74 Chief Restore

[bkilby]

I'm not sure. I called BJ's again today but they were closed. I did get the Prothane kit in today and there's nothing in that box that will work on this Jeep unless mods come into play. Everyone of their bushings require a 1.375" hole for the bushing to slip through. My frame has 1", 1.125" and .875 holes. Besides that, I know of 3 mounts (per side) that probably couldn't use them anyhow even if I did open the holes up. Which I might have to do.....

Today brought us to hang brake tubing, install steering gear box, bump stops etc. A lot of bead blasting and painting parts today. Oh and those suspension bushings I ordered yesterday came in today. Burned the bushings out of the rear shackles and pressed in the new ones. The front shackles are quite a bit thinner in material than the rear although the overall dimensions appear to be the same so I'm going to look for another set of the rear shackles for the front before putting new bushings in. Tomorrow is junk yard shopping for parts.

[cu4whln]

I love junkyard hunting... have fun !

[bkilby]

Had lots of fun! Bought a tailgate to rob for the regulators and swap to electric. Hopefully.... Bought a gas tank skid that doesn't fit and picked up a York mount, PS mount and some other odd balls. I had the York and PS mount but mine were repaired with JB weld, figured clean stuff is better.

They do have a nice clean dash in a J truck that needs to be purchased before the sun kills it. No cracks that I can see. Pics coming!

[bkilby]

Dash pics. Anyone need a clean dash?

[SJTD]

That isn't a "pull your own" type of place is it.

Only one left in the Valley that I know of is on Pendleton and I've never seen a FSJ there.

[lycanthrope]

Yes

I need that dashpad.

Thanks for the pics.

[bkilby]

Normally no but since I know the guys well, they let me roam around.

[bkilby]

So a couple of days ago, we bead blasted the rear shackles, pressed new bushing in and spray painted them all pretty. Now I've seemed to have lost one. Doh! We've been looking all around the warehouse, went back to the junk yard....notta. Now what to do... besides continue looking that is. Lol!

[lycanthrope]

Normally no but since I know the guys well, they let me roam around.

I called, they said they didn't have anything that old.....'77. Or '84.

[bkilby]

Lol! That's funny. I guess I'm imagining the parts I'm looking at. They're open from 9-2 tomorrow (Saturday) and I need to go back to find that shackle I miss placed. You're welcome to join me to look at the parts they don't have.

[bkilby]

So I finally got my MTS tank and parts in today. Nice looking stuff. Only problem is, the lower fill hose is 1.5" ID and the fill tube on the tank is 2" OD. Lol!

[bkilby]

Waiting for parts is always annoying. Since I never found the lost shackle, we bummed one from the junk yard but had to order the bushings again. They should be in tomorrow so we can set the back down on the axle. Also waiting for engine parts from Bulltear but got impatient and got the engine put on the frame the other day. Also still need body bushings. I received some great help from Crown Automotive in ID'ing the Jeep part numbers, just need to find the parts now.

[bkilby]

So as mentioned in another thread, we were having issues with the engine and trans combo lining up with their proper holes. I ended up pulling the C channel bracket for the trans mount and stuck it in the Iron Worker and slotted the holes. Everything lines up great now.




Since we're still waiting for parts to show up, we decided to take the junk yard gas tank skid and modify it to fit this Jeep. I have no idea what year this skid came from but my frame had no holes so holes need to be drilled. Since we're modifying it, I decided to do it my way and shrink the overall size of the skid to fit the MTS tank and get rid of excess steel. We then created "walls" to box in the skid to make it stronger. Since the bottom was .125, we used .125 for the walls as well. We're not done yet but should be done tomorrow. Cut the skid down, create walls to box it in, create new mounts....It's all good when you have a CNC plasma machine laying around.

[bkilby]

More pics tomorrow if I remember to take them. Lol!

[cu4whln]

You better post more pics Bradly . . .