86 2.5l 2wd restoration/work truck

[Skorpyo]

18 hours ago, strictlyxjs said:

They go by nada value in fair condition which is bs....i did not know they would value it so high.its still a POS to most people. they gave me a form to have a dealer appraise it so i an get my money back. one dealer i spoke with appraised the truck at $1000 without seeing it. my friend who is a dealer is going to fill out the paperwork for me and give an "honest" appraisal lol

Nice! Always good to get some $$ back from the state. In VA once a vehicle is 25 years old you can register for Antique plates. It imposes some restrictions on use of the vehicle (5K miles/year, no business use, attend 2 shows) but gets you out of property taxes. I did this for my CJ and it was definitely worth it.

 

Do they offer antiques in RI?

[strictlyxjs]

they do but i just  bought a house in massachusettes so i am going to see if i can do that there. hopefully the driving restrictions arent bad i still want to use the truck to haul yard waste to the dump and go to home depot if i need stuff.

[strictlyxjs]

mj got some love today, installed some rand new v belts i got both for under 10 bucks( gotta love rockauto closeouts!) gave him a bath and fixed my high beam switch.

 

 

 

[strictlyxjs]

got my headlights working (cleaned c100 cinnector)

got my wipers working and imstalled dash clock

 

[Egm89]

Now that I'm sering yours I'm remembering my old 86 2.5, my first mj sure brings memories.

Keep it going! Digging the white, was that just rattle can?

[strictlyxjs]

thanks for the kind words  i used this writeup as a guide for the paint: http://www.ericsxj.com/paint2/paint3.htm

 

(its rustoleum appliance epoxy)

 

 

 

 

[strictlyxjs]

happy fourth 

 

 

[strictlyxjs]

So I'm tearing the truck down in my newly built garage to do a more "thorough" restoration now that i have the space. I started tearing into the rockers and inner rockers today. 

Current plans are to redo body work correctly and 4wd swap and have the truck ready to paint in the spring. I want to paint it white again but correctly with real automotive paint

[strictlyxjs]

Added a new rust free driver fender and new rocker welded in. The c2c rocker panels are garbage fitment and it took a lot of work to get it right. I also had to rebuild part of the inner rocker as there was nothing there. 99 pecent of the rust is removed from the cab now. I tore out the column so my boss can fix the high beam switch.

[strictlyxjs]

Cut out all the rust and new pans and patches in. Painted the whole inside of the cab and door jams with white rustoleum. Used a brush so i could get it on nice and thick in the pores of the metal and corners. 

[strictlyxjs]

I installed my new carpet and re did thr headliner. Ther interior is starting to come back.

[strictlyxjs]

Merry Christmas to everyone on cc. I spent the night scrubbing my female seatbelt ends because they were covered in silver spray paint from the former owner. I used this hand soap from harbor frieght. It has been huge help in cleaning up my interior pieces and i highly recommend it. I should have taken some before photos of these seatbelt buckles in reality they appeared unsavable beforehand.

[strictlyxjs]

I have been having a heck of a time finding an aerosol paint that matches the blue on my interior. Ive visited my sem dealer and mom and pop paint shops around and have come up empty handed each time. Ive bought several cans through trial and error and none were close enough that i was comfortable to use on actual mj parts (I tested several on some junk xj parts i had lying around) Tonight i found it!...

If youhave the medium blue interior rustoleum " matte nantucket blue" is a damn near perfect match!

[eaglescout526]

Looks like I can add a paint color to the master list. 

[Pete M]

12 hours ago, strictlyxjs said:

I have been having a heck of a time finding an aerosol paint that matches the blue on my interior. Ive visited my sem dealer and mom and pop paint shops around and have come up empty handed each time. Ive bought several cans through trial and error and none were close enough that i was comfortable to use on actual mj parts (I tested several on some junk xj parts i had lying around) Tonight i found it!...

If youhave the medium blue interior rustoleum " matte nantucket blue" is a damn near perfect match!

 

 

it even bonds to plastic!  what were the chances! 

[strictlyxjs]

Here is a quick comparison. I paintrd the glove box door but did not paint the squar lock enclosure

[strictlyxjs]

Couple more hightlights from today. My boss fixed my column. He is truly a master at fixing up threse old gm columns. Ill have to take a picture of the work station he built to fix them. He also gave me an rx-141 to put in!

[strictlyxjs]

Finally got most of the interior buttoned up need to install some speakers in the back. 

[eaglescout526]

Damn, that blue is spot on. Still need to go add that. Hows the RX-141 treating you?

[strictlyxjs]

Thanks. I love the radio it sounds great but it keeps eating tapes. Ive already contacted jeremy to send it to him and have him go through it when hes able.

[eaglescout526]

Lol. He hates our radios. I had him repair mine after I blew out the right channel. He even did the tape deck for me too which works flawlessly. I will say the radio comes in really clear and has a good range, I think my antenna wiring broke between removing the dash and the antenna itself. can't say for sure where.

[strictlyxjs]

Got my sweatshirt! Been slowly picking away at this thing. I finally gor rid of all the rust on the body and bed. I'm now in the meticulous process of doing the body work. I'm slowly learning about painting vehicles from reading a few books. This will never be a show truck and i want to learn to paint on my own. I plan on using the duplicolor paint shop system (championship white) with a few coats of clear. I have read both negative and positive reviews about the duplicolor sytem but i have seen a few in person and for the money that havnt been half bad and seem to hold up

[89 MJ]

11 hours ago, strictlyxjs said:

championship white

I’m not trying to talk you out of it, but my father has been painting cars for 30 years. He HATES painting white because it is hard to see how it lays down. Just food for thought. 

[strictlyxjs]

I hear ya on that one. One good thing about white is that it hides imperfections fairly well. I'm up for a challenge. I also have some spare hoods and fenders to practice on.

[strictlyxjs]

I used the rainx headlight restoratiom kit to refinish my tailights. I'm very happy with the way they turned out. My boss also hooked me up with 4 turbine rims with center caps for 50 bucks!