The Build Of Odie

[Alicia]

HI everyone! :wavey: My name is Alicia and I have been reading everyones project builds, MJ tech and DIY projects on here for about two months now. I must say that I LOVE this Forum! I have already learned so much!! I was so excited to find something dedicated to MJs. So since I have found this forum I have been motivated to start doing some very much needed work to my truck "Odie". Since I have started doing things to Odie I have also decided its about time I start my own Build Thread. I finally have some time to do this so I will go into the back story of how Odie became part of my life.. so grab some :popcorn:

[Alicia]

When I first saw Odie it was just pictures of the Sister in laws awesome Jeep Truck when I was stationed in Afghanistan.

He was purchased in TN by the Sister in Law to have a Mud Truck to use to get up and down a steep hill up to there house and also used very often by the fire department in TN to get to the more harder and tighter places on the moutain side. Here is one of the other pictures I saw of him getin sprayed down by the Fire Department.

[Alicia]

Shortly after I left Afghanistan my 6+ years of active duty Air Force ended and I joined the Air Force Reserves. We moved back to VA to be closer to my Mother and settled down in a little town house there. The reserves decided they were going to send me to FL to attend some Post Deplyment Seminars ( Go to Disney World :yes: ) and visit the Sister in law and her family where they lived perminatly when they werent spending time in TN. While we were there visiting I couldnt help but notice the MJ had migrated from TN to FL and was sitting in her back yard!!!!!!!!! After talking to her for awhile and some how getting on the topic of the recession and having to down size on some items.. she offered up the truck to us for a decent price. MAN I WAS EXCITED!!! :banana:  We hopped in and took him for a drive! Instant LOVE 

1991 Jeep Comanche/4.0L/AUTO/4X4/Long bed/33in tires/Some amount of a Rough Country lift kit

 

I did notice a few things wrong with him... ok maybe a little more then a few... but that didnt matter to us. The real problem was how were we going to get it back to VA?? After some contemplating with the Sister and Brother in Law we decided that is was best for the MJ to stay in the family. They were generous enough to load the truck up on thier car hauler and we all took a road trip back to his new home in VA.

Made it Home and joined his new family and adopted the name "Odie" :banana:  :banana: My Mother couldnt understand why I was soooo happy because of "that heap of junk" :dunno:  LOL 

  

[Alicia]

My Mother did have every right to call him a Heap Of Junk because he did sit in her drive way for awhile since we had a Town House with a VERY small driveway. One of the first things I noticed was how gross the carpet was and even though at this point in time I had not found Comanche Club yet, I still had enough sense to pull that nasty carpet out and see how much of a "heap of junk" I was really getting into. Here is some pics...... The seat is pretty UGLY with stains... mudd and rips in it.

 

 

 

 

[Alicia]

Now to see whats really under there.... NOT GOOD!!!!!

I have to say I was very surprised!!

The carpet was actually wet when we pulled it up.

Man I have ALOT of work to do! :doh:

[Alicia]

After we ripped up the carpet I decided it was time to bring him to our house so I could really get some work done. I was planning on sanding down all that rust and welding in some sheet metal over the really bad parts. I purchased some Rust Converter and was going to coat everything I couldnt remove. I took out all the plastics and seat belt parts and set out to fix this problem. I was not happy that my new love had all this cancer! Lets just say Winter and the cold weather and the lack of know how caught me before I could really do much. However I was able to do some work to the outside and pull off the Header Panel that was cracked and falling off. and one of the Head Lights was one bump away from the glass seperating and falling off. This was right around the time I found you guys. I will be the first to say it... I don't know a whole lot about cars. My Father never showed me one thing about them other then how to pump gas... LOL but it is a passion of mine that I have slowly gotton more and more involved in within the last few years. I was trying to find out the proper name for the "thing that holds the head lights in" "the thing on the front of my jeep" LOL :rotfl2: (Header Panel) when I found Comanche Club!! I've been on here almost every night ever since reading anything I can to gain more knowledge. We took the Front bumper off and destoryed the rust on that and covered it in some U-Pol Raptor.

  Along with some Nurf Bars that go to our 2012 Jeep Liberty KK

 It actually turned out pretty good. I like how it came with its own sprayer.

[Alicia]

Then it was time to move. After spending in a year in a Town House that was falling apart BADLY.. we decided to move closer to the Reserve unit we are stationed at here in NC. I put everything back in him and we loaded up and made yet again ANOTHER road trip. But trust me.. this place is ALOT better. Its an actual house.. with a back yard!!! and a garage!!!! YES YES YES

I never drove a car hauler before..

let alone a U-Haul!!

[nick6053]

Nice looking jeep, I can't wait to get going on mine. Good luck.

[martin809]

Do you know what size lift it is? 4.5 or 6 inches

[buxmj]

Welcome to the madness!   Good luck with the build and yes you have found the right place for info w/o attitude, so many willing to share with others.  You will be giving out your knowledge sooner than you think.  Keep us posted.

Buck.

[knever3]

Cool story, glad to see you are fixing it up.

[Alicia]

I unfortunately don't know what size lift it is, it was installed by the fist owner in TN. I only know it's Rough Country from the labels on it. I'll ask the Sister in Law later to see if she knows.

 

I have been busy the past few days pulling out the dash board and trying not to crack any of the plastic. I've been labeling everything and putting the smaller parts in little plastic zip lock bags so I don't lose any parts or screws, and so I know where they go for re-assembly. I have also been taking ALoT of pictures for that same reason too. I'll post some of those up tomorrow. I am trying to get that black foam out from the firewall and down by the floor because I pulled up the edge of it and noticed it is WET and badly rusted under it too :-( more work for me.... I also need to replace the Heater Core to so why not do it all at once.

[Alicia]

After reading some builds and the DIY Threads on replace the floor I have changed my mind on my original floor plan. I am now going to purchase full floor pans and weld those in. I am going to completely remove all rust.. Not just convert it anymore. I also read to pull up the braces and re weld those back in so the seat has something to attach to and the cab of the truck doesn't cave in if ever in an accident. I know they look pretty badly rusted in the pictures but they aren't mostly that bad... Some spots will have to be re fabricated but not alot. My question for you guys is how the hell do you get these things off!!! I have been drilling out spot welds and turning these things in Swiss cheese, hammering, prying, and whacking the sh$& out if my knuckles (ouch!!) for days now and I can only seem to pull up a few places. Is there a better way to get these up?? I'm up for any help/recommendations?

[zackcj7]

 Removing the rusted pieces of the floorboards? I usually use a cut-off tool. Harbor Freight or Northern Tool sells some cheap cut-off tools that do a decent job. http://www.harborfreight.com/3-inch-high-speed-air-cutter-47077.html Just make sure you don't cut into the fuel lines. They run right under the driver's floorboard.

[Alicia]

Thank you for your advice. I have heard to never buy anything from HarborFreight... It's cheap and cheaply made.... I actually have a DeWalt grinder with cut off wheels and sanders I have been using. My actual question was how to get up the braces or beans that run down the length of the cab. I have drilled out the spot welds and pryed a few places up but not much progress. I was wondering if there was a better way to get these beams up???

[Alicia]

Have been doing some work.

Took out the head liner

Nasty thing was falling apart and smelled horrible

Nice and clean up there

 

[Alicia]

Have been working on getting the Dash and the Head Liner out all yesterday. The Dash is cracked in a few places but nothing big. I plan on painting it all black eventually. I need to get all that dirt out of there and clean up the HVAC a little bit. Probably where most of the smell is coming from too.

What a mess

Everything is nasty and caked in years and years of dirt

[Alicia]

Hitting up the Comanche that's sittin in the Junk Yard tomorrow :-)

[Alicia]

This is what we got from the Junk Yard this weekend.

Some fender flares and Jeep fog light covers.

The Header Panel, Grill, black plastic retainers, and some other extra parts I don't need so much but thought they were a good find. Chrome head light bezels, Comanche and 4X4 emblems, a brand new air filter, and a Jeep hub cap.... saw some other extras I'll go back for :yes:

Saw these and thought they were sweet but didn't pick them up from lack of $, they had all 4.

[Alicia]

These past few days I have stopped working on the interior a bit and stated working on the bed.  I pulled off the plastic bed liner that the PO had just screwed down in random spots creating holes and rust spots.  :fs1:  I noticed the tail lights were crusted with rust as well.  I took off the drivers side tail light with no problem but the PO had super glued and done some other magic tricks to the passenger side so it wouldnt come off or unscrew... needless to say I broke it and now its off in a few pieces.... :fs1:    So now I am working on getting the bed off so I can stick it in my gargae and work on it during the night.  I plan to remove all rust, bondo the holes, pull the dents, fresh paint and put some type of spray on bed liner down.  I tried to get off the metal bar back bumper thats on there now and busted some rusty bolts in half :doh: so I have been PB blasting the bolts and nuts to everything under the bed I can find.  I have been doing that for two days now.  I have read there are 8 bolts holding the bed down (on a short bed) not including the three for the gas tank straps, the three on the E-brake cables and the two for the spare tire, but I have a few questions for you guys.

 

1. I have read on here that there are 10 for a long bed?? Is there really ten? because I can only see these 8. 

2. What kind of spray on or paint on bed liner is good for the price? I have used u-pol raptor but I have heard some others might hold up better?

3. Does anyone have any tail lights I can snatch or know of a cheap place online?

4. The bolts that I broke the head off of won't come out... any ideas how to remove these now?

5. Anyone ever want the plastic bed liner?? Because I'm about to just toss it... or would I get anything off it if I put it up on craigslist?

 

I'm up for any help or any information you guys might have.

Here is the bedliner.... anyone want this?

Here is what was under the bed liner.... a lot of TN dirt but I got lucky here with no rust on the inside of the bed.  You can see all the random holes he drilled in.

[Alicia]

Got the bed off!!!! It had 8 bolts holding it down. All but one came off with a breaker bar. The other one wouldn't budge so I cut it out with my deremel. But after three days, I'm pretty excited its off!!!!

[danbyrambler]

Don't toss the plastic BL - - Yours looks to be OK & if similar ever appears in the St Louis CL it's gonna wind up in my MJ - - They will rub through paint/primer pretty quick but whatever BL you spray/roll on should solve that prob - - The plastic doesn't fade or chip & is a little easier to keep clean IMO - - Double protection hurts nada - - I've had 'em in Toyota PUs &'ve been searching for one to go over my MJ's Linex - - - - - - Nice looking build you've got going.

:thumbsup:

[Alicia]

Thank you, I think I'll put it up on Craig's List :)

[Alicia]

Smashed in bed corner, shouldn't be to hard to fix,

 

 

Nasty wheel wells and chunks of rust!!Started removing the paint.

We were just going to sand it down and re-paint it but then we found the more we sanded the more rust we found.. so we decided to take all the paint off and remove all the rust. No as easy as we thought it was going to be, but we found some really cool paint remover to speed up the process.

[Alicia]

While removing the paint off the bed. I started to tend to the gas tank. It has a whole patch of rust on the top but i think i can just sand it off without any holes.

 

I have never seen the inside of a gas tank before. Seems there is just a little rust in it but nothing I am worried about.

 

Where the sending unit was exposed to the elements was pretty bad with rust, but everything else seems to be in good shape.

Now I just have to figure out how to get it back in.