1963 J-200 SLOOOOOW Build

[63J200atLSU]

Man does that ever look great!! Nice fix on the door lock. Your kaiserjeeps scale of difficulty made me about spill my coffee.
A really like that color. If you have not had the windshield installed yet, any chance you could measure how thick it is? Somewhere I read that about 73-4ish the glass got thinner from the earlier years. I have been trying to get a hold of a local guy who has two used windshields from his dads collection of jeeps. I can't get a return phone call for nothing. So I am considering going the same route as you. Anyone reading this thread know if the thinner glass thing is true?
Anyway, the truck is looking super nice Greg. Lots of good stuff to read this morning.

Hey Al, I too had read about the thinner glass on the newer rigs. I've also seen several people say that they have installed new glass in an older rigs with no problems. Given that the gasket fits the entire production run, I can't imagine it being too big a deal. Shoot me your email and I'll also forward you an email from Safelite that was a list of every salvage yard in the country with a usable windshield. None were anywhere near me, but I feel like there were a few places up near you.

[Kaiserjeeps]

Would you believe he called this afternoon. I have two windshields on the way I hope. Both original vintage and one for Sadie and one for my wagoneer.
Go figure. I knew if I groaned about it something would happen.

It ain't over till they are sitting here in front of me. So you might hear from me yet.

[63J200atLSU]

Very pleased to say that I got a bit of work done on the truck this weekend. Doors are back on. Dash is back in. Windshields (both front and rear) are in. Man does it look nice with a new front windshield. Got the glass and door components in the passenger side. I have to do some minor surgery on my driver vent window, the bolt at the bottom that's welded to the window frame and goes down through a spring and acts as a hinge, that was completely rusted and snapped when I tried to open it. Going to use a bolt of the same size and cut the head off, weld it back in place after I square off the sides so it can fit through the rectangular slot of the washers that limit the travel of the window. Front fenders are on. Fascia is on. Wipers are back in, although I launched the clip that holds the wiper arm to the motor pivot and have to replace that... also got my carpet installed. I did a total noob job at that, but fortunately, most of my mistakes are hidable behind the seat.

I'll try and get some more pictures up soon. Things are getting pretty exciting g!

[63J200atLSU]

Amidst the carnage that is school...

Got some more pictures for anyone curious to see how the progress is (slowly) coming along. All the windows are in, although my driver side regulator leaves much to be desired. Does anybody know if the manual regulators from any of the CJ's will work? They look very similar, and that would make sense that they used the same part.

PICTURES! Should have my first sea trials in a couple weeks. I'm bound and determined to drive it to school before the end of the semester. You can only imagine how much all my mechanical engineering classmates are geeking out with anticipation. The truck has definitely become part of the fold.






My best helper. She helped me get the windshield in and Al, you'd be proud. She's also painting all of the exterior emblems on the truck. This was the day I got the carpet in. Emblem by Al front and center!


Life is good with this one, friends.


I only show you this because I love the drama of a good before/after comparison!

AFTER!!


That's all for now. Can't wait to get the wiring finished up so I can take it for a spin!

[Kaiserjeeps]

FANTASTIC!!!! To funny, when the before picture came up on screen, both Liz and I both said at the very same time "holy moly!"
What an inspiration. Your truck is going to live forever! I cannot wait till I reach the same stage on Sadie. I might paint my 71 J4000 the same color. We really like it.

I had to go back and look again. Wow... A driver side drop transfercase? And I will see if I have a decent drivers window regulator. It pays to hoard jeep parts.. Ha..

[Frank Ziebert]

Great job!

You have every reason to be proud and the truck looks fantastic too!

[63J200atLSU]

FANTASTIC!!!! To funny, when the before picture came up on screen, both Liz and I both said at the very same time "holy moly!"
What an inspiration. Your truck is going to live forever! I cannot wait till I reach the same stage on Sadie. I might paint my 71 J4000 the same color. We really like it.

I had to go back and look again. Wow... A driver side drop transfercase? And I will see if I have a decent drivers window regulator. It pays to hoard jeep parts.. Ha..

Thanks man! I think Sadie will far surpass the level of work I've done on this one. It's great for me, I'm just a noob and I've done some noob things. But the engine runs great (I've found the more I drive it around, the smoother it gets), the electrical is coming together one piece at a time, and strangely, it's a comfortable ride (when I got it, it was on only leafs in the back and busted shocks in the front... It rode like a tank on cobblestones). My last couple things before I can get it inspected and make it totally road legal are, I've got to figure out a fuel filler neck situation (The filler neck will ultimately go through the frame skirts like the stock thriftsides, but I'm going to mock up a temporary flat bed while I work on the wooden bed for it, as I'll probably need a truck to get things for it, and I need a filler neck that can work with that too) and get the parking brake assembly done. I think for the parking brake, I've just got to fab the lever that connects the front cable to the regulator brackets and figure out where those regulator brackets attach to the frame. Presumably it would be obvious, but I haven't seen any signs of the mounting points...

That green is pretty much spot on what I wanted. I think I'd try to find the equivalent color in a basecoat/clearcoat system if I had to do it again though. I suspect with your experience painting, however, you'd be able to do a pretty amazing job with it. I also put two coats of clear over the single stage, I think it helped level out some of my orange peel. Thanks again for turning me on to the SEM Color Coat paints. I just repainted my steering wheel and shifter knob after my urethane glass adhesive incident and I'm also using it to do any of the other black plastic trim/knobs.

[63J200atLSU]

Great job!

You have every reason to be proud and the truck looks fantastic too!

Thanks Frank! I attribute a lot of my success to seeing guys like you and Al do things the right way and then when I go to work on things, I'm just like, "Well, that's how I should do it" and I try my best and it comes out better than if I'd tried to do something the not-as-right way in the first place... I'm really excited that the truck is getting to the point that I'll be able to drive it around, even if it's not "finished"...

Speaking of, everyone says that these kinds of things are never finished, but I think I disagree. I have a list of things that absolutely have to happen for this truck to do everything I want, and after that, it'll be maintenance. Until the engine blows up... Man, do I love that little Tornado 230. It's a much sweeter engine than its reputation would have you believe. Will be sad if it ever bites the dust.

[KaiserMan]

I always enjoy popping into your thread to see updates. That truck is coming along nicely. It's nice to see what can be accomplished in ones own back yard.

[63J200atLSU]

I always enjoy popping into your thread to see updates. That truck is coming along nicely. It's nice to see what can be accomplished in ones own back yard.

Thanks man! It's been an interesting journey to say the least, and I'm not done yet!

[63J200atLSU]

Sea Trials

So I'd put about 6 miles on the truck running around the neighborhood and made one successful trip to Home Depot, figured the next logical thing to do was to drive it 15 miles out into the country to go see Elizabeth's folks for Thanksgiving, right? So I made a checklist of everything I wanted to get sorted out, double-checked, etc... Full tank of gas, all systems go, and we loaded up my newly installed temp-o-bed made from 1/2' treated plywood. It's not pretty, but it does the job and allows for a little utility.


This was a piece of really old 1/4' plywood that I had to mount up to give me something to haul the newer piece of plywood home with. After the first run down to HD.


The slightly improved plywood flatbed. It's still not pretty, but at least it can hold a little more weight, which is good, because we had to strap all of our stuff for the weekend to it in Rubbermaids...


All packed up and ready to go!



Made it to the ranch! The trip out there was pretty uneventful. I'd heard a noise that alarmed me the night before that changed frequency with speed. I feared one of the wheel bearings was bad and our trip was going to be canceled (in the truck at least)... Turned out to be the bearing in the speedo needed to be lubed. Took care of that and the speedo actually tells the correct speed now. Technology! lol


What a great day. Took Elizabeth's mom's boyfriend Joe for a ride, he got to drive around in the country in it, almost brought a tear to his eye as he took a trip down memory lane thinking about making family trips in his dad's old '49 Ford pickup. Really cool to share that with him.


The next morning, woke up to the first frost of the year, and the truck's first frost since I've had it. Stuff like that is pretty neat to me...

That morning, Elizabeth and I decided we'd head a few miles down the road and run some errands, get out on the country roads a little bit for some mild cruising. Got to our first stop and there was coolant coming from the weep hole of the water pump. No bueno. So I topped off the radiator and we went to our last stop (Home Depot) before heading back, where I planned on making my "get the truck back home" plan. By the time we got to home depot, the water pump was spraying coolant so hard that it covered the front of the truck. So Walter's day was done. Fortunately, Joe was free and came and towed us home. The family, in a moment of emotional sensitivity, decided they'd greet us with cameras to document the truck's first failure. My future in-laws...


Even being towed behind another truck, Walter is still a handsome devil.

Next morning, I got the water pump off. I'm definitely glad it didn't go out sooner. There's no reason it shouldn't have. It was awful.



So the pump's been sent off for a total rebuild. While I'm at it, I'm going to flush the cooling system (again and again and again and again...) and put in another new thermostat. Engine was running cool when it went, so that's also good news. I'd be pretty sad to kill the little Tornado.

While I'm replacing the water pump, I really want to put in new water pump lugs. Anybody know a good source for these? Fasten-all?

More soon (after finals end... For now, I've graciously been spared the temptation of working on the truck instead of doing school work as we had to leave it out in the country)...

[rang-a-stang]

What an awesome post! thanks for all the pictures! We've all been following your build for months now and it's so great to see it out and about. Handsome Devil is right! That green looks better every time i see it. Other than the cooling system, how did everything else do? Shifted well? Any electrical germlins? How did the brakes feel?

I know the flat bed is temporary but I think your truck looks great with a flat bed so I recommend getting a full time/permanent flat bed. Even if you have to make one.

Your rimes/tires are sooooooooo right!

[63J200atLSU]

What an awesome post! thanks for all the pictures! We've all been following your build for months now and it's so great to see it out and about. Handsome Devil is right! That green looks better every time i see it. Other than the cooling system, how did everything else do? Shifted well? Any electrical germlins? How did the brakes feel?

I know the flat bed is temporary but I think your truck looks great with a flat bed so I recommend getting a full time/permanent flat bed. Even if you have to make one.

Your rimes/tires are sooooooooo right!

No real electrical issues to report. I had some issues with the blinkers and brake lights not working when I first got it all wired back up, but I'm fairly sure that was just a bad ground. I like the flat bed in a way, but I think I still like the thriftside beds more. We'all see though!

The brakes. They feel like I've got some work to do... lol

[SJTD]

Towed by a Chevy. Bad enough to admit it but to post a picher?!

[63J200atLSU]

Towed by a Chevy. Bad enough to admit it but to post a picher?!

Lol, I was waiting for the inevitable flack I was sure to catch...