'64 J300 Project Farmtruck

[Miner_Jeepy]

Hi Everybody!

I wanted to share my first Jeep project to aid others and leach some knowledge off of those of you who have been at this for as long as I've been alive.

I picked up a 1964 J300 about a month ago and have been slowly getting into it. It's the first Jeep that I've ever owned after wanting one since like 8th grade and I'm pumped to get to get my hands dirty again. It runs and drives (more on that later) and I don't have the room to do any large changes to it (e.g. drivetrain swap) so it's mostly fixing little things to make it a bit more daily driver friendly. I bought it off a farmer in Indiana and given it's age and use it's in pretty decent condition. The frame is great, the previous owner (PO) had the brakes redone last year, steering is as tight as it can be, and mechanically it's pretty sound. It's also fun because the company that I work for produces material that goes into the new Gladiator. Anyway, onto photos!

Took this one the day I went to look at it. This was after I stood on the brake instead of the clutch; killing the engine and getting it stuck in-between gears. The truck clutch and 3 on the tree were totally foreign to my Subaru driving self.








The PO worked for a utility company so he grabbed a bunch of signs and patched the large holes in the floor with them. I dig the look but it would be executed better. Can't do a great job of fixing it until I get a welder though.

Basically the whole interior needs to be washed out. It's grungy.




So that's the introduction. Now for the bad:
- Not a single gauge works, not even the added pod
- The PO replaced the generator with a 3-wire alternator and I don't think it's charging the battery
- Interior is beat
- Turn signal stalk is a pair of vicegrips
- Farm fixes
- HVAC needs repaired
- Electrical system tune-up
- Road sign floor
- Rusty tailgate
- 1 broken shock in rear
- Leaks oil from everywhere
- (I'm sure there's lots that I haven't discovered)

My Plans:
- Make it as mechanically & electrically sound as possible
- Update to modern era as much as possible (function over form)
- Swap entire drivetrain (eventually). The tornado is cool but woefully underpowered and low on replacement parts. Could go with a 4.2 or a 4.0 or a Merc diesel or a hemi to keep it true or piss everyone off and put in a 2JZ.
- Make the interior decent with a radio and door panels and real knobs and better seatbelts
- LEAVE THE PATINA
- Take it to car shows, go camping in it, have fun


Onto me asking for advice. On the topic of the charging system; when I got the truck registered I had to get the battery fully charged the day before and then installed it the morning (started right up though). When leaving the BMV I barely got it started and the next morning the truck wouldn't even turn over. I've had the battery tested twice and the alternator tested once and both passed. I traced the alt wiring and it appears to be hooked up like the image below with two exceptions. I can't find a dummy light and there's a ballast resistor in between the ignition and the started solenoid.



I don't know much about ballast resistors but I think it's needed since the ignition is a points style(?) and I believe the dummy light can be replaced with an in-line resistor like this one based on this article. Is that correct? Has anyone ever done that before? I'm considering not adding a dummy light because I don't know how it would fit in the cluster since there's a rudimentary circuit board and that I may just upgrade to a digital dash. I'd rather just start out with something that, in theory, should work and has those modern conveniences than trouble shoot old gauges. The old gauges are much more cool though.





Anyway, you've made it this far. Thanks for listening to me ramble. I'll try to keep this updated as stuff gets done, no promises though. I want to get it decent and then take it to the Toledo Jeep Fest in August since I'm in the Cincinnati area.

[Miner_Jeepy]

Oh no, those images didn't automatically resize like I'm use to. Uh, I'll have to fix that tomorrow. Apologies.

[Kaiserjeeps]

That is as cool as heck. It looks like it might be vintage gold in color. Or close to it. I can't remember the name of the color that is similar. Your circuit board looks pretty good. Hopefully the pins are not loose.
Partsdude4x4 has boards and the plugs along with lots of other parts. I have spotted some of the gauges on Ebay lately. Same with the cluster surround. There is a Parma hobby paint that is the exact color of the needles. I don't have the number right in front of me.

Really neat truck. Thanks for posting.

[Brly]

Miner,
Great truck! Love the tires and wheels.

I just put a 3 wire alternator in my '66 J3000 and the diagram you listed is correct. Not sure about the ballast resistor. Is the original starter still in use, or is it a newer gear reduction starter? The dummy light is on the instrument cluster, just like the "OIL" light. Can't read yours in the photo, but mine says "AMP". Your instrument panel is just slightly different than mine.

Before you do anything else, get the truck running and put a multimeter set to DCV across the battery terminals to see what you're getting. Should be over 14 V while the truck is running. If not, start tracing the wiring.

Make sure you disconnect the battery before digging into any wiring anywhere on the truck! Never know what has been done.

Hydraulic clutch is nice. How are the brakes? I put a 7" dual diaphragm vacuum booster and dual pot master cylinder on mine. World of difference and having two brake circuits is a lot more safe.
Looks like a new radiator. I wonder if the 6 cylinder and V8 use the same? I have a small leak at the top of mine. Haven't pulled it out yet to fix it, but a replacement would be a nice option.

[SOLSAKS]

cool truck
love the light rust on body.
dave in NC

[joe]

Nice find for an OH project truck. Pretty sound start. Body work is the big time and money eater. Looks more neglected than abused/modified. Staying rural on the farm and off the salted pavement prolly saved it's life. The 230 OHC motor is good daily driver motor IMHO. Yeah they are are oil leakers. Bad motor mount design and a stretchy mile long timing chain but if you keep up on the maint run a long time. If you're lax on maint you risk eating the cam and cam bed. DON'T DO THAT! The orig wiring was weak when new and worse if butchered for modifications. I suggest losing the old inline fuse wiring harness and upgrade with an aftermarket harness w/fuse box from Easywire or Painless etc.
Cool project, you'll have fun with it.

[jeepman1]

Far out. Watching...

[FleetFox]

I love it. Please put new tires on it before you plan on driving more than 15mph. We all start somewhere with our rigs, take it one step at a time. I would get the charging issue resolved and then you can move on to something that brings you joy.

Fleet Fox

[Brly]

Re-read your post. To clarify, you already have a dummy light for the alt and oil sender in your instrument panel, you're just missing the bulb holders (two empty holes in the back of the panel). I think I had to order the bulb holders through Napa. I believe I found 5/8" holders local, the ones you need are smaller, maybe 1/2".

[Wagoneer Taylor]

This farm rig is sweet! Can't wait to see more as you come along, definitely subing.

I agree with Brly, easiest way to see if your alt is charging is to test the battery terminals with a DMM or DCV. My '77 Wagoneer has butchered wiring all over the place, disconnect the battery and be careful when digging through it.

Cheers!

[chubbinius]

Miner, that's a great looking truck you snagged. It looks nice and solid, and the thin surface dusting looks like it would clean up fairly easily.

Having grabbed a 70 Wagoneer about 7 or months ago, I now have the bug to find a j-truck too. I'd like to get one to keep up with my family in the Cleveland area...would be fun to have on summer visits!

Looking forward to see what you do with yours, welcome!

[Miner_Jeepy]

Hey dudes, I'm back and have some tangible progress. It's been a flurry of wrenching to get ready for Toledo Jeep fest. I signed up and now need to get my junk 4 hour trip worthy.

First off I decided to upgrade the exterior lights; LEDs front and tail. I got some Hella H4 7" headlight buckets (link), LED h4 bulbs (link) and some taillights (link). The headlights were super simple to install. The only issue is that the bulbs are long, they have a cooling fan on them, so you really have to finagle the plug in area behind the headlight. This could be fixed by clipping the harness and relocating the plug but it works. The taillights were a different thing. The ones I bought (and basically every other round LED taillight) are too big for the indent in the bed. You might be able to make them work if you like chucked it in a lathe and turned some material off but there are other options.

A better option was to reuse the stock housings but clean everything up and just use LED bulbs. So I splashed some black and then some chrome rustoleum with a good ol' rattlecan for some extra reflectivity. The tape job was pretty halfassed but no one is ever really going to see it. The bulbs I used were these (link) They fit totally fine and work great. Super happy with them so I'll eventually upgrade the front turns to the amber version of these. I did get some inline resistors to go with them but I didn't end up using them. I read that if there isn't enough resistance in the circuit the blinkers can act funny but when I tested them in the system they worked fine.



This also involved redoing the wiring for the taillights too. The PO use ~37' of 14 ga black wire to wire everything from the gas tank back. That's now all color coordinated and crimped properly. Picked up a butane powered soldering iron in case I ended up doing any soldering in the process. Highly recommend them. Super helpful for heat shrink tubing. I just need to tuck it up into the framerails properly and wrap it in some cover.

The PO also decided that radiator cap access wasn't necessary so I pulled the upper mount he made off and took a hacksaw to it. Not the prettiest but it works.



More hack saw surgery involved modifying the minimal effort clutch slave cylinder bracket that the PO made. I guess the original got lost and made this one. It interfered with the lower flywheel cover so he just didn't install it. Don't be like me and cut through 3/8" steel with a hacksaw. Use a better tool. I'm dumb and stubborn. I put that sweet notch in it with the hacksaw too. Like I said, a sturgeon. (I installed the bracket before taking photos of the final product. The third photo is a result of that.)



I also picked up some ABS door panels from BJs. The installation was pretty easy. Only complaint is that the holes for the various handles and arm rest barely line up but it's the nature of a universal part. To get the mounting holes I created some paper templates to get the holes then did my best to transfer those to the actual part. I ended up redrilling/enlarging some holes in the mounting process. To mount them I used license plate hardware (link) and #8 screws (at least I think that's what size they are). I believe there are 21 mounting holes per door but I only utilized half of them. I drilled holes for all of them though. You have to hammer in the plastic hardware but no issues other than that. I got a speaker hole cut because I'll eventually install a sound system.



Adjusted the valves today. It was my first foray into legit engine work. It was easier than I expected. Top end looks pretty good for being a 56 year old engine. Still need to adjust the timing chain. That'll be an event.



My biggest issue now is that my right turn signal doesn't work. I think the wiring I did is correct. Running to the back of the truck are 4 wires; orange, blue, yellow, yellow/white. The pass taillight has yellow and orange wires and the driver has yellow and red. I hooked up a yellow wire to each and then blue to blue, orange to orange. Simple enough, right?

So, you know, you start cleaning connections and jiggling wires and nothing fixed it. Then, for better or worse, I pulled the turn signal switch apart because that was the last part in my mind that could be broken. Maybe it is. I don't really know. I'm hoping you guys can lend me some guidance here. I don't really have much experience tackling electrical gremlins. In typing this out I remembered I meant to re-check the fused links today. That's a tomorrow thing now. But, here are are the results of moving the turn signal switch around.

A) Taillights on
B) Driver turn signal on, pass taillight off
C) Driver taillight on, pass turn signal off
D) Both driver and pass flashing

A) B)
C) D)

Another part of this mystery is that the truck came with a second flasher thing and when I plugged it in all 4 flashed immediately even with the switch "open" and when the driver turn signal was activated it flashed real fast. Pass turn signal still didn't work. I also jumped terminals on the switch. Jumping the lower two (driver) activates the driver turn signal and jumping the upper two (pass) does nothing. So, I think that the upper two terminals aren't getting any power but I don't know why and the wiring for this all confuses me. There's a power wire that's plugged directly into the ignition power but things still work when it's unplugged so there's power coming from elsewhere. I can get a replacement switch from the parts dude but it'll take a little modification and ain't cheap so I'd like to be sure about it.


Here are the things I'd like to get done before Toledo Jeep fest. I may be taking the Subaru instead...

Fix speedo
Fix pass turn
New shocks
Aim headlights
Check timing chain
Change oil
Install 12V outlet

[63J200atLSU]

Man oh man! Another early rig on the boards! Absolutely hit me up if you have any questions. My 63 was way rougher than yours when I started. I've gleaned a pretty solid understanding of these trucks through trial and error.

The charging system. So mine had a similar problem. What I found, and it was somewhat mentioned earlier, the circuit board can seem good, but it's finicky. A strange design indeed, as if the bulb for the alternator charging light goes out, it will 1) break the circuit of the charging system and the alternator won't charge the battery because it will never start its charge cycle and 2) won't light up to let you know there's a problem. I got one of the newer printed circuit boards from partsdude4x4 and the alternator light came on all of a sudden and the alternator started charging the battery. Insanity.

The blinker switch seems temperamental. I also realized onmy truck that when I start it, the ignition switch would be stuck in this no-mans-land between on and start. I basically have to check that the switch is manually turned back to on and my blinkers work. If only one side doesn't work, it could be the little tiny switch pieces inside of the steering wheel. I would love to help you troubleshoot this if you need it. Please use my experience with my rig as a tool.

Can't wait to see the progress and definitely subscribed.

[63J200atLSU]

Man oh man! Another early rig on the boards! Absolutely hit me up if you have any questions. My 63 was way rougher than yours when I started. I've gleaned a pretty solid understanding of these trucks through trial and error.

The charging system. So mine had a similar problem. What I found, and it was somewhat mentioned earlier, the circuit board can seem good, but it's finicky. A strange design indeed, as if the bulb for the alternator charging light goes out, it will 1) break the circuit of the charging system and the alternator won't charge the battery because it will never start its charge cycle and 2) won't light up to let you know there's a problem. I got one of the newer printed circuit boards from partsdude4x4 and the alternator light came on all of a sudden and the alternator started charging the battery. Insanity.

The blinker switch seems temperamental. I also realized onmy truck that when I start it, the ignition switch would be stuck in this no-mans-land between on and start. I basically have to check that the switch is manually turned back to on and my blinkers work. If only one side doesn't work, it could be the little tiny switch pieces inside of the steering wheel. I would love to help you troubleshoot this if you need it. Please use my experience with my rig as a tool.

Can't wait to see the progress and definitely subscribed.

[63J200atLSU]

Oh! Don't give up on the tornado too too quick... I got lucky and found a 2 barrel intake manifold for mine and it really brought it to life. If you do get rid of yours, I know a guy who needs the ac compressor bracket if you've got a factory air con system...