Bill's Daily Driver Build

[jeepfan93]

So what's your mig setup for welding stainless? Progress is awesome. Been diggin it. Love the gauges. Eventually of i ever get time, I'm going CANBUS from Dakota Digital and do the quad gauge also. Such a clean look. What AC system are you using?

[ProTouring442]

So what's your mig setup for welding stainless? Progress is awesome. Been diggin it. Love the gauges. Eventually of i ever get time, I'm going CANBUS from Dakota Digital and do the quad gauge also. Such a clean look. What AC system are you using?

Stainless wire, straight argon.

The biggest problem was with the flanges. Unlike with regular steel, stainless seems to be much more sensitive to the wire feed speed. When I would first start welding the flanges, I would need to turn the speed down a bit, but as they warmed up, I had to turn the feed up a good bit.

The A/C is a modified unit from a 70s Chevrolet truck, with an evaporator core from a '79 Trans Am (made for an expansion orifice).

Thanks!
Bill

[ProTouring442]

There has been progress, but it consists mainly of soldered connections covered in heat-shrink. Not very exciting.

So for your entertainment, here are a few pics of my Father's 1959 Impala project. Last week I went to visit my folks in Youngsville, NC, and helped him get a little work done on it.

Here is the L99 (LS3 for an auto), backed by a 6L80E transmission. Man is that trans BIG!



It was a tight fit, but dad managed to get it in the car without having to use aftermarket accessory brackets. Cheaper, and looks better I think.



The reason I went was to help get the exhaust fitted. Between the non-original style engine and the funky shaped frame, we had to do a bit of fitting to get the passenger's side head pipe to fit around the starter and exit where the frame is bent for the most clearance (the exhaust has to pass from inside the rails to the outside of them, just behind the lower control arm mount). The lower control arm mount hangs down here, making it a tight fit, but we managed.



The driver's side was a lot easier! The discoloration you see is from the heat. The pipe is stainless, so no rust. The welds aren't as pretty as I would like, but welding stainless with a MIG isn't the best solution if you want that oh-so-pretty "roll of dimes" look. In fact, welding stainless with a MIG is a royal pain in the butt! :shock:



We made little stub pipes (they didn't cut into the actual exhaust pipe) to attach Corvette exhaust hangers with. These do a great job of supporting the exhaust and eliminating vibration and noise while allowing the exhaust to expand and contract linearly.



We added a second hanger of the same type just behind the rear axle.



Another job we worked on while I was there was the adapting of late model Suburban power seat tracks to a set of '62-65 Chevy bucket seats (only the bottoms are shown here).



While I haven't been around, dad has been working on other projects. One of them is the adapting of a '68-'72 Olds Cutlass A/C-heater system (similar to the system I am adapting to my Wagoneer). Here are the modification he made to the firewall.



He's also modified the dash where the original radio went so that he can now mount the center A/C outlet from a '69 Camaro.



And here is the old gal herself, mounted on a rotisserie. The dark primer is epoxy while the lighter stuff is polyester (essentially sprayable body filler) awaiting blocking.



Finally, I'll leave you with a few shots I took when my dad and I went to an old salvage yard in Virginia we used to frequent. There were a lot fewer cars (he's crushed thousands due to the ravages of time), but it was still so cool to go back after a good 12 or 15 years!

[ProTouring442]

Jeep progress!!!

Ok, it's only a small thing, but it is still real, actual progress on my Jeep!

I had only a short bit of time today to work on the Jeep, and rather than get everything out and crawl under the dash for wiring, I decided to get my steering wheel together.

The wheel is a recent Ebay purchase. It's not a very expensive steering wheel. Though a real wood wheel, the spokes were a bit scratched up, so I got it at a good price.

But being me, I didn't want it to look like an aftermarket wheel. It had to look like it could have come from Jeep. So...

I rummaged through some boxes in the garage attic and came up with an old Oldsmobile sport wheel horn button. I disassembled the button, discarding everything but the portion that connects the button to the actual electrical portion of the horn button (to be purchased later), and the lower escutcheon. I sanded and painted the lower escutcheon silver, then trimmed the center portion of a Jeep Cherokee horn button to fit.

After gluing these together, and while waiting for the glue to set, I sanded the steering wheel's spokes and taped off the wooden part so the spokes could be painted. In the end, I think it turned out quite nicely. The whole thing will attach to a '68-pre airbag GM sport wheel 6-screw hub, and will use the corresponding horn button (electrical portion) and so should be quite reliable.

[jdaniel83]

Very nice!

[Strode]

I'm enjoying your thread very much.

[jeepfan93]

I'm enjoying your thread very much.

X2. I love how you're mixing old and new seamlessly. That wheel is gorgeous! I'm planning and collecting parts for my 87 build. Being that I have a Durango drivetrain, I was going either with a Durango or Ram A/C system. Then update then the interior as you have by rebuilding the dash. But you seem to have beaten me to it. I may do it anyway. Keep up the great work, oh BTW, are you raising black widows or just lucky enough to have them everywhere?

[ProTouring442]

X2. I love how you're mixing old and new seamlessly. That wheel is gorgeous! I'm planning and collecting parts for my 87 build. Being that I have a Durango drivetrain, I was going either with a Durango or Ram A/C system. Then update then the interior as you have by rebuilding the dash. But you seem to have beaten me to it. I may do it anyway. Keep up the great work, oh BTW, are you raising black widows or just lucky enough to have them everywhere?

Where we live is surrounded by trees (not exactly woods, but sort of), so we have an abundance of them. I don't mind them, really. They eat a lot of other creatures I'd really rather not have around. Same with the scorpions.

I will admit that the Carolina Wolf Spider I found in my sink last night startled the bajeebus out of me! But I collected him and set him outside to hunt and eat. But egad he was big!

[serehill]

Absolutely a +

Very well written write up. This is a top notch project the HVAC system is the best solution I have ever seen. KUDOS sir!!!!

[ProTouring442]

We have Jeepness!!

Made a place to hold the Chevy airbox. I cut a 4" hole in the bottom of the airbox, and made a tube to connect behind the front fascia.



Modified the airbox to close off the original air intake and instead use the new 4" intake tube. By the way, the welds are Silicon Bronze. Nice stuff to work with! Not for anything structural of course, but great for working with sheet metal.



A test fit with the lid.



Finished, except for the last flex joint and clamps.



I forgot to take photos of the build process, but here's the battery box (built out of the bed frame mentioned in the other thread).



I also made a bar to hold 3 Maxi Fuse holders and 4 Bosch style relays.



Lastly, I mounted a set of Cadillac 4-note horns (A, C, D, and F) in the old pie plate positions. They're not actually louder than the factory horns, but their tone really gets your attention!





No critters this time, though I wish I'd taken one of the Carolina Wolf Spider I found in the kitchen sink a few weeks ago! :shock: Egad that thing was huge!

[Adam_Tinkerer]

Just curious, were the GM ac mods because of factory non ac, or just issues with the factory system?

[ProTouring442]

Just curious, were the GM ac mods because of factory non ac, or just issues with the factory system?

The factory system is divorced, with A/C being a separate system from the heat. This leads to a few issues, the biggest being that the defroster air is not dehumidified. The next biggest is that the A/C evaporator is not that large, especially for such a large interior. Finally, the factory Jeep system uses a non-adjustable expansion valve

Given these issues, I went with an amalgamation of GM systems wherein I can address all these issues. The GM unit will give me dehumidified defroster air, and thus eliminate the fogged up window effect on a rainy day. The evaporator is quite large, (the same size as used in the large GM station wagons) and, when coupled with the large, triple pass condenser I am running, should enable me to remove quite a bit of heat from the interior (A/C does not introduce cool air, it removes heat). Finally, I will be using an expansion orifice and a cycling compressor so I can adjust the compressor cycling switch to just above evaporator freezing.

Hope that explains it, but if not, please don't hesitate to ask!

Bill

[Mr. Goatman]

Did you get the under hood heater box used or from a supplier? I like your dash and AC/Heat idea. Can you give a little more information about where you got supplier and putting it all together?

[ProTouring442]

Did you get the under hood heater box used or from a supplier? I like your dash and AC/Heat idea. Can you give a little more information about where you got supplier and putting it all together?

The under hood part is actually the evaporator case. I pulled both the interior and exterior parts of the HVAC are from a 1977ish Chevy truck, but good donor vehicles include:

'68-'72 GM A-body cars (Chevy Chevelle/Malibu/Monte Carlo, Pontiac Lemans/Grand Prix, Oldsmobile Cutlass, Buick Skylark(

'68-'79 GM X-body cars (Chevy Nova, Pontiac Ventura/Phoenix, Oldsmobile Omega, Buick Apollo/Skylark)

'73-'87 Chevy/GMC C/K series trucks

The evaporator I used is from a '79 Firebird. It's the same as from a dozen other GM cars and uses an expansion orifice. With this, I will run a cycling compressor using an adjustable cycling switch (either from a junkyard car, or purchased new).

The evaporator case I had to modify to clear the engine. I used fiberglass mat and epoxy resin. With all of the above HVAC units you can play a bit of mixing and matching. The Chevy truck units are a good choice for the inside heater box though as the controls are available reproduction through LMC truck. There is a better outer box (evaporator case) than I used. I think it comes from the X-body. The evaporator section does not lean in toward the engine as much as the one I used.

If you have any more questions, please feel free to ask!

[JPSwapMohn]

Curious how this build went/is going.. your dash mods have my interest as I am not a huge fan of the final edition dash in my 88