tires on the Jeep, but failed to take any 'after' photos today. I'll get some tomorrow. Here are the old tires before a JF member hauled them off for me:
I ran the paint restore/wax process on the right side of the Jeep. Here's an 'after' photo:
I removed the factory jack and mounting plate from under the hood and wheeled, rust converted, and repainted those. Here's the jack before:
I'll complete the paint and post an after photo tomorrow.
Finally, I noticed the throwout lever boot is shot. How difficult is it to replace this?
Here's a shot of the Jeep on the back patio. I'm envious of the folks who have lots of acreage for their projects.
My original shift knob was missing the pattern. I installed a new shift boot and knob. In typical Jeep fashion, all three screws holding the boot on were different.
I got the light bar off, finally, after purchasing a big screwdriver.
Tomorrow I'll finish the jack and spare tire projects. If I have time I will repaint the spare tire carrier. After that I want to start getting things cleaned up under the hood. That will be a good transition to doing some real mechanic work. I also need to bench test the stereo and get it working or drop in a new one. So many things to do...