Build Thread The '80 FrankenJeep frame off reassembly

[shum8]

Finally got around to installing rear center caps. Better late than never I guess.








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[shum8]

Just for the record - Anyone planning on a new loft gate gasket from Fairchild - better wait till warmer weather.

It looks very nice, fits perfect, and feels nice and spongey - but the dang thing smells like a mixture of new tires, a dead skunk, and cat pee. Getting in it to go to work will definitely wake you up!!!!


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[Belizean]

Sounds kinda like getting stuck behind a garbage truck for 10 blocks around here the Tuesday after good Friday when everyone has eaten a lot of crawfish & shrimp and things have ripened In the heat a few days. Pretty disgusting.

 

[shum8]

Oh, man - that may be worse than the gasket......


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[shum8]

Well - With the temp here today hovering around 70, I burned a PTO day and finished up my hard half door uppers. Half door hard uppers...... Half hard door uppers. No, that’s not right. Fiberglass door uppers......

Anyway, drug em out the other day and bondo’d the lower edge gap, hit em with the disc sander, and today I smoothed everything up, taped off the windows, and sprayed a coat of Rustoleum’s bed liner on em. I like the finish so well I’m gonna hit the top once it comes off this spring. I’ll get a couple shots of the surface texture once I get em on the Jeep - gonna let em dry good first.







Was a big ol’ hole here.....



I’m anxious to get these full hard doors off and go back to my half doors. Year round, that is... However, being these uppers have sliding windows, getting a Cookout BBQ samidge tray they there might be sorta tricky


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[Belizean]

They look pretty good !

 

[shum8]

They look better than the dang top


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[Masscj7]

They look great with the texture and love the Chewy work stands. Have several of those here too. As well as the Chewy garage floor liquid spill barriers,

 

[shum8]

I’ve been known to use Chewy’s welding tables..... but ya gotta work fast - bein flammable an all


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[shum8]

Got the door seals glued back into place..... supposed to rain most of the rest of the week, so I’ll probly just wait an swap doors this weekend. Guess I should take the locks out of the doors and get a key made for em. Nope - no pics.


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[gert]

It got pretty cold here with the front that moved in yuck


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[shum8]

Don’t recall how cold it’s supposed to get, but they’re calling for 3” - 5” of rain tomorrow. Stuck a set of oars in the Jeep just in case.


Sent from my recently completed ark...... Gonna be a wet couple days.

 

[shum8]

Ok - Got the TJ uppers on the YJ half doors and fitted to a CJ. That's half the alphabet....... And his process has confirmed I'm an idiot... When I got the half doors, they came with soft uppers. The figment was simply red pins that fit into the lower half - these





Easy peezy, right? When I got the hard uppers, they had no pins, just holes where the pins used to live. I kinda wondered what happened to the pins, but preceded to fab up new pins, correct the location of the one offset pin, etc., etc. Well - In looking for new gasket options, I realized those holes were for screws.oh, well - All is well now - they look like they belong. And I have WAY more elbow room now!!








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[gr8dain]

Ok - Got the TJ uppers on the YJ half doors and fitted to a CJ. That's half the alphabet....... And his process has confirmed I'm an idiot... When I got the half doors, they came with soft uppers. The figment was simply red pins that fit into the lower half - these





Easy peezy, right? When I got the hard uppers, they had no pins, just holes where the pins used to live. I kinda wondered what happened to the pins, but preceded to fab up new pins, correct the location of the one offset pin, etc., etc. Well - In looking for new gasket options, I realized those holes were for screws.oh, well - All is well now - they look like they belong. And I have WAY more elbow room now!!








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Do you have a pic of you modification to the pin from the inside of the door? Did you cut and weld? Or heat and bend? Or was it a matter of a new hole on the upper?

 

[shum8]

I just reread my earlier post.... man, can I butcher words or what?? I’m assuming you’re asking about the pins on the soft uppers? Those uppers were YJ uppers so the pins matched the lower. TJ’s have a different pin setup - one is inboard of the others by about an inch and a half. But these uppers had no pins, only holes for screws. The inserts in the lowers have retaining fingers on the bottom that are supposed to hold nuts for the screws. Mine were missing the nuts so I just figured the fingers applied retaining friction to the upper pins. All I had to do was fill and redrill the offset hole. The spacing between pins / holes on the TJ uppers doesn’t differ from the YJ spacing - ya just hafta make sure they’re all aligned in a straight line to fit the lower. And man, these are so much more comfy to use..... you don’t realize how much room is taken up by a full hard door.


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[gr8dain]

Understand now. Thanks. I have TJ soft uppers on my YJ half doos and the rear pin does not align with the hole on the YJ door. I cur one and welded it poorly. The weld did not hold. The other one I left the pin and it presses against the door card.

I was thinking about hard upper sliders, but I have a set of full glass doors with sliders so I just use those if needed.

 

[shum8]

Understand now. Thanks. I have TJ soft uppers on my YJ half doos and the rear pin does not align with the hole on the YJ door. I cur one and welded it poorly. The weld did not hold. The other one I left the pin and it presses against the door card.

That’s the route I would have taken.....

I was thinking about hard upper sliders, but I have a set of full glass doors with sliders so I just use those if needed.

My goal was to run the half doors year round, but my soft uppers would not fit the hard top. Picked these uppers up for 150 bucks so I had to make em work. Now I can leave the hard lowers on year round. After a couple rains I’ll evaluate and if everything works as it should I’ll sell the full hard doors.



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[shum8]

I have room now for larger elbows.......




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[shum8]

Ok - That does it...... The full doors are officially going up for sale. The uppers are working out great, no leaks, offer more room, and allow the lowers to be run year round. Should have done this last year. Not to mention the added bonus of not having a certain member here who shall rename nAmelia’s threaten to paint my doors.....

Now - I installed LED tail lights during the build, and the driver’s side developed an intermittent open. Since the boards are pitted to the lense, so irreparable. I had a set of very similar lights from a Freightliner in the garage that were new takeoffs. They had a funky connector that is incompatible with the CJ harness.........



But under power, they are a good bit brighter than what I was running, so here we go.....

Existing



New



First up is removal of the connector From the new housing...





And as expected, there’s an issue. The new lights don’t have the side marker light. State says I have to have it, so........ I cut the side marker out of the old housing and enlarged the opening in the new housing









The side marker almost fits in the opening already in the new housing





Success



Now, once the glue dries, the old harness will be spliced in and the light installed.



Now, partaking of a nice, bbl aged stout during this process really taxes the autocorrect LOL. It also messes with timing. The side marker goes on the outside, and everything else goes on the inside.



I soldered that dang thing three times before I remembered to run the stupid wires thru the housing BEFORE assembly LOL. I had to call in extra help LOL



Now - lets see how screwed up I got the order of the pics


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[shum8]

Here’s the side marker all glued up

Now I gotta wire in the old harness.....


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