With winter landing hard these past two weeks, along with sub zero temps for a few days, about a foot of snow, and our well-water-system freezing up for 48 hours, the FC project got placed on hold. With warming temps the last few days, I returned to working on the jeep.
Here’s where I am at currently. I’ve removed the doors, the carpet, the seats, and the bolts holding the rear bed. I now have to build a frame work to pulley the bed off of the chassis. Pulling the bed was necessary anyway, as I need to figure out how to hook up the low-range shifting mechanism.
As noted earlier, the problem I faced was that the rear seats weren’t comfortable and weren’t tall enough to give the visibility to passengers I wanted. Moreover, the floor is uneven and was carpeted, making cleaning of the floor a more difficult chore than it ought to be. Finally, the rear wheel wells make the far rear seats unusable for most adults.
After much thought, I have decided to build a new floor as one big one-height platform, raising it all to the height of the rear section, which also makes it as high as the original FC Tour Jeep rear beds (per Craig’s measurements). The platform will also be shifted back about five inches, which puts the second row of seats a little more over the rear wheel wells so that the far rear passengers will have more leg room. The rear wheel well will become more circular, which harmonizes more with the front wheel wells. This also better alights the rear of the bed with the rear bumper.
Currently, the plans have me saving the roll cage, which I can use as a template for the bed, and trimming the four rear doors so that they can be reinstalled on the new bed.
Another advantage of shifting the bed a little farther back is that it provides more room behind the cab and radiator to breathe, which should help pull some of the engine smells away from passengers in the back.
Here is a pic showing the before and photoshopped-after-look of the proposed changes.
