Quick Note

No, this isn’t QuickBooks or Evernote. It’s a quick note to bring everyone up to date on what progress there’s been (with pictures to prove it!) in the last few months.

First, the seats now have permanent mounts.

Second, the master cylinders (brake and clutch) have been purchased and positioned, and the steering column has been relocated to make room for them. The link between the column and the power steering box has also been built and fitted.

Third, and this is the BIG ONE, the middle and rear driveshafts have been built and installed – including adjusting the pinion angles on the two rear axles to make everything work! This image shows the clearance (about 1.5 inches) between the middle driveshaft and the frame crossmember when the middle axle is fully compressed.

The next image shows the rear driveshaft, with both axles at full droop.

It’s taken a lot of effort to get to this point. I am indebted to Robert Wonsey for being willing to resume work on the ‘Monster after a gap of more than six years, and for making changes to my ideas and thoughts that will make the rig safe. I’m hopeful that the time is not too far off when he’ll be able to say, “My part’s done. Come and get it!”

Hi-Ho, Hi-Ho…

…It’s off to, um, the fabricator’s we go!

This is just a quick update to let y’all know that the JeepMonster went back to Robert Wonsey’s shop, R&W Custom Sliders & Off Road, last Friday (December 1). Along with it went a pile of pieces (tube joints, for example) and parts (bump stops, lights, seats, and so on) that will all eventually coalesce into an AWESOME off-road machine! I used the same towing company, Eastside Towing, that I used to get the ‘Monster from my house out on the East Side to its rental home (a.k.a. the JeepHouse), and then from the JeepHouse to the shop building here at the “Catalina Construction Zone” (CCZ), which is what we call our home because of the ongoing home-improvement projects.

Getting the ‘Monster out of the shop was … interesting. We keep our travel trailer on the property, which doesn’t leave a lot of space when trying to get to the shop with a vehicle. I was able to get our BAT (Big A** Truck – a 2017 F-350) past the trailer so that I could load it up with all the aforementioned pieces ‘n’ parts, but decided not to pull the ‘Monster out with it because of the restricted width.

So we used our RAV4 instead. Fortunately, the ‘Monster and the RAV are about the same width, so by working slowly we moved the ‘Monster past the trailer and to a spot where Eastside Towing could get it up on their flatbed with no trouble. The little SUV performed admirably, pulling the ‘Monster without complaint.

In fact, the biggest wrinkle in the whole transport plan was that it RAINED on us! I knew, though, that the ‘Monster wouldn’t be spending much time in the weather, so we chose not to reschedule the move. Here we are, ready to go:

And here we are, safe and sound at Robert’s shop:

I told Robert I’d happily come get anything he no longer needed whenever he got through with it. My hope is that I’ll be able to bring the ‘Monster home bit by bit and in stages – taking things that need to be powdercoated (like the frame) to North American Powder Coating before bringing them home to be reassembled, and bringing other pieces (like the axles) home directly to spray-paint them and otherwise prepare them for reassembly. Well, Robert said right off that he didn’t need the hood or the tailgate, so I now have those back in the shop to gaze at lovingly while he works his magic on the rest of the rig.

I don’t know when the next update will be – it’s all in Robert’s capable hands. I hope you have a wonderful holiday season!

It’s a-DOOR-able!

Doors, actually. Plural. And maybe not adorable, but framed and ready for skins.

I spent the better part of the past month altering the wire door frames I bought from Beachwood Canvas Works to make them fit the (much larger than stock) door openings. I have a pair of old Bestop doors, but I don’t want to tear them apart (yet) because then I wouldn’t have any example to use when I explain what I want done when they get their skins. So this is what I’m working toward:

The first thing to accomplish was finding the two hinge locations – one on the windshield frame and one in the tub’s door opening – for each door. The windshield hinge point wasn’t hard to locate; it’s a steel piece that bolts to a predetermined spot on the frame. And I had a pair. But it turns out that the Bestop hinges I had are designed for a smaller wire (5/16″) than the OEM-style frames I got from Beachwood Canvas are made from (3/8″ wire). So I had to find upper hinges to match the doors. Fortunately, Beachwood Canvas carries matching hinges (they’re a really good source for old-Jeep stuff!), so I bought a pair.

For the bottom hinges, I had to determine where to drill in the tub, and what to use as the “post-hole” that the bottom hinge of the door would fit into. Because I knew I’d have to figure this out at some point, I kept a section of my old CJ-5 that included the firewall, the cowl, the dashboard – and the locations for the doors’ bottom hinges. I’m sure you’re aware of the adage “Measure twice, cut once”? I measured multiple times in order to make the little black mark on the curve in the photo below at *just* the right spot!

Then I carefully, and in multiple stages, drilled a half-inch hole at that spot, beginning perpendicular to the metal surface and then angling the drill to be vertical, thus creating an oval in the curve into which a 3/8″ (inside diameter) steel sleeve could be fitted. After some trial and error, some welding, and some grinding, I ended up with the bottom hinge as seen below. I did this on both sides.

With the hinge points established for each door, I began stretching the door frames. For the first one (the passenger side), I thought a lot, measured a lot, thought more, and measured more before I made even the first cut. With much trial and less error, I “embiggened”* the frame to fit the larger opening. These photos show the difference between the two frames (left), and the difference between the frame and the corresponding Bestop door (right).

It was easier to do the second (driver side) door, because I had one to crib from. I knew where to cut, so I made the six cuts in the same locations on the driver door frame (see next photo).

I first stitched a piece into the “hinge rod,” on the left in the exploded drawing. Then I worked my way along the bottom and the curve, at which time I had to re-bend the rod to match the curve in the tub. That was hard – not simply because it’s just plain hard to bend 3/8″ steel rod in the first place, but also because I was dealing with an awkward, partly built section of door frame that didn’t want to cooperate. But I finally got the door’s curve acceptably close to the body’s curve, meaning it’ll seal relatively well once it’s done. Then I completed the perimeter and, after test-fitting it for the umpteenth time, added the mid-brace rod, which will also mark the approximate bottom of the zip-open window.

The two doors are now a mix of original steel (with all the curves and bends) and new steel, all held together with ten steel sleeves (per door) and a lot of ugly-before-it-all-gets-ground-down-and-powdercoated welding. Eventually, these frames will be skinned with convertible-top material, when I take the rig somewhere to have the tops (yes, plural – one for the cabin and an extension to cover the cargo area) made.

Oh, and I’m insufferably proud of my handiwork, too. 🙂

*A college friend, who often rode with me in my first Jeep (a ’68 CJ-5), tipped me to this word. I like it, and I’m gonna use it.

Quality

To Wavian or not to Wavian – that is the question today.

Some time ago, I bought a 5-gallon (20-liter) red metal gasoline container that would eventually live on the JeepMonster. At a different time, I bought a 5-gallon Wavian gasoline container and a 5-gallon Wavian diesel fuel container, both of which typically go with us when we travel using our BAT (Big Ass Truck) and Fox (Arctic Fox travel trailer). The diesel, obviously, is for the BAT – a 2017 F-350 Supercab longbed single-rear-wheel beast – while the gasoline is for our auxiliary generator, which we rarely use.

On our last trip, however, we deliberately chose to “boondock” for several nights. Because this was in August and we live in Tucson, we knew we’d want to use the generator to power the trailer’s air conditioning when we got to our night’s destination. For this reason, we carried both the Wavian and the non-Wavian gas cans. Each can had five gallons in it, and they were both strapped into a steel cage with the generator.

We ended up using the generator for just one night, and then only long enough to cool down the trailer. All our other boondocking nights were cool enough not to need a/c. We never opened either gas can. I was therefore quite surprised when we got home and found the non-Wavian can seriously bent out of shape!

I took the following photos with my iPhone, so the quality isn’t the best. But you can easily see the deformation in the non-Wavian can (top), while the Wavian one (bottom) still holds its original shape.

The next photo shows the difference in how the two cans are built. Again, the Wavian can is the bottom one. You can see the bulge in the non-Wavian can, whereas the Wavian has no bulge.

The next photo shows the other side of both cans. The Wavian is still the bottom can.

The next photo shows the two cans side by side. I’ll let you figure out which is which… 😉 My iPhone apparently couldn’t focus clearly on the bent one.

This is the other side of the two cans. Again, the bent one wouldn’t come into focus.

And here we have side-by-side closeup photos of the handles. Notice the build quality in how they’re attached and how they fit. The Wavian is on the right.

The difference between the two really impressed me. The non-Wavian is set for de-accessioning (in other words, I’m getting rid of it), and I’ll be buying a Wavian for the ‘Monster.

Thank You! (And a request…)

This is just a quick post to say “Thank You!” to everyone. I looked at my stats the other day and discovered that this blog has passed the 30,000-view mark! Granted, that’s over its lifetime of nearly nine years (I posted my first entry in January, 2015), but still. To everyone who has been one (or more) of those 30,069-and-counting hits, thank you!

Now my request. For years I’ve been calling this thing the JeepMonster, and it most definitely fits that description. But I’m thinking it needs a better name. My wife, who did most of the color-winnowing to narrow 63 potential reds down to Suddenly Red, and I have some thoughts, but I want to broaden the list of options.

Our first idea was either “Seymour” or “Audrey,” both from “The Little Shop of Horrors.” It’s a stretch, I know, but the jump from Suddenly Red to “Suddenly Seymour” isn’t *that* far…

Then there’s Big Red, for the obvious reason.

Third is Clifford, from “Clifford, the Big Red Dog.”

Our current favorite is Clifford, but we’re open to other suggestions. If you have any ideas, please comment on this post or email me at gonzodave@yahoo.com. If we decide to use your entry and you’re okay with the publicity, you’ll get full credit in a future post.

Oh, and the specialty license plate arrived!

Bits ‘n’ Pieces

Don’t go getting your hopes up *too* high – even though this may be the second blog post in three days, it’s not going to become a habit. But I took care of a few little tidbits today and I wanted to share them.

First, I installed the “welt kit” to the top of the grille. The welt is a dual-beaded canvas strip that buffers the front edge of the hood and prevents metal-to-metal contact with the grille. In the mid-’70s this was replaced by individual rubber bumpers, but because I’m trying to retain as many period-correct clues as possible, I chose to pad the grille with the older-style welt. It’s only partly installed, though – it comes with 13 brass split rivets that are each a half-inch long, which is fine for the sheet metal of a totally stock grille. My grille, of course, is anything but totally stock. Therefore about half of the rivets are too short. I found a company, H. Gerstner & Sons, that sells 3/4-inch split rivets to repair some of their products; these will be just long enough to hold the welt to the grille. Here’s the not-quite-finished installation.

Next, I added the hood latches. The hood itself had the holes pre-drilled, but since the fenders are custom-made, I had to figure out where to drill for the latches. This is complicated by the fact that there is a three-inch-tall steel strip along the fender to fill in the gap originally created by a taller body and the original fender height. Well, after much measuring and marking, I finally drilled the two holes for each latch and installed them. The hood will now stay down without needing ratchet straps!

The photo also shows the results of the next task, which was to buy, and create locations for, the four side marker lights (two amber lights at the front; two red lights at the rear). Just because I’m trying to be period-correct in some areas doesn’t mean I’m going to sacrifice safety issues! This is a three-quarter-inch amber LED marker light; the red ones just like this will be in the lower rear quarter panels as shown in the next photo.

So things are slowly progressing. I work on whatever I can in the time I have available, which means both progress and blog posts are erratic. I’m hoping I’ll be ready to take the ‘Monster back to the fabricator by mid-October, but that’s a soft deadline. We’ll see how it goes.

Suddenly It’s Red!!!

…I mean, it’s Suddenly Red!!! Well, parts of it are…

I can’t believe it’s been more than a year since I announced the JeepMonster’s color, but it has. Back in August, 2022, I told y’all that we had decided on something called Suddenly Red. Two months ago we took the grille, hood, and tailgate to North American Powder Coating to get them sandblasted and coated. The grille and tailgate came back first, with the hood being ready a week or so later. After adding the requisite bits and pieces, I’m proud to present:

The Grille

It’s powdercoated on both sides, with LED headlights and period-correct parking/turn signal lamps. The cooling unit visible through the slats is for the Vintage Air a/c, and the notch in the lower driver-side corner allows for the Saginaw power-steering box.

The Tailgate

The tailgate is also powdercoated on both sides. Because it’s extra tall, there was space in the center embossed area (just below the Willys logo) for a license plate bracket. When I built it, I welded bracket bolts to the inside of the embossed area and drilled two holes to run the wires. The “6 WHEEL DRIVE” logo is adapted from the original Willys “4 WHEEL DRIVE” script logo shown in this photo:

I bought a stencil for the original logo, and stencils for individual numbers and letters, from Beachwood Canvas. After cutting and pasting, I took the modified stencil to The Gloo Factory here in Tucson. They created the vinyl transfer that I stuck on the tailgate.

The license plate is the standard plate I was issued when I transferred the title and registration of the CJ-6 hulk I bought. A couple of weeks ago I ordered a personalized plate, but it won’t arrive for several weeks, and I didn’t want to hold off on this post until then. The new plate (with the same Arizona background) will read “57CJ6X6” for obvious reasons.

The Hood

I had originally thought only the grille and the tailgate would be ready for powdercoating, but I eventually realized that the hood didn’t need a lot more work before it, too, would be ready. So I completed the minor tasks and sent it off. It comes from an early-70s CJ, and I know this because it’s designed for the 81-inch wheelbase instead of the 84-inch wheelbase of the AMC years, but it has provision for the center hood latch that was added sometime after 1968. The individual I bought it from had wanted to use it for a modified Jeepster Commando but decided to go in a different direction. By that point, though, he had drilled holes in the sides of the hood for the Commando badges, which I left unfilled.

The big hole in the center left is the air intake; it feeds into a box on the passenger side fender and will be capped by a Hummer intake cap. Right in the center, you can see the two holes I drilled for the windshield tie-down Footman loop, along with patched holes where it had been previously. (When I bought the hood, it had a Bondo skim coat and primer paint on it, so I didn’t know precisely where the original holes had been. I wasn’t too far off…)

Drum roll, please…

And here’s what they look like ON the ‘Monster!

The “8 350” badge is from a ’69-’72 Chevy C/K pickup / Blazer / Suburban; I added them because the ‘Monster’s powerplant is a 350 small-block. Here’s a slightly different angle on the front.

Last, but definitely not least, here’s the tailgate in its rightful position:

There’s SO much more work that still needs to be done, but it’s really great to go out to the shop and see COLOR!

E Pluribus Unum (Version 2.0)

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about EPU 1.0 and stated there would be a 2.0 soon. Here ’tis.

The original tailgate was too buggered up to be fixable, so I bought another pair of tailgates, one with the WILLYS logo and one without. I made the same cuts to them that I had made in V1.0, but this time I ground / sanded / filed the adjoining edges to produce a closer, tighter, thinner seam. I also worked with one seam at a time and clamped the bejeesus out of the welding area so it wouldn’t warp. When welding, I made sure (mostly – more on this later) not to weld too long a stitch, and to let it cool sufficiently before adding more weld. This photo shows the first seam in progress. The left end is welded and ground; the right is being welded, and the center hasn’t been started.

After I finished the first seam, I did the second. It looks good so far! You can see a “bobble” in the first seam, to the left of the logo panel. That’s one of the lessons I had to learn (again), and I decided to leave it in the finished tailgate as a badge of honesty.

I test-fitted it to the back of the ‘Monster several times while welding the second seam. I’m pleased to say that the tailgate DID. NOT. WARP. When I finished grinding and smoothing both seams, I test-fitted it again.

At this point I took it to North American Powder Coating, here in Tucson, for advice. They told me to get both sides sandblasted so no paint would be left on the inside where I would be adding a backing sheet. It came back looking like this. Spiffy!

The three holes in the logo panel are for the future license-plate bracket – two for mounting bolts and one for the lamp wires.

I enlarged the middle hole (to fit a grommet) and added another hole at the bottom of the center rib (also to fit a grommet). Then I ran a temporary “fish wire” through the holes so I could run the license-plate lamp wires more easily with the backing plate welded on.

Then I added the plate. This time, instead of a solid weld around the perimeter, I only stitched it at each corner and every six inches or so along the edges. Here’s the finished product, front and back.

In the left photo you can see the “fish wire,” the bolts that will hold the license plate bracket, and places where the backing-plate welds heated all the way through. I also plugged (most of) the boo-boos and ground them down, leaving the “badge of honesty” and a couple of spots I deemed too hard to do anything about. On the right you can see the backing plate with the stitch welds and the heat-sink locations of the boo-boo repairs. If your eyes are REALLY sharp, you’ll notice that the plate’s top and bottom edges aren’t parallel to the tailgate edges. That’s because I managed to cut one side a quarter-inch longer than the other and decided to leave it that way.

Here’s the almost-finished tailgate, sitting on the ‘Monster. I took it to North American Powder Coating yesterday; it’ll be “Suddenly Red” in a couple of weeks.

And the lessons I learned?

One: If you have your heat and wire speed perfectly calibrated to the tailgate-and-welding-table combination, and you reach one of the table’s openings, you’ll burn through your sheet metal.

Two: If you have your heat and wire speed perfectly calibrated to the tailgate-and-welding-table combination, and you don’t burn through, you can *still* weld your tailgate to the table if you make too long a stitch.

Three: If you burn through your sheet metal, trying to fill the hole with weld before it cools off only makes the hole larger.

Four: Don’t use galvanized steel for anything to be powder coated. I don’t remember how the topic came up, but the folks at North American Powder Coating said the stuff doesn’t stick to the galvanizing. So that would have been another issue with V1.0, as I used galvanized steel for the backing plate on that iteration.

But hey. I have a tailgate that I made all by my lonesome! And I’m darn proud of it, too!

E Pluribus Unum (Version 1.0)

I was originally hoping that this would be the only post about this topic, but as you’ll see, I was wrong. Version 2.0 isn’t quite ready, but it’s coming!

Way back last fall I actually started THINKING about doing some work on the JeepMonster. I posted in October about finally finding a way to make the brakes work, and I had high hopes of making more progress in the cooler months (it’s never COLD in Tucson…). Alas, a spot of basal cell carcinoma on my nose disrupted that plan, as I had to keep my nose clean (literally!) for a month.

In January I finally started work on the tailgate. The body is about six inches taller than stock, meaning an aftermarket ‘gate wouldn’t be tall enough:

So I went to work. I bought a tailgate with the logo (above), and one without, and set about combining them into one tall ‘gate.

The next photo shows the relevant pieces placed together to see how they’d look. I used the top and bottom from the “logo tailgate” (cutting out about an inch or so in the middle) and the center of the “non-logo” tailgate to make an original-looking one.

Not trusting my sheet-metal welding skills, I also decided to add a backing plate to the assembly to hold everything together.

After tacking the three tailgate panels to the backing plate, I fitted it to the ‘Monster. Wonder of wonders, it was the perfect height!

Then I stitched the panels together. Alas, I wasn’t as aware as I should have been about the possibility of warping – I thought that if I only did an inch or so at a time, and spread out the welding spots, things would cool enough and I wouldn’t have to clamp it to the welding table. So I ended up with this.

It’s ugly, but with enough grinding wheels I could have cleaned it up. And some of the mess (such as the blobs to the lower left of the “Willys” logo, which are mesquite sap) is, shall we say, post-production. But it also looks bad edge-on, and that’s not fixable.

The straight object on the right is the back of the ‘Monster; you can see how badly warped the tailgate is. I tried (and totally failed) to straighten it. Thus the upcoming Version 2.0.

*sigh* Some lessons just have to be learned the hard way.

Oh, and the title? Well, “E pluribus unum” means “Out of many, one,” and that’s how I built the tailgate – out of many pieces of metal, one tailgate.

Braking Breakthrough!

You’ve probably noticed that progress on the JeepMonster has been glacially slow. It’s mostly been due to higher-priority projects around home and a lot of travel (about 50% of our time since mid-June), but there’s also been a big unknown: How should I set up the brakes?

It’s fairly obvious to me that six disc brakes will use more fluid than four, but how to size the master cylinder and adjust the fluid flow to each axle has flummoxed me for the longest time. And because I couldn’t figure out the brakes, everything else ground to a halt, as well.

But I now have a solution! It comes with a trade-off, but I think it’ll work. (Actually, it *has* to work!)

Last month, between a trip to Berkeley and one to Northern California, I decided I could at least order the clutch parts. I looked on the Summit Racing site, and settled on a pair of Wilwood items. I ordered their swing mount clutch / brake pedal and Integral Reservoir Master cylinder. (This photo shows their complete kit, which includes the slave cylinder. I didn’t order the kit because I already have a slave cylinder that came from Advance Adapters with their bellhousing.)

While I was researching the clutch parts, I asked Wilwood what they’d recommend for the brakes – cylinder size, proportioning, compatibility with power assist, and so forth. I was hoping they’d have a power brake solution that would look the same as the clutch solution, but, alas, they don’t. The pedal assemblies they make aren’t compatible with any kind of power assist – but then I found a pedal that will activate TWO single-outlet master cylinders. It even comes with a balance bar that can be adjusted to provide more force (which I hope translates into more fluid flow) to one master than the other.

So I ordered this pedal, and two identical single-outlet master brake cylinders, one of which will work the front axle and one of which will work the center and rear axles – I hope.

It *seems* to be a simple, straightforward solution to my braking challenge. I may need a proportioning valve between the two rear axles, but that’s still simpler than trying to get all the braking out of one master cylinder – even if it *does* have two outlets. I also might have to get a different-size bore for one or the other (I’m starting with 3/4-inch bore for both), but that’s a cost I’m willing to bear if necessary. I don’t *think* I’ll have to re-engineer the complete system!

The trade-off I mentioned is that I don’t have power assist on the brakes. But the pedals are both 7:1 ratios, so I should be able to stomp on the brakes hard enough to stop the ‘Monster. I hear disc brakes are pretty grabby…

(Note: All photos are from the Wilwood site. Links to each photo/catalog item are included.)