A '79 Full Size Joy

[Simo]

Dirty Jobs

Most of the general undercarriage like frame and inner fender wells were solid but had surface rust and peeling paint/undercoating.


Several hours with a wire wheel and brush tried to strip as much as possible before applying some black chassis saver everywhere i could reach including the bottom of all the new floor pans. I should have worn a full suit and mask... this one took several showers and mineral spirits to clean up from and then in turn ya have to clean the shower too. Anyways the end result started looking a little better underneath.

[Simo]

Having done most of the metalwork and clean up over the winter, finally got a chance to pull it outside in the warming sun for some motivation before continuing misc repairs and improvements.

[Simo]

Tailgate

The tailgate window was being intermittent and then finally stopped working possibly due to several reasons. The wiring at the base of the tailgate hinge was really brittle and the power wire had broken.


After splicing in a repair to the broken wire I still couldnt get the window to operate. I could bypass everything and get the motor to work independently but the dash switch and tailgate key switch werent working even with the tailgate dummy switch locked out and because they're somewhat tied together it made it a little harder to diagnose one at a time. From what i could gather at the time, one of the switches was discontinued and some conversion kits were available for around $90. The old switch had no 'feel' to it like it wouldnt center or detent at 'up' or 'down' position and i thought it would be simpler and cheaper to just remove the tailgate key switch from the circuit. I found a DPDT switch on amazon, EEEKit 6-pin DPDT 20 Amp momentary rocker switch (2 for $7.97), that looked like it might work.

The factory switch made by Singer was mounted in a round hole, the new switch needed a square hole. The dash metal is pretty thin so a few minutes with a hand file got the shape needed to fit.


The new switch has a different wiring pattern to it so obviously the OE plug wont fit it. I didnt want to butcher the existing harness behind the dash so i just coupled wires with spade connectors into the OE plug. Then i taped it best i could to prevent the wires from pulling out.


Connected, pulling +12v from the fuse panel and added a ground easily enough.


Bypassed tailgate key switch


Here is a simple diagram of the final circuit.

[Simo]

Gauges

The only oe gauage working was the mechanical speedometer. I wanted the typical gauges oil pressure, water temp, voltage, fuel level, but also wanted a tachometer without having to mount them all over the place.

I gutted the old gauge cluster removing the old ammeter, oil pressure, fuel level, temp gauge, and the backing circuit board. I mounted a cheap 3 3/8" Bosch SP0F000018 Sport II 3-3/8" Tachometer on the left and a 'not cheap' 3 3/8" Auto Meter 1412 designer black Quad Gauge on the right. I drilled out the arrows for the Left and Right turn signals of the dash face for LED turning indicators (Alpinetech PL8B-G Green 12V 5/16" metal signal indicator pilot dash light $5.95). A new hole was drilled for high beam indication too.


I was able to tack the tach's mounting bracket to the gauge cluster's metal stamped back and epoxied the quad gauge to the back removable stamping. Not really pretty from the backside but the front face has what it needs.


The wiring for the LED turn indicators and high beam indicators are secured into the oe plug, a chilton's wiring diagram was helpful identifying each circuit.


I had some incandescent bulbs from old autometer gauges that i was able to glue behind the oe speedometer for cluster backlighting when the parking lights are on.

[SOLSAKS]

DANG ! nice !
dave in NC

[Simo]

Thanks for the encouragement. It's taken a while just to get to this point. Still a lot more to do though the thread is nearly up to date now. Just got the rig PA inspected last month and am driving it around now so that feels good. The interior and some of the handling observations may see some of the next improvements.

Picked up after inspection with new 32x11.50R15 Mastercraft Courser MXTs, December 2019

[Rusty76]

Great read! Thanks for taking the time to also put in awesome pictures.
Congrats on all the progress.

[FleetFox]

Making some serious progress here, congrats. Your fab work is excellent by the way.

Fleet Fox

[asphaltrockdweller]

I love the look of those old school West Coast Mirrors.
You could call your Chero "Sarge" looks like Sargent stripes on the shoulders.

[rang-a-stang]

This thread is AMAZING! Well done! I absolutely love your rig! Done right for sure!!! I'm with Asphaltrockdweller: Sarge is the perfect name.

If you lived closer I'd pay you to build me a front bumper like that! Super cool.

[miracleed]

Dude! Awesome thread. Going to lean heavily on this when it starts getting a little warmer around here.

[Simo]

Front Seat

After mechanical and body work met state inspection, some attention turned to the interior. The driver and passenger front seats still had decent cushioning but their surfaces had torn in several strips and had become brittle enough to tear again with new pressure applied. Some research on here suggested Dodge Dakota seats to be a good replacement option and I even found a donor truck buried in a local yard...



... but I got tempted by this racy ford focus ST nearby and grabbed its great pair of semi bolstered fold forward seats for a hundred bucks.



I started on the driver side first because I thought it would be easier. The focus seat base was too wide to center the seat, was too high, and its incline was all wrong to be a simple bolt into the FSJ. Started to rethink the Dakota seats but pushed on, separating the focus seat and slide rails from its base mounting feet by drilling & grinding out the rivets. Some simple base skids bolt through the same holes I had drilled in the new floors for the FSJ seats. Then a set of four tapered 1/4” angle iron risers, about 3.5” long each, secure the focus seat rails to the base plates. While the rails are butted right up against the Hi/Lo range shifter on the trans tunnel, the inner sliders move all the way forward and backward. I’m 6’3” ~275# and am comfortable with the outcome.

[Simo]

Center Console

To add to daily driver comfort I felt like the rig needed a center console not only to rest an arm on, but also hold some beverages and accumulate random crap as the glove box was already getting full of stereo and gauge wires, ducting, and 4wd switch so far. It didn’t seem like a great place to keep things like the registration and insurance cards floating around anymore. There are some pretty nice custom consoles on here, some folks mentioned a universal clutter catcher available at places like Walmart, and several donor auto models were mentioned. Ultimately, I chose this Rampage 31511 locking center console meant for 76-95 CJ/Wranglers online. It was $84; if I invested more time I might have found a cheaper option or gotten creative and made my own, but Im trying to pick my battles. It’s denim grey, matches the focus seats reasonably well, has 4 cup holders, was pretty easy to install, and the arm rest cushion is a good height for my driving position.



I mounted a small fire extinguisher within arms reach to the back of the console.

[Simo]

Interior Panels

Some of the panels were getting pretty ragged round the edges. I saw some premade ABS plastic panels available online and there were several posts around here showing nice restorations, recreations, and custom panels using various materials. As a short-term cost-effective material selection, I found 4x8 sheets of 5mm wood paneling for $17 at Lowe’s. This isn’t anything new, several others have used wood paneling in their FSJs before, here are a few examples that look better than mine:
- Tbryan http://www.ifsja.org/forums/vb/showthread.php?t=79372
- Loganvilledude http://www.ifsja.org/forums/vb/showthread.php?t=158349
- Vintagetrks http://www.ifsja.org/forums/vb/showthread.php?t=107426

A fine-tooth jigsaw blade cuts them pretty cleanly after conservatively tracing out an old panel with some test fitting, trimming, and repeating. Self-tapping sheet metal screws secure the panels in place easily enough. They could be sanded and coated in polyurethane with some sound deadening or replaced with something more durable in the future.

[Simo]

Stereo

For tunes, I installed a single DIN head unit (Pioneer DEH-S4120BT) and four 6x9 speakers (Kicker 43DSC69304). The OE radio opening in the dash had to be enlarged. Traced the new head unit’s tray and carefully cut to fit using a variety of tooling especially for the vertical cuts where a 4.5” angle grinder is too big not hit the dash cover. The dash sheet metal is really thin so even when bending the tabs that hold the tray in place it still wasn’t perfectly tight. I saw some others on here had tack welded the tray in place. I ended up adding a little gorilla glue around the perimeter to try and take out any more play so it didn’t wiggle around anymore. The head unit’s cover hides it all and it looks ok. A pair of 6x9” speakers were mounted in the front doors and rear cargo area side panels.