Over the last couple of days I’ve been sorting through Rusty’s parts and putting it back together so its easier to ship (It sold this week). It almost looks like a real jeep again. I started with the bare frame that Ann and I cleaned up prior to the Alaska trip in 2017.

I thought it would be easiest if I reinstalled the engine and tranny and gas tank for transport.

With the powertrain installed, the body and front clip went together pretty easily. The parts have been sorted and boxed. It’s just about ready to go. 

More parts have been painted.  On my next visit to Seattle (in a couple days?) I will be pulling the brakes to see what I need, checking the rear end, and working on the gas tank and readying that for installation.

Today I’ll be cleaning the and painting the bell housing and cleaning the generator and starter.

Short update. On Tuesday, after buying some parts and fixing some wiring, I got mom’s riding lawn mower running. She’s happy. I am happy.

On Wednesday, after buying a new motor and then upgrading the wiring to 230 … (It sure wasn’t plug and play) … I got the compressor working. I am even happier!

Compressor done? Check …

Parts ready? Check …

Parts blasted? Check …

Nice to be making headway again.

No updates tonight other than this one.

We made it to Seattle a couple days ago. I made some more progress blasting some smaller parts yesterday. In order to blast the t-handle parking brake, I had to disassemble it. The last thing to remove was a screw/pin so I could remove the brake lever from its housing. I didn’t know whether to unscrew or press out the screw/pin, but as I examined iI felt pretty sure it should press out. Still, I thought it best to text a friend: Chris McKay.  He said he thought it was pressed out, too. So, I set out to remove the pin.

Here is what the brake looks like assembled.

Here’s the top of the pin:

This shows the back side. I had to line up the hole in the housing with the back of the pin:

I grabbed a small socket to catch the pin and an object that could press through the hole:

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This was meant to be a longer, more glorious post about the trials and tribulations of setting up the blasting process (and I’d planned a second post on Alaska’ Paul’s blasting). But, this evening my mother needed rescuing after her battery died, so I shall have to skip the day’s drama and Paul’s efforts in favor of a short summation: I ran through three different compressors (a portable pancake, a portable contractor, and finally the 26 gallon wheeled Husky) before getting one that would work. Of course, the Husky had to be repaired, which further delayed work on Rusty.

Once the compressor started pumping, I started blasting. After considering various options, I went with fine coal material made by Black Diamond designed for blasting.

I tackled the headlight buckets first. The photo below shows one side blasted and the other not.

I was able to prep a number of parts, but forgot to get a photo of them lined up on my work table. I’m bringing them back to Pasco with me today to paint them.

One reason I need to return home is so Ann can return to our bedroom …. she had a freaky experience at 2AM a few nights ago. Our dog Zollie woke her up, growing at something. He never growls at night. She said he was looking all over as he growled. Once she calmed him down, the Amazon Echo on her side table unexpectedly announced “that’s not a very nice thing to say”. Knowing she hadn’t said anything, she used her Amazon Echo app to determine what the Echo had heard. When she brought it up the echo claimed to have heard the word “die”. As you might imagine, that was enough for her. She went downstairs and slept on the couch. She hasn’t slept in the bedroom since.

One last thing I did yesterday was to spend a little time straightening the rear quarter panels. Plenty of work left, but using some clamps and flat metal I was able to make them look a little better. Here’s the passenger side.

Plenty of work left …

I made it across the mountains on Monday, now that the snow and ice has let up temporarily. And, that reminds me. We traded in Henry, our red 2012 Laredo Grand Cherokee, for a slightly used blue 2016 Limited Grand Cherokee a few weeks ago.

Henry was incredibly dependable over the course of 100,000 miles, but he was due some maintenance and new tires. Once we considered those costs along with the equity, we decided to get something newer that had the upgrades Ann wanted (such as heated seats). Best of all, our payments stayed the same. We still don’t have a name for him yet:

And now for a ramond photo. When Ann and I were last in Ellensburg, Washington, eating lunch, I ran across these urinals in the men’s room. I hadn’t seen kegs used that way, but maybe I don’t get out enough ??…

Yesterday (Tuesday), I spent the afternoon working on Rusty, triaging next steps (what needs what work done and fix-or-buy assessments). I’m also choosing some projects to bring back to Pasco. One thing I did was remove the bumpers and clean them up (not perfect, but good enough for the moment).

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UPDATER: The 0-10 early CJ-5 speedos did make it into early DJ-3As.

I found this NOS King-Seeley 0-9 speedometer core on eBay. I show it below next to my 0-8 face, whose day-glow white paint flecked off as I cleaned it. I can confirm it is the same size and seems to have the identical parts (though the gears may differ slightly given it goes to 90mph).

The 0-8 speedometers (manufactured in mid-to late 1955) were installed in early 1956 DJ-3As (as well as a few other models, CJ-5 being one). Later in 1956, Willys moved to the 0-9 white face speedometer core. About a year later (sometime in 1957?) Willys moved to the familiar 0-9 orange face. The early CJ-5 0-10 speedometer clusters made it into a few DJ-3As. One side note, those early 0-10 CJ-5 clusters were almost, but not quite identical to the Aero clusters.

The seller has more units. You can purchase the 0-9 unit on eBay here:

On the Ann front: 

She hasn’t gotten any better, but hasn’t gotten any worse. She still spends most of the day in bed. We believe that there’s a problem related to neck muscles, nerves, and upper vertebrae. Their interrelationship seems to be causing both the nausea and the pain in her head. She’s had several physical therapy appointments that have helped isolate the area that seems the root of the issue, but it could take quite a bit of therapy to loosen that area.

On the Rusty front:

A couple days ago I bought an NOS 0-9 1956-1957 speedometer face and engine on eBay. If for some reason I can’t get my speedometer fixed, I will go with this. And, if I do get it fixed, then I am sure I can easily sell this. You can see these are pretty close in style, even using the same pointer (which I wasn’t sure how I was going to find it).

0-9 that I just bought:

0-8 that I have:

While in Seattle the past few days I ran across a fantastic deal on a welder and blasting cabinet. I jumped on them and got both setup. The cabinet (a nothing-fancy Harbor Freight model) should work fine for cleaning parts.

Based on the reviews I found, this Clarke 130EN Mig welder should be good for repairs on the body. Apparently, anything thicker than a 1/4″ is too much for it, but I have an old-fashioned stick welder to tackle those issues. It came with everything you see, including a full bottle of Argon, an extra reel, two masks, cart, and other items.

On the Biscuit front:

I found this chevy scatter shield in Pasco a couple weeks ago. I took it with me to Seattle. It was by far the best price I’ve seen on one, primarily due to the holes in it. It was used by an old sand jeep dragger.

While I was in Seattle, I formed a cover plate for the hole that spans the bottom and bolts in place (plate not shown). I plan on patching the side with some 1/4″ steel. I’ve been waiting for quite some time to get a scatter shield. Now I can begin to reassemble it (with a few mods).

This story deserves a much longer telling, but let me cut straight to it. I’m in Seattle to work on Rusty. I dropped my iPhone in a bowl of Pho Soup. Not good. I rushed home and set it up to dry. Shortly afterward, I removed Rusty’s heater, only to find someone had built an expansive home inside the heater. This explains some of the missing cushion from the seats. As I was taking pics with the Nikon, the battery died. So, I turned to my computer, but the photos were much worse than I imagined. Not a great tech day.

On the bright side, I tested the heater fan and that works. Also, my phone seems to be drying out … finally.

As you can see below, the inside of the heater is almost entirely filled with stuff:

And this is how it looked after that stuff was removed (and after my iPhone started working a little better). I now need to remove debris from the fins and repair the lower tube.

I also disassembled my speedometer. The rod that powers the pointer had broken. I will see if there is any way to repair it. The part looks awfully like later speedometers, so there may be hope for replacing it, but I first have to disassemble the front plate from the mechanism. Based on what I’ve read, it might never work quite right. But hey, it doesn’t work quite right anyhow!

On Monday I spent some time testing the engine. After lightly sanding the points, the spark began to work, but the engine still didn’t start. I took a second look at the fuel pump and discovered it in fact wasn’t working. When I checked the bolts to remove it I discovered that the bolts were snug, but not tightened. So, someone at some point looked at the fuel pump.

After further examining the non-stock solex carb, I then removed it (I plan to sell it anyway). That’s when I noticed there was a pool of varnish/gas along the bottom of the intake. I decided I would get all that cleaned up before trying to restart it.

I next turned to the grille. The first two photos show how bad the grille was bent. I can’t image what they hit. Thankfully, the radiator seems to be fine.

Using a variety of strategies, I flattened the grille and straightened the edges. One side smoothed out quickly. In the pic below, you can see the right side too a little extra bending to come out correctly.

Here’s the final result. I’m pleased.

I will still have to repair both sides of the grille where it mounts to the bottom mount. I haven’t decided how I was to repair those areas. Here’s the right side where it mounts to the frame. As  you can see, the metal was cracked.

We returned to Pasco late yesterday. I won’t be going back to Seattle until after Halloween, so I brought back a box of goodies to work on.