jeff351

Between work and life, not much time in the garage lately. Eventually I was able to get the extra holes in the firewall modified, cut out, or filled; also moved the hole for the steering column to the correct 97+ location. Today I finished painting the engine bay with some tan engine paint I had kicking around followed by 2 cans of clear.

Humvees are cool in certain ways, but an MJ is a far far better choice. Especially that one being an 86, I can imagine how beat it is and how many cracks the tub has.

Mac (my avatar photo) dropped into our lives 5 yrs ago after our neighbors mailbox was overflowing, so I did a welfare check and found him deceased. His 2 dogs were severely overweight and needed a home. We took ownership of Mac, at the time a 140+ lb golden retriever mix (DNA test later ID'd him as a "Goldador - ~75% lab and ~25% golden retriever.) Never being an indoor dog his entire life, I built a large, fully insulated doghouse (build documented here https://macsdoghouse.blogspot.com/ with a heater for the winter and he enjoyed the A/C in my shop during the summer. Proper diet and exercise and we got him to a stable 90 lbs. Funny, some of the characteristics of a Goldador are "mouthy, sassy, and energetic" which was perfect. I couldn't talk on the phone out here in the shop unless first giving him a chew bone, otherwise he'd get mad and bark the whole time. He also hated power tools or when I'd weld, and if I crawled under the car, he'd take a toy and wiggle under there with me and stick it in my face and slobber all over me. His last act a few weeks ago was running out the garage door, into our neighbors back yard, and cannonballing into his koi pond while barreling over all the yard decorations. I still haven't told my neighbor that Mac did that His health dropped dramatically in the last couple weeks. Appetite was the 1st red flag, then he just looked like he felt like crap and no energy. Vet visits confirmed his blood levels were a mess and suspected a rapidly evolving cancer; platelet count was rock bottom, had blood in his stool, and overnight he could no longer get up without me helping pick him up. 1 night later he couldn't stand on his own and his breathing was rapid, so we made the tough decision to send him to pup heaven. Hard losing a dog like that. We guess he was maybe 14 yrs old and we did what we could to give him the best 5 years of his life Pictures below: can't resist jumping in the river on our weekly hikes, riding in the car, and taking a nap in the snow

one of my friends growing up had a cool car family - mom drove a rotation of AMC Eagles, dad drove a Buick Grand National, and his older brother did a frame off restoration on a 71 Chevelle SS454 convertible (orange with white interior and white top) I don't recall ever seeing an 1980 AMC AMX in real life though. Must be a rare one?

So Tuesday I tested + for Covid so got to work from home the rest of the week. I actually got more work stuff done than i normally could in an 8-hr work day; bonus, I also got lots of uninterrupted time in the garage too. Got all the frame stiffeners welded, primed, seam sealed, and after it all dried gave it a couple coats of some truck bed liner I had kicking around. I really like these T&M Metalfab frame stiffeners, they fit great. Also started cleaning up and filling the unneeded holes where the clutch M/C used to reside. Bonus, I found a rust trail up under the cowl which I am thinking is a source of water leak. Traced it back up and removed the old cracked sealer and applied a new liberal coating of seam sealer to fix that one.

this block bolts to the frame directly in front of the steering box. What does it do?

I hauled mine out of a junkyard where it say for quite awhile. CPS was all that was needed to get it to run. But to get it to run and drive involved a lot more. Pull out every fuse one by one and inspect closely. Clean them off with a wire brush and reinstall. I had a bunch of electrical gremlins to chase just from minor corrosion.

1 step forward, 3 steps back. Last weekend just as I was making progress with the frame stiffeners, I ran out of MIG wire. Quick run to harbor freight solved that. Soon realized the spool ID is a different size than the spindle where it sits inside the welder. Ended up making a spindle adapter out of a block of wood, problem solved. About an inch of weld later, I ran out of welding gas. Oddly enough, my TIG argon cylinder ran out the same day. Crazy busy at work so unable to get to the supply store until today. And of all things, they have a shortage of 75% argon/25% c02 mix until Monday. So the welding is on hold until then. I guess this weekend I'll just hang out with the dog and clean up in the shop. I hate making no progress.

I didnt even know there was a Pigeon Forge Jeep Invasion thing...I need to kick my project into overdrive and see if I can finish it by then. I'm just welding in the frame stiffeners now.

Thats really cool! I just watched it and immediately wondered if that belonged to anyone here

update - Have the interior gutted and sold off the engine/transmission, now onto preparation for welding in the T&M frame stiffener and steering box reinforcement. Forget if I saw it mentioned here or somewhere else, but clipping an old shower curtain under the engine bay to catch all the crap as you clean makes life a lot easier.

LKQ in Greer has a couple of 97-98 XJs in case you need some parts. I got some fenders off the 97.

B52s are awesome. A very old platform but still in service. Says a lot about the guys who designed these back in the day with slide rules with pen and paper.

what brake lines will you use? New MJ or XJ I should come by some time to check out your work. You are making faster progress than I am.

Round 2 on the donor vehicle idea. Found this about an hour north of me and drove it home last weekend. 98 Cherokee 4.0, 4x4 auto, very clean and strong running. Other than the cut fenders and a loud exhaust, its a perfect candidate. I'll use it for a DD for a little while until I have Scuzzy full prepped for the transplant.

I might have missed it somewhere, so I apologize if its been asked before. What is the reason you all are swapping out the fuel tank for a different one when doing this conversion?

20140610_202552.mp4

Not really a fly-by, but here's a photo I took that I always thought looked kind of cool. Taken in Kuwait and about to board this C-17 for our flight into Kandahar Afghanistan.

You could get fancy and do the same stripe idea, but in a different color.

Cool build. Nice attention to detail there!

whoa! You are way way more advanced than me! Ok, back to garage stuff.....

I made a wood frame and boxed it in with plexiglass. Have a plant light on a timer up top with 2 computer fans for ventilation and a humidifier to keep high humidity levels during the winter months. In this pic you can see the sundews, pitcher plants (which have been trimmed back), and the big Nepenthes rafflesiana. That one moves outside once it warms up since its so big. Most of them are still in winter dormancy for about another month I also have a flytrap collection which spend most of the time outside. Funny when i see a moth or fly in there...the next morning they have mysteriously disappeared

So the dismantling has officially begun! What has been pulled off so far is in the classifieds Since the doors and fenders are off, now is a good time to reinforce the drivers door hinge, so I went with the overkill Hooligan kit

24x30 shop. Surround sound, refrigerator, heat & air, sink, microwave, dog bed, greenhouse full of carnivorous plants...you know, the normal stuff most garages have TIG/MIG welders, bandsaw, drill press, wall of toolboxes holding about everything I need...but I still find myself missing some oddball hex socket or something so I make a lot of late night Amazon orders. I did just finish making a new rack for my wrenches over my workbench