87 MJ Chief

Congratulations!

I'm a little late to the party, but Welcome to CC! You'll love every minute with your MJ, because every question you have can be answered here.

I was fixing to get started on the fall shrub trimming this weekend when I noticed I had a little helper. There's about 12 that are so comfortable around the house, they'll bed down in the shade around the porch.

G and I will be posting some sad (Comanche) news tomorrow. It'll be good news for someone, but not for me. He has made a time-and-money decision about which truck he is going to focus on.

I'm a couple of days away from starting (and documenting) a turbine wheel restoration. I'll list supplies and process in steps so whether the wheel is in bad shape or just needs paint, it'll be covered. @NC Tom, that might be hard for me to pull off, lol. I'd advise going through cruiser's list. Even if you don't get it going, it will be low cost improvements.

If one of y'all will send me a set of factory fog lights, I'll slap those suckers right on G's Chief and let ya know how they operate on an '87

Geez, I haven't updated the build since last December? We have been plugging along with the restoration as time allows. Keep in mind, we're also building his '70 Gladiator from the ground up simultaneously. A lot of what we have been doing consists of removing a part / cleaning / painting and reinstalling. We drove around some and just enjoyed it. We are most likely going to be putting more time into it over the winter. G is having a hard time choosing which truck to put our time and his money in. He knows that 'preservation' now eliminates 'restoration' later. I'll bring y'all up to speed with pictures soon.

I wanted to publicly thank a CC member for their help with a Comanche part, and thought others might want to have a thread to do the same in the future. Thank you @JolietJEEP'84for your help with / selling us a seat belt for G's Chief. The transaction went perfectly from initial email to package delivery.

Thanks! This will help with the different angles.

Have you looked to see if the factory wiring is still present at the bumper / grill? If so, test it and if you've got current, it would be as easy.

I'll use your description along with the picture(s) when I visit the paint shop later this week, if someone doesn't chime in with an exact match paint.

Oh yeah! We would love to see any other pictures you have. I will print this one and get the opinion of 'my paint guy' also. They do a lot with local auto restoration shops and are a SEM dealer.

Black does look good, and it would match all the black trim on the Chief, but wouldn't be original. We wanted to buy a second set and paint them black, but that would have cut deep into a 14-year old's restoration budget.

Restoring turbines has been discussed in the DIY section but to my knowledge, no one has determined an "exact match" color for the insert sections. We are restoring G's turbines back to their original color. I have looked at several different brands of paint (preferably over the counter spray can) and it seems many would be close. What products have you used to restore back to factory color? Thanks!