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beater!

Yeah, it sucks you have so much into that paint job.. but I don't see any other way to get the paint to stay on there and look good.
 
:rattle:I'm sad for you!
I've been following your progress and pitfalls, this one's devastating.
I thought it was going so well. Better now than later after it's all back together, could it be the low temps?
 
Damn sorry to read this Eric.

Plan to chemically strip to bare metal or sand? Years ago i helped a bud strip my old Stang chemically.. thats some nasty stuff.
 
Dang, that suck. I too have been following your build up. I wish there was some easy way to do it... Its always one step forward two steps back.
 
I've gotten the thing put back together. Overall it's a better beater now, since there are so many repairs and improvements that have been made. The only disappointment is the paint. Some of the fixes: the doors don't rattle and buzz any more after replacing the rivets with screws and rubber washers, the door checks and other hardware were replaced or repaired, the torn fender was repaired, the fender flares and hardware were replaced (but see below), the cracked header and hatch were replaced, most of the dents were filled, the rust holes in the quarterpanel and doors are fixed, etc.

As I wrote before, I am adding a bunch of crap to the replacement hatch, and needed to run more wires. I could not reuse the stock wiring loom, so I enlarged the hole to hold a door bootie and ran the wires through that. Here are some pics of the bootie installed. Since it is in there pretty tight and the body side has the plastic trim piece over it, the thing should not leak, but we'll see how it goes after the next good rain.

Hatch_Wiring_Boot_1.jpg


Hatch_Wiring_Boot_2.jpg


Hatch_Wiring_Boot_3.jpg


The 6x9 speakers are already installed in the hatch. Here is a side picture showing how the rubber well nuts hold against the fiberglass to secure the speaker. It works good with no buzzing. I need to cut holes in the hatch trim piece but need to do a lot more stuff there.

Speaker_Mounting.jpg


Getting the glass back in was pretty simple--just use some 1/4 inch rope around the grommet, get the bottom lip in place, and then pull the rope while somebody else pushes from the outside.

Rope_Trick.jpg


All the exterior trim including bumpers and flares was painted with Krylon Satin Black, but I wish I had used flat black instead. Also the flares are aftermarket (don't remember who) and don't really fit--the front right flare cracked when I was trying to get it lined up with the air dam and fender hole. For exterior trim, buy OEM or stay home.

Fender_Flare_Crack.jpg


Here's a shot of the opposite corner

Reassembled_5.jpg


Another item on my check-off list was getting the gas skid installed, which was a surprising PITA. I tried this a bunch of different ways but eventually ended up installing it over the hitch, and using a uni-bit to drill out the holes so that the holes would line up. The 3/16" plate that I had added to the inside does not seem to have been a problem, and the fitment issues had more to do with front-to-back instead of depth. I also installed another of the AMP Mate-N-Lok disconnects on the hitch wires so that I will not need to keep the receptacle installed all the time (I knocked it around pretty good on the last wheeling trip), and you can see the white plug hanging down by the hitch there.

Gas_Skid_Installed.jpg


I have a big list of things that I have to do now that I've gotten some of the prerequisites out of the way--wire up the hatch work lights and third brake light, reroute air intake to the cowl, etc--which I plan to work on over the next few weeks. I still have not decided on a paint strategy. I am pretty sure that the problem is with the Rustoleum Automotive Primer which is for urethane instead of enamel, so I will either need to sand into the primer to be able to lay down urethane, or sand down into the primer to lay an enamel primer over it. I won't be doing anything in that area for a while though.
 
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wet sand it smooth and buff it out-- you'll be surprised how good it looks. Twenty bucks says you will change your tune when you finish buffing/polishing the first fender!! I'll pay up if you you will!!

obviously I'm in the hole for $20.00 so send me an address with the updates-- I'm good to my word, so the next paint project can begin-- twenty bucks cheaper than it would have run........:clap:
 
I had some problems with my Cadillac that I had to take care of so this project was on hold for a bit, and now the engine is running hot and I'm trying to chase that down. Hopefully I will be able to do some of the cheap/free mods once I get the temperature stabilized.
 
obviously I'm in the hole for $20.00 so send me an address with the updates-- I'm good to my word, so the next paint project can begin-- twenty bucks cheaper than it would have run........:clap:

I hate feeling like I owe someone something............... welcome back, we haven't heard from you in a while. I was afraid you gave up and set fire to the ol' girl
 
My beater!

0313091202a.jpg

0313091201c.jpg

0313091202.jpg


I got it for free and drive it everyday.
 
I've had most of the parts for the hatch modifications but am just now getting around to it. The list of desired mods includes finishing the speakers, installing some work lights, integrating the 3rd brake light on the '96 hatch with my '91 body harness, adding a herculined panel and some netting similar to what I did on the back seat, and adding some supplemental reverse lights. Working through the dependencies, the 3rd brake light requires the panel to be installed, but the speaker and work lights require mods to the interior panel, so I am doing those first.

When I was doing all the body work for paint, I had installed some 6x9 speakers into the factory speaker opening, flush mounted to the hatch fiberglass with rubber well nuts.

Speaker_Mounting.jpg


This worked well enough for the speakers alone. Unfortunately there is no easy way to attach a grill to them and have the grill poke out the panel with the results looking close to clean. Also there is a limited amount of depth in the hatch which severely restricts the choice of speakers. So I decided to mount the speakers to the panel directly.

First step was to mark the center of the speaker hole on the panel so that I could cut out the hole and have the speaker still fit in the stock recess. What I did was remove the interior panel and make measurements from the side and bottom, then put the panel back on and mark those distances back onto the panel. Interestingly this lined up exactly center on the factory speaker cuts on the panel that came with the hatch. I thought it would be off because the padding is all over the place back there, but it was dead center on both sides.

Speaker_Position.jpg


Next issue was that the decorative shoulder on the panel interferes with the top of the 6x9 speakers so I had to think about this problem for a while too.

Speaker_Cutouts.jpg


What I eventually decided to do was to notch the top of the grill holder so that it would lay over the hatch panel, since it will be easier to fill in the black material with foam tape or something than to cover up damage to the panel. However I still had to notch the panel in order for the actual grill piece to clear the shoulder.

Speaker_Grill_Cutouts.jpg


Here's what they look like installed

Speakers_Installed.jpg


I was kind of worried about weight but I have tested with just one plastic anchor and the panel stays on fine. I am going to replace the plastic anchors with real hardware pretty soon too so I'm not worried at all right now.

One interesting thing is that the bass is much better than it was. I guess the panel provides some kind of baffling.
 
When I was doing the body work I went ahead and made modifications needed to support work lights in the hatch. This was basically just a couple of holes in the fiberglass, and some wiring to support constant power and switched ground. Here's a pic showing the hole and wires, which is in the next recess inwards from the speakers.

Work_Light_Hole_Right.jpg


Setup strategy was basically the same--remove the panel, measure from the edges to the hole center, reinstall the panel, measure back and mark.

Work_Light_Position.jpg


Looks good...unfortunately I missed the one on the right by 1/4th of an inch and the lamp bumps the hatch. Don't know how I did that and got the left side spot on, but I sure as shit did.

Work_Lights_Installed.jpg


You can see in the next pic how the right side of the panel does not close because the lamp bumps the hatch. At least the lights work, but they are awful dim. I will either get some high output LEDs to match what is in the cargo lamp, or maybe get a couple of halogen backup bulbs.

Work_Light_Test.jpg


It started threatening rain so I had to clean up everything. Tomorrow I will try to fix the lamp position, work on hardware for securing the panel to the hatch better, and hook up the third brake light.

I also have to do a shitload of wiring. The 3rd brake light will have to be spliced into the left tail-light harness which isn't a big deal but it's work. I also intend to make the work lights come on when the cabin switch is on AND the hatch is open, which means splicing in some relays, which will take a fair bit of time.
 
Well after looking at the hatch it seems that I cut the holes for the lights about 1/2" too far inwards on both sides. It just seemed that the right side was too far over because once I had the left side in place the right side was pulled too far over. Easy fix with fiberglass though--just enlarge the cutouts.

The third brake light was pretty simple to install. I had already run the hatch wiring for it when I was doing the body work, so I just had to splice the pigtail into the brake light circuit. I decided to splice into the body harness since that was not as likely to be replaced as the tail light harnesses which have already been replaced twice. Only thing weird about the exterior lights is that they are all switched power and constant ground, which is the exact opposite of the interior lights.

Third_Brake_Light_Installed.jpg


Speaking of tail light harnesses, I replaced the existing pair and soldered the second tail/brake sockets (the secondary brake lights in the pic above) on the new pair. The previous harnesses were a bad pick from the junkyard and had rusty sockets and cracked leads. The new ones came from a later XJ that was in pretty good shape, and should be a keeper.
 
I did the work on securing the panel to the hatch. Although the plastic anchors seemed to be holding it up well, my plan is to use some of the oversized Tahoe tie-downs and a convenience net (like seen on the back of the rear seat in the post above).

This is kind of tricky with the fiberglass since you can't screw into it, or weld a nut to it, or even use something like rivet nuts because those will tear through. I wanted to use something like wall anchors but the tie-downs are 10mm thread and there are no wall anchors anywhere on the planet in that size that I could find. What I ended up doing was reusing some of the leftover spring nuts that I had bought along with the replacement bumpers and brackets, and these seemed to work really well. Basically I drilled holes through the panel into the fiberglass at strategic spots, then drilled large large holes beside them so that I could push the spring nut into place. Here's a pic showing how this works

Panel_Spring_Nuts.jpg


I did that all of the four corners, but for the top two center ones I simply dropped some flange nuts into the holes and pulled them down. I forgot to take pictures of this sorry.

The only problem with the spring nuts is that the rear threaded part is about 1/2" away from the mounting surface, which is too long for the tie-down hardware to reach. I was able to get the upper four installed (barely) but neither of the bottom two would reach at all. Once I get the herculiner down I doubt that any of them will reach. Here are a couple pics with the tie-downs installed.

Panel_Tie_Downs_Installed_1.jpg


Panel_Tie_Downs_Installed_2.jpg


I don't know about strength here. I am pretty sure that anything over 20 pounds will rip out the nut, however it would close the hatch first so unless somebody tries to prop up the hatch to secure a hammock to it or something dumb like that I dont think there will be any real problem. The most I plan to put in there are some lightweight supplies like emergency blank and first aid kit.

I will need to order longer hardware and find another net somewhere. I also have to buy the herculiner and apply it. I have not yet decided if I am going to cut sheet metal like I did on the seat or if I will just herculiner the hatch panel directly. I'm in no hurry, since all of that requires cash that is pretty tight right now.
 
I had bought the three factory skids for my jeep but I had only installed tcase and gas tank skids and was going to hold off on the front skid until I did the lift. However I knew the skid needed some cutting in order for it to fit with my custom front-mounted receivers, so I decided to do the fitment work this afternoon.

As a reminder, the front receivers mount to the tow-hook spots on the front unibody and hang out of the lower part of the air dam/valence.

Front_Recovery_Installed_Side.jpg


This interferes with the engine skid in two ways--first is that the tow hooks block the bolt holes on the skid's right mounting tab, and second is that receivers are physically larger than the skid design allows. In order to use the skid with the receivers, I had to make two sets of cuts.

The first modification was to cut off part of the tab with two bolt holes since that piece of metal was in the way. This leaves one hole on this side of the skid, which is the same as the other side. I don't think it will matter.

Engine_Skid_Tab_Cut.jpg


Next was to notch the skid so that it would fit over the receivers. This looks like a big cut, but its really only an inch wide and four inches long... the skid was already notched substantially for factory tow hooks

Engine_Skid_Notched.jpg


My jeep did not come with a skid, and the junkard cut the studs when they removed the skid, so I had to make my own. I had some grade 10.9 M8 bolts left over from another project, and they seemed to almost fit in the factory holes, so I used an M8 tap to thread the existing holes and cranked the bolts in. This is probably overkill since the sheetmetal crossmember is super thin and will rip out before anything else happens. Sorry for the bad pic, but the flash did not cooperate.

Engine_Skid_Studs.jpg


Here are a couple of pics after the skid is installed

Engine_Skid_Installed_Bottom.jpg


Engine_Skid_Installed_Side.jpg


I've had to take it back off to paint over my cuts but I may reinstall it tomorrow. It's pretty easy to take on and off.
 
I dig those light in the hatch. I picked up an oval shaped Sylvania LED light that swivels on the cheap that i'v been using. I'm sure yours will put out more lighting.

Good to see you back at it! :yelclap:
 
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