Operation 'Basket Case MJ'

[Gojira94]

Thankfully nothing horrible going on in the passenger or driver rear corners.

 

 

 

But I'll want to clean and reseal the floor seam on the bottom rear. Looks like the rust is crawling up from below on the rear edge of the floor panel behind the driver's seat...

 

 

[Gojira94]

Passenger rear corner- no real issues here. Clean off the light rust scale and seam seal the hell out of it. Now working on the driver's side looking for the same.

 

 

[Gojira94]

Topside of floor... is DONE. Now onto doing exploratory forays into the bottom seams for cleaning, addressing any small rust spots and likely pathways for water intrusion and sealing them up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[89 MJ]

Looks like new. Probably better than new. 

[Gojira94]

3 minutes ago, 89 MJ said:

Looks like new. Probably better than new. 

 

Thank you! I've spent more time doing this than I cared to. I have new vinyl plugs for the various and sundry holes as well. The metal ones turned out to be too far gone to trust. The bottom side is coming along and is sealed quite well where the patches are but I'm not quite ready to present that work yet lol.

[Gojira94]

Bottom side. Some decent progress. Found a few small spots of very minor rust, like size of a nickel or smaller. The dirt that remains in crevices is a sandy sort, mixed with cast off fluids and softened factory undercoat. The last challenge is getting all that out of the space between the seatbelt anchor straps and the floor. Guitar string or piano wire should help get that out, followed by a spritz of brake cleaner to flush it out. Then some more seam sealer work, a black enamel over all of it, followed by fresh undercoat.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Gojira94]

Finally, it's all clean! Primed and ready for seam sealer. I didn't get a pic of the seams afterward, but it's sealed up tighter than Dick's hatband. I dare say the damned thing would float for 2 days. Every place where metal comes together underneath, it's scrubbed, cleaned, primed and sealed. Even all the joins for the seatbelt anchor braces at the floor pan and at the frame rail. Even the studs for the crossmember braces are filled. Those come from the topside from the longitudinal braces through the floor pan, so yeah. I'll buy a mirror and watch myself starve to death before I do all this again...

 

 

Flat black enamel laid down as an adhesion promoter for the Raptor undercoating. The paint is still drying in this pic, laid it down about 20 minutes before. Tomorrow, undercoat.

 

 

[Gojira94]

Got the underside about like I want it. A little work left to do on the bottom and outer side of the driver's side uniframe but I can start engine and interior work now.

 

 

 

 

Dropped my light while I was taking these pics, looked over and saw HER. I never kill anything if I can possibly help it, but SHE got doused with brake cleaner.

 

 

[Gojira94]

Finally... some mechanical work.

 

Painted valve cover, new gasket.

 

 

TC removed, prepping for TC re-clock (YJ tranny)

 

 

[Gojira94]

Decent progress day yesterday. Started with the parking brake cable. It's a Bendix C1474, 100% nylon outer sleeve, seems good quality. I did have to shave the sides of the anchor stud a hair to get it to fit into the cable receiver aperture.

 

 

 

 

Got the firewall pad cleaned and installed and final mounting for the pedals:

 

 

The 4WD shift lever came from a 98 XJ quite some time ago, has the 'fat' handle so I had to take it apart to fit the indicator plate. New SS fasteners for all of it:

 

 

Brake master, clutch master, valve and lines installed. Modded brackets for expansion tank and relay center/ starter solenoid installed for good. I'll pull the coil/ module back off for clearance during engine install (next order of business):