The longest build thread ever, at least it seems like it!

[glenn]

Looking good. Ready for winter again, sounds like it's coming back this weekend.

[Kaiserjeeps]

I am watching a major cold front coming down from Canada right now. 100% chance of snow tonight. I spent the day tearing down the front Dana 60 to replace seals, clean up wads of grease, get black paint where I might not reach later. I needed to order up some kingpin parts. I am impressed with the Dana 60 and how stout it is. I need to clean up a few more parts and then wait on the kingpin parts. Just burning up winter on the truck build. My first truck was named snowball by the folks at the Arizona observatory where it lived for a long time. I should find a winter based name for this one. Anyway...

[Flingarrows]

Wow, that is some cold weather!

Do you find that paint is very tough to sand off?
I am stripping the doors and hood on mine, and it’s taking forever.

I tried paint stripper. It took the red from the FD off, but only softens the top layer of paint

[brute4c]

Yeah...that is cold!!! We have barely slipped below -10 this winter...

Stay warm Al...we need you!!

[Kaiserjeeps]

Yes Flingarrows this is the toughest paint I have ever sanded. No kidding, two days to sand both fender skirts. So why does my new tan paint chip so easily? I have been wondering. And I have you beat on temps Jon. The lowest I have ever seen here was 36 below zero. I was 5 degrees shy this time. It is hard to heat the home with that. I am not looking forward to my power bill. The furnace kept coming on despite a hot hard running woodstove.

It warmed up to 32 today and rain. It was raining at 19 degrees two days ago. Never seen anything like it. So I watched a superb church service online this morning then decided to go out and work on the skirts. I ended up with a quick sand to smooth the rust sealer and put seam sealer on the seams. I got a wild hair and fired off 4 heaters to warm the shop to paint. I got the plastic booth to 68 and went for it. Glad I did it. The fender skirts look way better than I thought they would. Got a shovel painted, steering column, gas can hold down straps, trans boot ring, headlight rings, rear view mirror, etc. I need to not touch it for a few days now. Anyway some pictures.

Seam sealer to stop rust. I soaked SEM rust sealer in there just in case.



And the rest of the parts. I have a few black things left to do yet.







Getting there.

[Kaiserjeeps]

Well I got the grill guard painted. It took a full day of straightening with a bearing press and various straight edges to get it looking good again. I had one cracked weld to fix and a few dents to fill. Got that done after another full day of sanding it. I painted it yesterday after running the heat in the shop full bore for hours before spraying. I also painted the inner front radiator support. Another sanding joy there. This paint is really something. I put the steering column together and got it installed. I have steering now. I used civi parts on the steering wheel and I think it looks great. For a modified restomod anyway.





I punched holes for new neoprene seals.





Nothing is cleaned up yet. I was just fitting to make sure it all fit. The horn components are missing out of my column.



Onward

[Flingarrows]

Looking good. That looks like a lot of work to strip the grill guard

[Kaiserjeeps]

It was. My hands are very sore from sanding. But it looks good. Not perfect but it looks good. It will be a woods rig. It won't take long before those little imperfections will be lost in the fray.

So I started on the top frame. Jiminy freaking Christmas there are some holes in it. From a hard top I am sure. Maybe three different hard tops. I have roughly 28 rivet holes per side. Nuts ... I am welding them up and cleaning them up for paint. I bet it whistled in the wind on the freeway.





One side all fixed. I am going to pull all the snaps off for paint. The screws are stuck. I sheared the tip of an impact driver. Crazy the cheap crap from china we have now. I have all new black snaps to put back. And I have two new black tops to pick from. It is going to be sharp as heck. I will probably attempt to make a complete top frame set some day. It does not look to difficult. Anyway..



More later.

[Kaiserjeeps]

36 rivet holes in the rear bow alone. Somebody shoot me.

[Flingarrows]

Wow!