philbert001

Nice shortbed! You should be able to get everything you need except driveshafts out of a cherokee at a junkyard. That's gonna be your starting point. Take lunch with ya, you'll be there all day! And as for your lift, all your front lift stuff will be cherokee stuff, and you can get 3 inch rear spring packs for the MJ, or you can do an add a leaf.

Thanks I do have a junk fender to practice on I will take my time I want it to look good hopefully it comes out good or Macco it goes. I did look at your topic that came out real nice, can't wait to see it with the 302 in it. Thanks bud! Just take your time, and there's no reason it shouldn't come out better than a maaco job! PM me if you have any questions when you get started! I'm happy to help.

I am a professional automotive painter, so I know what I'm talking about. On your stripes, I would lay out a few coats of your stripe color, let it dry, then lay out your stripes with fine line tape, in whatever size you are shooting for, then spray your main color over top of it. Peel off your stripe tape carefully, then clearcoat the entire thing. When it comes to how many coats to lay out, I would spray enough coats till it looks covered, then give it one more nice wet coat, for good measure. I just painted mine last weekend. you can check it out under "small block ford MJ". Good luck, and take your time. you don't have to get coverage in one coat!

I'll run it like I brung it till I break it. Then I'll be putting a full size bronco driveline in her. (Trans, T-case, and axles) At that point, I am thinking about attempting my first double triangulated four link. (Front and rear.) Obviously, with a driveline that beafy, she'll become my wheelin rig, and will be going UP!

Well, I have gotten a bur up my @$$ on this thing, and have gotten a hell of a lot done in the past month. I got my floorpans welded, and buttoned up the rocker fabrication finished. Image Not Found Image Not Found Image Not Found Image Not Found Image Not Found Image Not Found Image Not Found Image Not Found I got seat brackets fabbed up, and got my new seats mounted. They are a split bench out of a 96 S-10. Image Not Found Image Not Found Image Not Found I took my carpet to work and pressure washed the $#!& out of it, and reinstalled it, and most of my interior. Image Not Found Image Not Found Image Not Found Image Not Found Image Not Found Image Not Found I had a few factory radios laying around, so I decided to fill the hole in the dash, then I realized I have a nicer pioneer tape deck! Better than factory I guess! Someone stole the stereo out of it before I bought it, and ripped all the wires out. Some of em were like a foot back in the dash, and after a lot of cussing, and a few tripps to the computer to figure out what colors go where, I have tunes! Image Not Found Image Not Found My airbox was smashed in the wreck that brought her to me, and I couldn't find one locally, so I did a little fab work, made a few spacers, and fitted my ZJ factory airbox into her! It has more filter surface area, so I figure she'll breath and run a little better! I drilled 2 new holes to fit the two small regulated lines, and their regulator into the new lid. The spacers were needed because the bigger airbox was going to interfere with the lower radiator hose, so I made her ride above the hose. Image Not Found Image Not Found Image Not Found I haven't loaded any primer pics onto photobucket yet, but she's primed and painted! And now, the moment we've all been waiting for........................................ The money shots! Image Not Found Image Not Found Image Not Found Image Not Found Image Not Found Image Not Found Image Not Found She's not really orange like she looks in the pics. I think it's from the lighting, or the camera. At any rate, I'm hoping to give her the first shakedown run this weekend. I painted, and hung the rear bumper today. I need to throw some new bulbs in some of the lights, get an alternator, and find a few front end bezels, and she'll be sitting pretty, and street legal. I'm gonna drive her every day for a while, and work out any little bugs I come across, and hopefully this winter I'll be doing my engine swap to live up to the name of this thread!

Practice makes perfect. Every time you screw up, as long as you figure out why, you'll learn something, and get better! If you buy a spray gun, just make sure it's HVLP(high volume low pressure) They use less air, and lay out smoother coats. Everything else is junk and you won't be happy with it. I have to disagree on the HVLP.. They use a high flow of air at low pressures.. BUT... I do agree that their the best for auto finishes.. less over spray, less waste, blah, blah, blah,, but you better have a compressor that'll keep up.. And alot of those guns need bigger airlines.. HVLP guns run about 25-35 psi at the air cap in an optimum world. conventional guns need closer to 50 psi at the cap, and still don't atomize the paint nearly as well. Before I got a bigger compessor, I was painting in my shop at home with a Devillebiss 30 gallon 5hp compressor. And I've never run larger airlines/fittings at home. Modern automotive finishes NEED to be sprayed through an hvlp gun. A conventional gun can't atomize the paint enough to lay out properly. You may be able to get away with it on certain colors, but I wouldn't recommend it. I'm just saying, when you go to harbor freight to buy a cheap gun, (Because I don't expect you to go buy a $600 SATA to paint in your garage!), Don't buy the $20 siphon gun with the 2.0mm fluid tip, Get the $50 hvlp gravity gun with the 1.3mm fluid tip. (The siphon gun would make a decent primer gun for ya' though.) I guess I AM the "Paint Nazi", and my word is scripture dammit!

Hey there! I'm Phil from Fort Waste IN!

Practice makes perfect. Every time you screw up, as long as you figure out why, you'll learn something, and get better! If you buy a spray gun, just make sure it's HVLP(high volume low pressure) They use less air, and lay out smoother coats. Everything else is junk and you won't be happy with it.

My post was based on how professional painters do the job. If you do proper prep work, Sanding your base is not necessary. Sanding your base between coats is like using your base as primer. That's what primer is for! using your base as primer sounds like a waste of basecoat/money. sanding between coats is only necessary if you are a terrible painter, and are willing to wait like 4 hours between coats. I've painted 1/2 million dollar cars, and have never sanded my base between coats. The only thing I can think of even remotely related to that would be colorsanding your first clear job, and re-clearing to get that perfect glasslike finish. In which case, you probably aren't doing it yourself! The idea of a "Perfect sanding job" is to use progressively finer paper to cancel the previous sand scratches. As in, use 80 grit for your body work. use 120 grit to sand out the 80 grit scratches. use 180 grit to sand out the 120 scratches. Prime the job. sand with 220-240 grit paper. Sand with 320-360 to sand out the 220 scratches. sand with 400-800 (depending on basecoat) to sand out the 360 scratches. and you are ready for paint.

Not bad man! :cheers: I've seen worse paint come out of a paint booth! (Not my paint booth, but out of a booth none the less!)

No problem! :cheers: I just started getting on a few jeep forums a few months ago, and Have learned quite a bit. I'm happy to return the favor!

I got a PM asking for tips on DIY paintjobs, and I ended up doing a full write up for him, so I'm gonna paste it here too, because some of you guys might find it helpful. I am a professional automotive painter, so this is advise from a pro, not from some hack garage painter. I hope this helps a few of you. PM me if you have any questions, or if I forgot anything. These instructions are for solid colors. if you are doing a metallic, or pearl color, make sure to finish sand with 600-800 grit, so your sandscratches don't show through your basecoat. Where to start! Ok, first off, it's all in the prep work. You want to make sure to thoroughly sand everything. I would say you need to finish sand, all your surfaces with no courser paper than 400 grit. And don't sand anything with anything courser than 220 grit, unless you are planning on priming it. You should prime anywhere that you cut through the factory finish.(Any where that you go through the clearcoat) You should sand your primer with 220-360, then with 400-600 along with the rest of your surfaces. Make sure to sand all your edges with a scotch brite pad, or some kind of abrasive pad, or your edges will start peeling in no time. Once you have everything prepped and masked, use a mild mineral spirit to clean and de-grease your surfaces. Wipe it on with one clean towel, and wipe it off till it's dry with another clean towel. Then use a tack cloth to pick up any remaining dust, and dirt off the surface. You can buy these at most Napa stores in the paint section for like 2 bucks each. I don't know where you are planning on painting, but don't do it outside. Any breeze is going to blow crap into your paint. Do it in your garage with the door cracked if possible. Do it on a nice 70-80 degree day. That's about the best temp range for your paint to cure best. OK, now it's time to spray! Be patient! You don't need to get complete coverage in 1 coat. Your best pet is to do a nice even "tack coat". That is just I nice light even coat. It'll look really splotchy, but that's fine. Tet that coat flash dry for 5-10 minutes before your next coat. That coat will give your next, heavier coat something to bite into. It will also help to keep from getting runs! Now, you don't have much air flow at 3.4 cfm, so keep your airflow low, and the feed on the gun fairly low. Use a piece of cardboard to get your gun set up good, not your truck! I don't know what you are using for paint guns, but get it setup so your fan is about 6-8 inches high where it hit's the panel, while keeping your gun about 6 inches away from the panel. like I said, light coats are key! After your first, "Tack coat", You want to spray your paint on just heavy enough to look "Wet". like I said, as long as it doesn't look dry, or like it is fuzzy, that's enough. Several light wet coats will turn out looking way better than if you try to hose it on in 1 coat. Give it 10-15 minutes between coats, until you have nice even coverage.(Till you can't see your primer spots anymore.) Make sure to do about 50% overlap on your coats. This means that if you have an 8 inch spray fan, move down 4 inches on each pass, so that each pass overlaps half of the last one. make sure to move across the panel at an even speed, keeping your gun as square as possible, and at an even distance from the panel. (The 6 inches away I talked about.) After you have good even color coverage, Put your last coat on just a little wetter. You can do this by slowing down the speed at which you move the gun across the panel, or you can open up the feed on the gun. (Just like 1/8-1/4 of a turn on the feed knob will be plenty.) If you are using single stage paint, you are done. If you are using basecoat/clearcoat, let your base dry for 20-30 minutes before you clear it. Spray your clear the same as your base, Only give it one tack coat, (You don't need to get full shine on your first coat.) Then give it two even heavier coats, making sure to get full smooth coverage with no dry spots. Make sure to give it 15 minutes between coats. Let it air dry at least over night, and you are done. Let me know if you want to learn how to wetsand and buff, to make it look like glass! I hope this helped, and didn't overwhelm, or confuse you. Let me know if you need help with anything else! Good luck and have fun! Remember, don't rush it!

Your balancer is dying. If you let it go much longer, the pully will start drifting forward too, and when it gets into the fan, that's big trouble!

When the low voltage safe guard is tripped, fire up the generator, or the motor. yes you can run the trickle charger while running the inverter. I would test the circuit you are going to be on by running your air, then turning on 1 thing at a time, till you trip a breaker. That'll tell you how much you can safely run. Good luck, and have fun!

We had a big ice storm in northeast Indiana this winter, and my power was out for 5 days. I ran my 42" plasma tv, my PS3, my laptop, my refrigerator and a propane salamander off of a 750 watt inverter hooked up to my 90' XJ. I was running it most of the time, but ran a few things at a time off battery power for a little while at a time. (2 hours or so.) Check the manual to be sure, but most inverters will kick off when the battery gets down to like 10 volts. That's still plenty to start your rig. especially with a deep cycle battery. Those inverters are more efficient than most people give them credit for. So there's my take on it as someone who has actually used one, not someone just talking with no experience on the subject. Good luck bud! She wasn't a very efficient Generator, but my old XJ did me right! I had her running like 18-20 hrs. a day for 4 days!

Well, I've gotten some stuff done in the last week or so. I swapped the gears from 3.07's to 3.55's Image Not Found Image Not Found Image Not Found And I got my old bent bumper off, and replaced with a new aftermarket one. The new one has holes for the bumper caps, but I didn't have any. My buddy matt's XJ bumper ate a tree, and looked like a V, so I told him he could have my old mj bumper. Well I lucked out! His old one had the caps on it, and he didn't want em, so The MJ has em now! I also got the header fixed and mounted. (It had 2 of the mounting studs broken off.) I got her pushed into the garage to motivate me to finish my body work and get the interior finished. I've got a nice set of late model S-10 buckets to replace the very broken down factory bench. Image Not Found Image Not Found Image Not Found Image Not Found Image Not Found Well, that's all for now. I'm gonna try to button up some welding on my floor pans and rocker, fab up some mounts for my new buckets, and start putting the interior back together. I'll keep ya' posted.

Amen to that! I wasn't trying to be a paint nazi by any means. I know paint work (done propperly), is very expensive. That's why I do it! I don't make a buttload of money, unfortunately. When I do a 50k resto, that includes parts, materials, and all labor. (including stuff I have to have out sourced.) I was just making the point that you get what you pay for. And to the guy who paid 2000 bucks for a 1 year paintjob, sorry. Shops like that make the rest of us look bad.

Boston Tea Party! Burn this mother down!

I am a professional automotive painter, and being a jeep guy, I grit my teeth a lot at what people call a paintjob on the jeep sites. Needless to say, you get what you pay for. I do $50,000 restorations on 1/4 million dollar cars, and I do $2000 dollar weekend bang it out the door jobs. My point being, that you have to figure out exactly what your expectations are, vs your budget, and find the happy medium. A little tip, If it's single stage, It's gonna look like crap. If it doesn't look like crap today, It will in a few months when it starts oxydizing. (Single stage doesn't hold up to the elements nearly as well as basecoat/clearcoat paintjobs.) If anyone needs any DIY body and paint advice, I'm happy to help. Drop me a PM, and I'll get to ya when I can.

Hey! A fellow bueller! I was in love with the old tube frame lightnings, then when the XB came out, I had to have one! I have an 05' XB12R firebolt, Custom paint, (I'm a painter), wrapped header, 1 off muffler, (Gutted, internal Y-pipe, two hooker shotgun baffles from honda VTX 1800 straight out the back! I love it! And they're addictive! Since I got mine, 3 of my buddies have gotten them. 2 XB's, and 1 S3. If I get another bike, it'll be a tube frame white lightning!

I think when the time comes for the swap, I'm gonna fab up a couple extra sets of motor mounts, as I have had more interest in this build than I expected, and a few others have also thought about doing this same swap. I'm curious as to how long the AX-15 is going to hold up to the v-8 before I have to swap in a full-size trans/t-case.

I have seen the dynomax setups with muffler and tailpipe, 2 1/2 inch on summit racing for like $100. If you go with one, let us know how you like it. I have thought about picking one up for my ZJ, as I'm gonna steal my supertraps off of it for the small block ford MJ. Good luck!

So are you saying it has a second tranny cooler. The first being in the radiator? Or are you saying it has two tranny coolers in front of the radiator. If it just has one in front of the radiator, it probably came with the factory tow package.

So, I think I got the photobucket figured out. Here's a few of the MJ, and some stuff I've done to it. And a pic of her new powerplant! :bowdown: Image Not Found Image Not Found Image Not Found Image Not Found Image Not Found I hope that worked!

Yeah, I haven't looked around a lot yet, but beats the crap outa jeepin's MJ section!