Spinal Fracture

December 12, 2008

   Not me, the G-Wag. As it turns out; Jeep in all their boundless wisdom decided the best thing for the Gas tank was to put a skid plate under it. While I would normally praise this as a slice of factory brilliance, they didn't go about it in the most longevity conducive manner. Since the tank follows alongside the frame, the skidplate ran the length of the tank, also following the frame. This would have been fine if Jeep had left open "ports" to allow debris to fall out, or if they had closed off the front of the skid pan so that dirt wouldn't get in. Unfortunately Jeep; the essential authors of modern-day four wheel drive-forgot almost everything about skid plates when they made this one. It allows dirt and debris to be flung up onto the inside of the skidplate, where they trap moisture and salt (a lovely combo) against the frame. Wagoneer's from the mid 80's to 91 had severely rust-prone frames, and mine did not escape.

   I found a rather poor patch job completed in the same method as the old floor patches. a smattering of rivets were procured, along with some galvanized duct-work metal, and the weekend warrior broke out the tin snips and rivet gun. the patch job was then iced with a slurry of undercoating tar to hide it from any suspicious mechanics. I broke out the cutoff wheel and went to work, slicing out the badness where necessary.

   I ended up with a long chunk of the bottom of the rail being cut out, and found a small crack beginning to creep up the side of the frame a 1/4". I made sure to weld that up nicely, and set about forming some 3/8 angle iron to fit my frame.

 

    I had to make a few cuts so i could bend the metal to fit the frame shape, and then patched the cuts back up with the scrap metal and some welding.

   Some test fitting and then clamping allowed me to line the whole thing up and weld it in place. Although the rusted portion was near the back, I ran the angle iron the entire span of the frame, thus making it a double purpose patch and skid-rail for off-road use.  I was more or less pleased with the patch, and it should allow the vehicle to pass certification. It's amazing how many problems I didn't know about when i bought it (I may have waited and bought a better one had I known, but that's neither here nor there at this point).

Facelift

November 1/ 2008

As is obvious in the above picture, the steel back-panel behind the plastic grille was in some need of repair. Namely it was shallow rust pitting that had eaten the steel and generally dulled the paint.

as an interesting aside, you may note the round cutouts behind the square headlights, along with the round cutouts to the inside. the knockout for the rad is also strangely well thought out design-wise. There is a simple explanation for this though, and it has to do with Jeep's *cough*laziness*cough*. Jeep had it in their mind that instead of changing the body style like other competing automakers, they would simply stick a new grille overtop of the original 1963(ish) grille steel.

This handy Chart (Prepared by someone by the name of DANHS) shows all the Grilles over the years; all of which were backed by the grille you see in the upper left (minus the chrome pieces). I would eventually like to revert mine back to the rhino or the razor grille, since they look so much better than my worn out, cracked, and faded plastic grille.

That aside, I removed my plastic grille, affixed with only 3 real bolts, and an assortment of oddly placed screws that held it to the body (oh the woes of what are termed "old man" fixes). I gave the whole surface a sanding, and removed the rust with the wire wheel and some rust converter stuff. the shallow pitting was pretty easy to fix with some light bondo work. I took the front bumper off too, since it had rotted out at the mount points and wouldnt pass certification. masked the essentials and shot some primer onto the grille to provide a good base.

with that done, i grabbed a can of canadian tire near match black I wanted to use up (this was more to see what it would look like and get it all one colour, as opposed to a final painting). turned out pretty well I'd say.

Also, after doing this, I fixed my turn signals (which had some broken plastic clips, and were simply screwed in by wedging them with screws drilled through beside the lens (more old man fixes). i made some new sprung steel clips and mounted them to the lights, and probably fixed a few other things in the process.. i dont entirely recall.

Fixin the Trunk

September 15-20/2009

Sitrep on the trunk: in the words of Jeremy Clarkson: "it's all broken." As posted in a previous blog (sometime in december 07), I removed the carpet and found the rear seam to be more or less non-existent. I once again grabbed the trusty angle grinder, and set about playing surgeon. I severed off what i could, which involved removing a rather hefty piece of metal that runs across the rear seam. It had fallen victim to the plauge of what i call "cauliflower rust;" where the rust seems to split the metal open, and continuously fan it out in a puckering flaky mess... which in some ways resembles cauliflower.

With a now 2 inch wide chasm between the rear panel and the trunk floor, I had a bit of a conundrum; how do i span the gap, which is corrugated on one side, and flat on the other? since the floor is typically made using high-pressure press dies at the factory, I really couldn't duplicate it to factory spec. i did however, have a garage vice and some hardwood floor blocks (maple, no less). I set about measuring and marking out the shape of the corrugation into the 2 blocks, making a male and female portion to be mounted in the vice. Since it was a lighter duty vice, and a rather awkward bend, I had to use a slightly thinner guage steel so it would form better. I stripped the siding off a free shelving unit (properly treated and stripped of it's paint of course), and cut out a piece big enough to span the gap. I then marked out where to put the depression in the metal, and set to work.

I had to press it in 3 sections, because doing an off center press on a piece that long would curve it wildly because of tension. I tacked everything in, then secured it with some light welding

over the next few days, I finished up the pressing and welding, and shot down some paint to keep it from rusting. also got it from below too.

I also took this opportunity to sand down the tailgate and window cover, and give them a coat of paint.

Lastly, to use up the can of paint, I gave my drivers floor a light coat of black to tone it down a bit.

Safety First

September 13/2008

With the majority of the floor patching done a while ago, I figured I should paint it before it rusted; too late. Some time spent with the wire wheel cleaned it up as well, and i was able to get some paint down on the drivers side.

I also managed to patch some nasty rust that had plagued the B-pillars, around the seat belt mounts. since the mounts were made of pure rust, i grabbed the strap, gave it a good tug, and with one hand ripped the drivers side belt from it's moorings. the passenger side wasn't much better; a turn of the bolt more or less broke the entire assembly free from a semi rusted mount. I braced the mounts, welded in new nuts, and stole some old belt mounting bolts from an 84 Buick Century I had laying in the field. I then welded a piece of sheet steel over the old hole, and shot it with primer.

With that done, I did a test to see if everything still lined up. Didn't care so much about the prettiness of the welds for 3 reasons. 1) you'll never see it; 2) it's a flux-core wire, and 3) novice welder on sheet steel.

Moving Along Nicely

September 8, 2008

During the time between the last update and this one, I had done some work to the passenger side. The rocker panels here went together in a far more contiguous manner. the fit was also better when mounting them to the vehicle (I am learning!). Since the B-pillar actually existed on this side, I was able to simply weld it back onto the rockers. this is probably stronger than the other side, which i had to rebuild completely.

After welding the rockers together a while back, I left them unpainted. This was a bit of a mistake, as the rust crept over the surface like lichen on a rock. a few minutes spent with a wire cup brush on the angle grinder fixed this, and i slapped some primer on them to keep away the rust.

Everything about the passenger side was better. there was more floor left, more pillar, andstronger mouning brackets. The other side had sufferred a great deal more rust (which, as of december 2009, i havent completely fixed). The seam between the floor and the rear wheel arch had started popping apart , and rusting away so that rejoining it would be difficult. I should have fixed it when i had the gas tank out, since i don't particularly relish welding above the tank while it's there.. full of petrol.

Patchwork

July 18, 2008

I'm Fairly certain I must have done something on the vehicle between mid april and this point. Likely a few electrical things, some engine stuff, or making more lists.

The meat of this post was my surmounting of the driver's side rocker panel and front floor area. Getting the rocker pieces to line up to each other was as easy as; to quote John Candy: playing pick-up sticks with your butt cheeks. It was difficult to say the least, but not impossible. I managed to get them welded together, then set about marking them out so i could match them up with what was left of my rockers. The AGCOW was brought in again to do some surgery, and it did a pretty good job, but my line up was a touch off in a couple places; as I left a slightly larger gap than I had wanted. I did the welding on the tailgate, splicing pieces together with braces made from scrap metal from the school's shop (as it turns out, most of the metal I did the floor with came from the school's scrap bin).

For the most part, I would say that everything went together quite well, and I was looking forward to rebuilding the bottom of the B-pillar (since the doors sort of just hung there, and the side of the truck wobbled when i closed the door).

...No Longer a Woodie...

April 18, 2008

It's gone. The supple and oh so quintessential woodgrain panelling that once bedewed the Luxury-Liner had to go. As much as I had wanted to keep it, there was some fairly serious cancer eating away underneath the vynil. A warm sunny day was the ticket, and it came (apparently) on the 18th. with no cloud cover, and warmer temperatures, the steel heated up quickly (especially being black paint). this allowed me to simply grab/slice a small corner, and begin peeling. If i peeled well, the woodgrain would peel of in one big sheet. it was all stretched and mangled by the end, but it was off. it also left most of the adhesive behind; but that doesnt matter cuz im stripping the paint anyways. I snapped only couple pics for some reason though.

One of my regrets was not taking more pictures; I would always get so into the work that I would completely forget to take snaps of what i was doing. This, in turn; leaves you the viewer without the true experience (that being said, I can picture some of you.. mainly Josh, saying "ya nobody cares Eric"). At any rate, I wish I took more pics for myself, so that I could remember what i did. From this point on (as in December 2009), I will try to take a lot more pictures.

That paint/rust on the grille steel is nasty. gotta fix that. I think the grille was off, just to make it feel more like a project-truck