A big thanks to Craig Brockhaus for selling me some original FC-170 seats and his last electric wiper conversion unit, along with a few other parts. They arrived on Wednesday. The seats need some recovering and the set frames some blasting, but we planned to recover them in the same material that the bench seats will be covered, so we expect these are a good solution for us.

As for the electric wiper unit, yes the tour jeep is a convertible and we should rarely need wipers, but there have been times where I’ve driven through irrigation or other forms of water around here, so I figure it’s better to have working wipers than non working ones.

My hope is to use the stock bracket to mount the steering wheel, but I won’t know for sure until I can test-mount the tilt-steering wheel based on the seat position and dash. But, just having the stock bracket helps me estimate where to begin with the column mount options.

Meanwhile, I am also moving as much of the wiring and other elements down to the frame so that when I have to pull the cab, it’s as simple as possible. The cab floors and some interior dog house elements could use some blasting, sanding and smoothing. But, that’s not something I want to tackle at this juncture. Mechanics, so it can be safely driven, and a new bed are the priority.

My poor wife has been down with neck and shoulder spasms for the past two weeks, so time with the FC has been limited. She’s finally feeling a little better, though still unable to drive and do a variety of tasks. At least she has less pain.

In the meantime, I’ve been gathering/making what I have needed to assembling the dual-mc brake setup. The goal was to move the MC back between the brackets so that it is completely hidden under the dash using as many stock components as I could. I mostly followed Steve’s design, but mine is an 1/8inch wider to accommodate the nylon washers.

To the setup I’ve also added Chev brake light switch (left over from disassembly). I happened to have a leftover spring bolt with a zerk fitting that will allow me to apply grease to the brake pedal pivot if necessary (I am waiting to trim down the bolt in case I the end for smoother purpose, such as an extra anchor point of the steering column. To each side of the pedal pivot I’ve added two thin nylon washers which should reduce metal wear between the pivot and the brackets.

I am unsure what direction I want the MC fluid tops to point. The reservoirs will likely hang on the firewall, but that’s TBD.

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