You’ll remember we first met Dan and his CJ-5 from his discussion of his Hudson Steering to Saginaw Swap.

Dan has provided us with some additional coverage of the resurrection of his Grandfather’s jeep.  This might just become a series :-).  Besides, I’m a sucker for anyone will to take the time to breath life into the family jeep.  There’s plenty of people who would have junked this CJ-5.  Thanks for sharing Dan!

Dan writes, “One of the great things about a Jeep project is that you can work on all the little things while you save up for or look for those parts for the big jobs. Here is a brief look at some of my smaller repairs.  First, here is the project Jeep. A 1955 CJ5. [editor’s note:  the front shackles were reversed on this CJ-5 which produced some understandable discussions about whether this was actually a M-38A1.  Clearly it’s not :-).]

Starting with the gas tank, after cleaning all the surface rust off of the gas tank, I discovered a series of little holes. Now you can easily find an after-market steel or plastic tank, but for about $5 I may be able to fix it.

Here is the gas tank all cleaned up and patched with epoxy (JB Weld).  If it works than I saved about $100. If it doesn’t work, well then it didn’t cost me too much to give it a try.

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Here’s a very nice looking 1942 MB (or is it a GPW?) that a reader spotted in Boise a couple days ago.

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Sometime back, Dan’s grandfather had replaced the stock CJ-5 steering with a Hudson steering mechanism.  However, the bell crank has seen better days, so Dan decided to upgrade to a manual saginaw.  Upgrading to the manual saginaw is rare these days (see various steering upgrade options here), so it’s a nice treat to have Dan document his work for us.  Thanks Dan!

Dan writes:

Here is the Jeep soon after I picked it up from my grandfathers old ranch. I had already started to disassemble it. It’s a 1955 CJ5 which he purchased in 1959. About ten years ago he told me that his best guess was that it had about 500,000 miles on it. It has seen a lot of abuse and he made many modifications to it. That’s a Hudson steering wheel and column.

As you can see in this close up, the frame is broken clean in half just in front of the divers side front wheel.

The bellcrank where he relocated it. It was just about ready to literally fall off. All the welds were broken and only one bent bolt was holding it on.

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Brian just got this beauty in a direct trade for an old car he had planned to drop off at the junk yard.  Just check out the beautiful work done on the steering mechanism.  It’s one of a kind.  The body is fiberglass, though it has a couple features I don’t recognize, such as the angle cut from the dashboard down to the passenger door opening, the flaring, and the gap between the fenders and the cowl (which I suspect means there has been some cutting of the body there).

Brian writes:  “Here is the jeep the kid will trade me for a 98 Ford Contour straight across. Contour runs/drive needs brake and tires. It has rusted out rockers Anne and I were going to drive it down to the junk yard and leave it. (Not expecting any money for it.) Note the gap between fender and tub?? I like the how they dropped the pitman arm (yikes). Nice shackles, lol.   Looks like it has the D-18 and offset 44 & original engine and transmission. Does not run.”

Brian’s been back to work on his CJ-3B.  After a bunch of body work and suspension work last fall, he’s got the axle housings where he wants them.  So, over the past month he has tackled the creation of some custom driveshafts.  Thanks for sharing Brian!

REAR DRIVELINE
Brian writes: “I wanted a CV rear drive shaft so I bought a front drive shaft from a Grand Cherokee for $20.00 off craigslist.

The other pieces shown were removed from stock dive shafts.  I thought I would use them for the front. WRONG!

With the help of Mick C. and his lathe we cut the CV shaft down to the size needed. Before installing it I discarded the E-brake assembly and bought a new yoke from Deny’s Drive shaft
http://www.dennysdriveshaft.com/p233_cv_yoke_dana_20_transfer_case_1310_series__10_splines.html
It turns out, the dust shield also needed to be removed when installing it onto the Dana 18.

The result, seen below, is one big beefy rear drive shaft with good travel and articulation.

FOR THE FRONT DRIVELINE:
Due to the spring reversal I installed,  I decided I needed 4-5 inches of travel, which meant the parts from the stock shafts would not work. I started searching and could not come up with any type of stock shaft I could modify for the travel.

So, I Googled ‘Spline Shafting’ and came up with Grob Inc.
http://www.grobinc.com/coldrolled/std_spline_shafts.htm I selected the 1.185 Dia. 20 spline shafting to build my shaft. The diameters were close to stock but the spine depth is less on the Grob spine.

The rear yoke and tube of the shaft is part of the stock shaft that came with the jeep. Some where in my dealings I already had procured a CJ7 front shaft.  So, I took the front 1310 yoke off it to mate it with the Dana 30. Mike and I turned it down and shortened it.

The main body was supplied Mr. Smith, who did it at Chrysler before the shut down. The tube was dressed them reamed at 1.500 ID. Mick C. did the precision turning’s and the fits were a slight interference fit. The spline shafting is made of 1117.  I wanted this heat treated so I took it over to: Westside Flame Hardening Inc.   http://www.westsideflame.com/cgi-bin/index.pl?init=1
(A Mom and Pop shop just out side of Detroit trying to survive. They only had three pieces in the shop to work on. A lot of people think of the Big Three in the bailout, but there is far more people’s livelihoods disappearing as well.)

Because of the Sm420 I have installed, I had to replace the front yoke and run the small u-joint. I bought my transmission off Dave [ed note .. that would be me] with the adapter from Advanced Adapters. When the big 1310 u-joint did not fit I called AA and they told me I needed to run the small one.

Another problem I had was that the spines were exposed. So, I found a Rancho shock boot and it turned out to fit just right.

For both shafts I spent:
$20.00 for the Grand Cherokee stock shaft
$45.00 for the spine shafting.
$60.00 for having them welded.
$25.00 for Heat treating of the front spines.
The out standing machining on the shaft was done by “Mick” & Mr Smith” and was free.  Two custom Shafts for $150.00 Not bad.

I have been working on brakes and the radiator and other small things time permitting I think I can run it down the driveway by late June.

– Brian

As mentioned yesterday, here’s a quick look at the 1943 GPW Darryl rebuilt.  He did some beautiful work (both in building and documenting the build).  He also built a trailer (pics below as well).  He lists his objective below:

“To create for my personal use and enjoyment, a fully-functional, factory new appearing and extremely accurate “representative” WWII jeep using a new reproduction tub on an original, all “F-script” Ford wartime-production drivetrain, while containing costs and allowing minor deviations (a Solex carburetor) from the original configuration for ease of maintenance, reliability and safety and to be driving it within 12 months of starting the project.”

BEFORE:

AFTER:

TRAILER BEFORE:

AFTER:

David sent us a few pics of his 1956 Wagon next to his 1951 Cj-3A.  David notes that it “still has the 226 flat head and is still 6V.”  Very nice!  Thanks Dave!

John bought himself a trailer a few months ago and decided he wanted to turn it into a multipurpose trailer.  The result is a tent that he erect on his trailer in about 5 minutes, something he can use for camping or for storing the jeep.  Here’s what he writes:

“I’ve had this thing in my head for over a year. After we got the trailer in Feb, it all came into view. I just had to get my upholstery guy to see the same thing. There was more work to get him to see it than actual work to make it! There is a reflective panel in the top that really cools this thing down. I’m working on a hot water system for a shower & I’ll have a generator also. ”

Here’s some pics:

John has done me a great favor by creating a windshield vent bracket for me, which I will highlight in a subsequent post. THANKS JOHN!  Btw, check out the last picture;  John might just win the award for best use of an old Willys hood.

Here’s what John has to say about his CJ-3A:

“This Willys came from Tenn. where it was bought & used at a const. co. with a trencher on it. I found it at Crawford’s Bargain Barn just north of Springfield Oh. They had used it to pull a hayride wagon. The Odometer had 6854 mi. on it & it was still working.  It was never titled or run on the road. The Body is original, though I did put new hat channels & a rear floor pan in. This poor thing was beat at all 4 corners & everywhere inbetween.  I’m not a body man, but I straighted & painted it.

I did a complete tear down, cleaning & painting everything individually. Most of the fasteners are brass bolts, nuts, & washers, except for stress points. I added 11” brakes and a warn O/D; Everything else is original. The engine, which has SPECIAL casted on it, was bored .40 over, chrome ringed, rotate balanced asm., has ported & polished intake & exhaust ports, and matched manifolds that are ported & polished. This thing runs smooooooth. I built this to be a daily driver;  My wife & I have put over 6000 mi. on it since July 5th, 2008. It took me 9 months to do the complete restoration. We put about 2000 mi on it before i tore it down. It came with a GPW eng. in it.  The serial # put the block in a 42 GPW.  I sold it to a fellow in Pa. that is restoring his 42 GPW.  It’s been named Brownie. It’s Black,Brass,& Brown.”

See pics of the whole family here.  And, see some closeups of Brownie here.

Here’s a tube frame flat fender project I ran across today.  There’s lots of pics.  The project is in progress, so i hope to see some additional pics soon. It appears the builder (name of Jesse?) is building a rock crawler of some kind.

http://www.jeepforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=708176