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Posts Tagged ‘Rust’

Jeep #12: Disassembly Begins

June 15, 2013 / Written By / 1 Comment

Been a long time since I’ve updated this. Kinda sad that I got that frame almost a year ago, and it’s still sitting waiting to be used.

But it shouldn’t be waiting much longer!

In Jan I sold my hardtop. And then the Jeep had been sitting inside for the rest of the winter. A few months ago I moved and Jeep and started to unbolt a few things, but not really remove anything. Earlier this week Kevin (Boomerjinks JP #18) wanted to hang out and I suggested we do some work on my Jeep. He was an hour late, so I started without him and actually unbolted a lot of things. The seats, the rollcage, seatbelts.. etc. I tried to unbolt the windshield, but all those torx bolts stripped out. I ended up doing the quick and simple thing and just cut the hinges right in half. Easy peasy. Finally Kevin showed up to help do some heavy lifting and we got the roll cage, seats, windshield frame and hood out of the way. Enough for a few hours work.

Jeep with no seats, no rollcage

Jeep no hood or windshield

The next few days I would come in and take something off, bag it up and catalog it. Just small items like the license plates, frames, taillights.. etc.

Last night however, I decided I should give a go at taking off the fenders and the grill. The grill I had removed before, so I knew it wouldn’t be too difficult. The fenders on the other hand were going to take some work. I started with the passenger side fender, which is easier than the driver side as it just has the battery tray and jack in the way. After some unbolting, it was out. Next was the grill, which required draining the coolant and removing hoses, but again was pretty simple. The driver side fender is only a little bit harder than the passenger side. There are a lot of electrics, coolant / washer fluid bottles, evap canister and some other stuff to remove before getting access to the bolts. A few hours work total over Friday and Saturday morning and I have this:

Jeep with Fenders off.

Hopefully a lot more progress will be made in the next few months. Kind of sucks to not be driving the Jeep with the nice summer weather upon us… but the faster I get this done, the faster I can drive it!

Jeep #12

Jeep #12: Work. Work. Work.

May 26, 2012 / Written By / 0 Comments

Hey guys! Its been a long time since I’ve posted an update. Lots of things have happened since the last update. I am now in Denver Colorado with the likes of Boomerjinks and his Jeep #18. We loaded the Jeep up earlier this week and drove 1000 miles from Minneapolis to Denver, through back country roads over the course of 2 days. It was pretty eventful for the Jeep. The rear brake lines burst somewhere in Nebraska, and we drove the remaining 450 miles with limited (front) brakes. Then somewhere in Colorado, the fuel pump started to whine and go out.

It took three days of work to get the rusted brake line out. It should have been easy, but due to the massive amounts of rust.. it was not. The fuel pump was also done during this time, and all in all the repairs only cost about $90. Here is a picture of the Jeep being worked on in our new awesome warehouse space in Denver! (Notice the rust accumulating on the floor.)

Once it was back together we decided to take it out into the mountains and up to Boulder Colorado for the night.

While stopping into this scenic overlook the Jeep took a pretty big hit and damaged the front suspension. The sway bar bracket broke, as did something else that has yet to be identified. (It can be heard but not found yet.) We attempted to drive back from Boulder, but ultimately had to get it towed. It was very ironic that we drove hundreds of miles on broken brakes and a failing fuel pump… but one $5 bracket was what stopped us from driving home.

The good news is. We immediately found a great Jeep frame here in Colorado from a local Jeep builder. The frame will alleviate a lot of the problems we’ve been having with rust, and will be a perfect frame for a restoration. We’ll be taking the body off some time this Summer and swapping the body over along with the engine. The suspension will be replaced with new leafs that will give a modest 1.5″ lift. While the body is off, some body work will be done, and parts will be painted and rhino lined. We hope to do the actual painting and Jurassic Park conversion on this Jeep over the winter.

Jeep #12

Jeep #12: Frame Rust Repair Part 3

September 19, 2010 / Written By / 0 Comments

Finally got done welding (both sides) of the rear frame. It took a while longer to get done thanks to Dragon*Con and a trip to New York with Jeep #18 owner Boomerjinks. I thoroughly welded all sides of the frame with the plates and then hit them with a layer of rust preventing paint, and then black paint. It turned out great, but it makes the rest of the rusty frame really stand out now!

Here is the passenger side, the driver side looks the same:

Now to put the gas tank back in, and drive the Jeep without a top for a few more weeks before it becomes too cold to do so!

Jeep #12

Jeep #12: Frame Rust Repair Part 2

August 23, 2010 / Written By / 0 Comments

Just an update on the Jeep’s rusty frame repair. I have managed to get one side done. What a pain in the ass this is being! The welder is acting funky and throwing sparks like crazy, I have several very nice burns on my arms, hands, and legs from molten metal. I’m overall pretty happy with how the welds are turning out. Perhaps a little grinding and then adding a layer of rust encapsulator and chassis paint.

Jeep #12

Jeep #12: Frame Rust Repair Part 1

August 20, 2010 / Written By / 0 Comments

This will be the first in several posts about fixing the frame rust, as I will not be able to finish it all today, or in 1 single day. The fuel tank removal took longer than I had wanted, and I’m sure installing it will not be any easier. The reason for removing the fuel tank was ofcourse to get in there and repair the frame rust that has plagued the Jeep. The repairs should be very strong, and as long as it doesn’t immediately rust out again, it should last several years before I need to think about replacing the whole frame. Here is the rust that I have managed to break free from the outside (and inside) of the frame. Consider that I had gotten rid of a lot of rust prior, and it all ads up to A LOT.

Here are the plates that I have purchased to do the repair. I got them from a guy on JeepForum, but I think he also sells them on eBay. They are very thick ~1/8″+ laser cut steel, to which I made a few modifications. Here they are clamped in, but in the next few days they will be fully welded into place.

Jeep #12

Jeep #12: Fuel Tank and License Plates

August 17, 2010 / Written By / 1 Comment

Since it was in the 70’s today I decided it would be a good time to get some much needed work on the Jeep. I was ambitious to think that I would be able to get all of the work done today, but the rust monster has struck again. I intended to repair the rear frame area rust, which unfortunately requires removing the gas tank. It took a lot of cutting, cursing, and cramping but I managed to get the gas tank out after a few hours. Most of the rubber hoses will need to be replaced however, because when the tank was last installed (either by someone, or at the factory) all the clamps were installed upside down and inaccessible.

I will have to resume the welding sometime later this week.

In the meantime I had some stickers made and I decided to see how they would look like on a license plate blank. They need some tweaking and overall are too big, but a set in the right direction for an accurate license plate. (BTW…. would anyone like to buy one?) I also took a quick shot of my work area’s Jurassicness.

Jeep #12

Jeep #12: Back to Action

June 29, 2010 / Written By / 0 Comments

Well. It has been a long time since I have posted an update. It has been very busy the last month or so, and I have not had the time (weather permitting) to work much on the Jeep. This week I am making some progress on some very important parts. For today, the following things have been replaced: Transfer Case Seal, Transfer Case Fluid, Transmission Fluid, Rear Brakes, Rear Bump Stops, Rear Shocks.

Its nice to get some work done. Hopefully this week I will be able to take care of the rear frame rust issue. If not there is still a few components that need to be done on the front suspension yet.

Jeep #12

Jeep #12: Fixing the hole in the floor

May 15, 2010 / Written By / 0 Comments

The rusty area that we found yesterday was wire wheeled and the bad area was identified. The area to be cut out was marked in yellow paint. There is a little bit of rust extending out of this area, but it is for the post part surface rust. The remaining metal is plenty thick for securing to.

Here the bad metal was completely cut out. A 1/2″ thick border was left to secure to.

A 16 gauge patch panel was cut out to fit over the area.

The panel was tack welded into place and then a bead was put around the whole patch.

Next step will be to seal the underside with seam sealer and paint. After that.. we start prepping for the herculiner!

Jeep #12

Jeep #12: Prepping the Interior for Herculiner

May 14, 2010 / Written By / 0 Comments

Today was a big day for progress on the interior. It was decided that I would be stripping the inteior and laying down a layer of Herculiner to hopefully subside any eventual rust on the body. The Jeep is in such a great shape that we were hoping for the best as far as hidden rust spots were concerned. After the doors and hard top were removed the first step was to remove the carpet and rear seat. This is a very easy task, its just a lot of fishing carpet around mounts and removing bolts.

When it came down to removing the rear seat, the first level of resistance was reached. Three out of the four bolts holding the front of the rear seat down snapped off. And they snapped off nearly flush with the surface. Getting them out will be still one of the hardest things to do.


Moving foward into the Jeep the front seats and carpet are removed. Here you can see the first glimpse at the floor rust. Like the rear seat there was some issue getting out the front seat. Two of the bolts proved to be rather difficult to remove, but came out after some finessing.


The rust on the driver side floor pan was initially viewed as horrible surface rust. As we chipped away at the rust, it was obvious that the floor would need to be replaced. There should be plenty of solid metal to weld a new section of sheet metal in place. Normally I would weld in a replacement panel, but I would much rather have this done over the weekend and not push the project back into the next week.

The rollcage bolts have been removed in the rear, and the cross bar was removed with the sound bar. Unfortunately four of the front bolts on the rollcage were sized, and stripped out several Torx sockets. We could not apply enough torque on the torx to remove the bolts. The solution was to purchase several cheap Torx sockets and weld one to each bolt. With a much larger cross section making contact with the bolt they broke loose easily with a 2 foot breaker bar.

Jeep #12

Jeep #12: Top down, doors off.

May 14, 2010 / Written By / 0 Comments

I took the top off, and the doors.. and then went to go pick up some Herculiner. Pretty fun. Although door-less driving really isn’t for me. Heck top down was annoying because you have no privacy. At the auto parts store there was a same year Jeep Renegade with their top off and no doors. Copycat.

I also got a few items in the mail today. Mainly my new windshield frame and Sahara half doors. The doors need a few parts and an alignment before they will fit right. But its so nice to have some half doors.

Now to go strip the interior. I already took a peak at the driver side floor, and it is pretty rusty. I hope there are no holes and it is thick enough to use. I hope I don’t have to replace it.

Jeep #12
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