Well, the best laid plans… While puzzling through the charging system, I decided I needed to pull off my alternator so I could determine exactly which kind of alternator I had (Delco 10SI 63 Amp — Determine your GM alternator).  As I pulled out the long bottom bolt upon which the alternator pivots, I discovered a problem: There wasn’t enough room to pull out the bolt.  Even after clipping a hole in my electric radiator framework, I still ran directly into the radiator (see the pic to the right).  Fortunately, I discovered can undo the radiator, shift it somewhat, and then can pull out the bolt far enough to let the alternator slip away.  So, at least I have a method, though elegant it isn’t!

Over the past couple of days I’ve continued to make progress.  I’ve got the headlights and taillights installed.  The headlights had an unexpected complication:  It turned out the modern 5 1/2″ bulb wouldn’t sit correctly into the 50 year old mount, so I had to encourage a better fit with my grinder.

NOTE:  One set of items I don’t seem to have are front turn signals.  I’d like to find a set of the cone turn signals that I believe were on a mid 60s Willys truck like these.  If you know of any, please let me know where I can find some.

With the lights attached, I started the wiring process.  My main goal is to make it as easy as possible to unattach the body for painting or repair purposes.  So, for example, after installing the taillights I ran a flexible tube along the body using some sheet metal screws so that all the rear lighting stayed attached to body.  Anytime wiring needs to cross from the body to the frame, engine, etc, I’m trying to bridge it with some kind of plug.  So far so good.

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I stopped by Buck’s 4×4 shop here in Boise yesterday and picked up some BDS Shocks.  My measurements showed I needed a pair of shocks that had a compressed size of approx 15″ and a maximum size of approx 25″.  It only took them a few minutes to find what I needed.  Best of all, the price was right — under $100.

Now that I had shocks, I could finally create the front shock mounts, something I’ve put off for a few months. I knew I wanted something similar to what I used last time for shock mounts.  On my last jeep I took some 1/2″ steel that was 4″ wide and bent it using a 10′ tube pipe and dad’s huge vice (firmly attached to a 1000lb bench).  The result were mounts that attached to the side of the frame, rounding up and out.  I liked the effect, so for this jeep I wanted to do something similar.  Instead of the steel I used last time, I took a piece of 1/4″ x 5.5″ x 6′ piece of steel I salvaged from my sisters’ farm and created my shock mounts from that.

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