Pickle Wagon build thread

[Dumpy]

That's gonna be one sweet ride!

[The Colonel]

I do like the color. What was the last year they used that green?

[Etcetera]

I do like the color. What was the last year they used that green?

I'm not sure. Mine has been repainted several times. It was originally an off white color.

[shimniok]

Great project, looking forward to more pics and progress! Good luck! (you seem to have quite a bit of that already...)

[Etcetera]

OK, so I made a little more progress under the hood. Finished the battery tray, just need to drill for bolts. It's mounted temporarily with bigger self tapping screws.




I moved the horns behind the grill. You can just barely see them. I used the center hole in the core support, I think it's supposed to be a drain. They fit like they are supposed to be there.




Took a general pic under the hood. Also included a pic of under the hood when I got it.



On the engine front, I pulled the heads, I'm going to hone and do rings. It's actually pretty good and measures out ok, but some crud got down in there, and there was a weird film on the cylinder walls. When I tear it down I'm going to check the cam, and probably just run it. I'll do cam bearings unless they are perfect. Hopefully the rods and mains will look ok, they will get fresh bearings. Heads will get torn down and cleaned. They are pretty fresh, but some rust in a couple of the intake ports and all the exhaust ports. Might as well do it right.

I'm going to run a quadrajet. I think it's probably the only carb that would work decent on the offy dual port. I kind of like Q-Jet's anyways, so I'm running one.

One last thing, I procured a passenger side knuckle drilled and tapped with the high steer arm. It's an old arm, needs to be machined so the TRE's live. For starters I'm running high drag link, low stock tie rod. Later on I'll move up to a nice high steer tie rod, but I'm trying to stay on budget for now.

[Etcetera]

A couple updates, no pictures.

Going with the 14 bolt. It's much closer to the width of my 44 front, front is 69 and change, 14 bolt is 67. Going to put the 60 rear up in the classified section. It's about 64 inches wide, 4.10's with factory limited slip. Interestingly, the 14 bolt would probably bolt in. Sping pads were pretty close after a rough measurement. I was going to go spring under frame, but maybe I'll keep them outboard. Still have to fabricate all new spring mounts.

Picked up a pair of 56" chevy springs for the rear. Freebies.

Picked up a pretty sweet set of Stewart Warner gauges at the Pomona Swap meet a couple weeks ago. $40. They are the World series gauges, out of production I think. Tach, speedo, oil, water, amps and fuel. I need to hunt down a matching voltage gauge. They pop up on ebay from time to time for next to nothing. Just need to be patient.

Not much else new to report for now. Just cleaning parts and prepping for the big swap. I also picked up a 61 ford f350 flatbed for free. Got it running, so I'll be able to drive it when I'm working on the Jeep. That should simplify things. It will make a great parts runner.

[Etcetera]

Finally got a chance to actually work on the Jeep again. Welded all 52 holes in the roof. Wire brushed and primed the inside of the roof, then sandwiched a piece of 3/4 Styrofoam insulation between the cross supports and roof. Man than made a huge difference in temperature and brought the noise level way down.

Sold the dana 60 rear. Unless I find a smokin deal on a 60 front I'll be running 14 bolt rear and 44 front.

Also, powdercoated my first piece today. Finally.

[Snowbird_Hunter]

Interesting idea on the roof insulation. I had never thought of that for some reason.

I would be interested to know more on how you got it up in there and maybe some more pics ...

It is looking good, looking forward to seeing more.

[cmelo]

Did you modify the dana 20 yourself for twinsticks or did you buy it that way. It looks like it's just a slightly changed stock setup with twin sticks. Do you have any close up pics of the what was done? I plan on doing the same thing to mine.

[Etcetera]

I took the cross braces out to get the foam in. I just slighly bent the lip at the front and rear of the vehicle to slip it under, then bolted the cross braces back in. The front one you can do by hand and leave the tar felt stuff on the back side. The other 2 I had to remove the tar felt stuff and use a lever to push it up high enough to get the bolts in. I shoved the foam under the front lip by the windshield, then I put the middle brace, then the other 2 braces. I then cut the rear of the sheet about an inch long, and bowed the foam up and slipped it under the rear lip. It's a tight fit, but worth it I think. I'm pretty sure the stock headliner would go back in. Mine is trashed so I'll have to figure something else out.

I bought the dana 20 that way. It is a homebuilt setup. I'll see if I can get a picture.

[jeepjerry]

Nice project!! It will be nice when its done.

Sounds like you stole that boat motor too.

[Christiansok]

The roof insulation is pretty cool. I would look into doing that myself because all the tar patches on my roof inside have fallen off and it sure rattles a lot.

[Etcetera]

The roof insulation is pretty cool. I would look into doing that myself because all the tar patches on my roof inside have fallen off and it sure rattles a lot.

Mine was horrible. The headliner came down, and the big fiber pad had fallen apart. The whole roof would slap against those bars on smallish bumps. Pretty darn loud.

[Christiansok]

Mine was horrible. The headliner came down, and the big fiber pad had fallen apart. The whole roof would slap against those bars on smallish bumps. Pretty darn loud.

I've taken off my roof rack and strips on top too so there really isn't much for structure anymore. I imagine without adding insulation or something it's going to be pretty loud driving in the rain.

[Etcetera]

Today my goal is to fix the 2 inch section of bad drip rail and sand and paint the outside of the roof.