Daddyjeep Hauler - 85 K30 crew cab short bed

[daddyjeep]

This should be the last coat of bondo above the body line aside from some little hole filling here or there.



Slowly, but surely it is taking shape. My shoulders feel great. I am going to lift it up to do the work below the body line because it will put my work area at a more comfortable level. It sure is nice to have a lift.

[Whamo]

dig the green rendering!

[daddyjeep]

Thanks @Whamo

More sanding.



It looks like my kid's girlfriend needs a ride in the homecoming parade and she wants to take the Squarebody. The girl at least has good taste. So now my poor truck is partially bodyworked on one bed side and is quite a few colors at the moment. I am going to cover the bed in primer and everything from the pinstripe down. It will be kind of nice to see it in a more consistent color at least.

[daddyjeep]

My son's girlfriend needed a ride in our high school homecoming parade and on Wednesday last week we found out that we could not use my father in law's Corvette. Apparently it is made out of some special material where if it gets rained on it will melt or something. I have no idea how he washes it??? Anywhoooo.... She wanted to use the Squarebody. She has pretty good taste. Of course my truck was no where near presentable. I had to work two Jobs on Thursday so that left me with Friday to get it ready for a 5:30 parade. I took the day off work, bought a few cans of black primer and got to work.



I just needed it to be a few less colors and have no more bare metal and scaly rust on the bottom of the doors.

It didn't turn out too bad.





A couple shots from the parade.





This was the first time it has been out of the shop in quite a while and the first time driving it with the new wheels. I really need to get the hubs machined. With the way the tires swing vs pivot when turning they rub pretty bad. Other than that it looked pretty good and got a lot of compliments.

[Whamo]

That Girl's got Class!

Truck is lookin goood!!

[daddyjeep]

Lets knock the cobwebs off this thread... shall we? I sold the '04 today so it is finally time to give the old square body some attention and put it back into service. I already ordered some headlights and the harness from LMC so I can actually see at night. I have a buddy looking for some good doors and fenders from south of the rust belt and I have a guy ready to machine my hubs as soon as I get them pulled off.

Man am I glad to be back on this.

[COS399]

Glad to hear we will be getting some updates. Keep us posted.

[daddyjeep]

I finalized my design for the rear bumper and got steel ordered. I need to get a new bottle of gas for the welder and hopefully get this bumper done this weekend. That is probably ambitious, but I'm going to try. Hopefully tonight I can get my hubs pulled so I can send them off for machining.

[daddyjeep]

I go the hubs pulled tonight and the flange cut off of one of them. I will cut off the other flange in the morning and drop them off at my buddies to get them turned down. It is no fun cutting off that 3/4" flange with an angle grinder, but it will save my buddy some time. He is turning them for free so whatever I can do to help him I will do. I also got new Dorman 610-283 studs ordered.

[MTCK]

That’s a lot of cutting! Pardon my ignorance but what will this mod let you do?

[daddyjeep]

Originally Posted by MTCK

That’s a lot of cutting! Pardon my ignorance but what will this mod let you do?

Basically just converting the dually front hub to a single wheel hub.

[daddyjeep]

Second hub is done and they have been delivered to my buddy. I also picked up the steel for my bumper. one stick of 3/16" x 8" x 24', One 3/16" x 4" x 24', and one 3/16" x 2" x 24' for $162. I have some 5" x 7/8" bar stock for the bumper mount/recovery shackle location. I really don't know exactly what this steel is, but it is strange. My horizontal band saw didn't like it much, but it drills great. The chips are tiny almost like I am drilling cast iron. I found this steel buried in my yard so there is no telling how old it is. Now to hot glue all the pieces together.

[400/400]

Cool truck!
I like the bumper design. Did you get it welded up?

[daddyjeep]

Originally Posted by 400/400

Cool truck!
I like the bumper design. Did you get it welded up?

Not yet. I had a couple more pressing projects get in the way... as usual. One of the off road parks I play at opened last weekend so I had to get the Jeep ready to go play. Of course now I have things to fix on the Jeep. I do have the mounts/recovery points pretty much done. They are 7/8" x 5" bar stock so it is pretty time consuming getting them shaped and the 1" hole drilled for the D ring shackles.

[daddyjeep]

I made some progress on the rear bumper last night. The brackets were fitted and drilled to match up with three existing frame holes.



The back plate was cut and fitted. It is certainly a tight fit, but that is what I wanted. There are a couple of tweaks that still need to happen before we start glueing it together. I may taper the sides more. I have to update me rendering to see if I like it first.

[daddyjeep]

Ok... I did a quick mock up and would like some opinions.

[Ol Blue K20]

I like it.

[daddyjeep]

Originally Posted by Ol Blue K20

I like it.

Thanks. Do you like it better with the taper or straight?

[Ol Blue K20]

Sorry I forgot to mention it. I like the taper best.

[daddyjeep]

Originally Posted by Ol Blue K20

Sorry I forgot to mention it. I like the taper best.

Thanks for your vote

[daddyjeep]

I spent a bunch of hours on the new bumper on Saturday. This is taking much longer than I anticipated, but it sure is fun.

I tapped the small hole i the frame so I could bolt in a backing plate for the bumper mount. Once the pumper is done there would be no way to get to the nuts inside the frame rail so I welded the nuts to a plate that is bolted in place. This plate needs to be removable to get to the bed mount bolts beside the gas tank.



I started with getting the top plate on and the back plate trued up to it. The bar stock was warped a bit and warped even more when I burned it to the 1" bar stock for the mount. I figured out the profile on the corner using some CAD (cardboard Aided Design).



Then came the upper bevel with some 2" bar stock.



The back face is 4" bar stock and I built the center step out of 4" as well. The support for the step was 2" bar stock ripped down to 1"... that was fun with a cut off wheel.





There is still a bunch of work to be done, but I am making good progress, The drivers' side upper portion needs finished up and then I can add the lower bevel pieces and bottom plate.

[Ol Blue K20]

It's looking good, keep it up!

[daddyjeep]

Two more pieces tacked in on my lunch break. This work from home stuff is pretty cool.

[daddyjeep]

More progress.





I really like how I finished off the front.



lets see if this little video works

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1BM...Vt4L3-yt6RnVXC

I picked up some better fenders for $100. The upper mount on the drivers side has a little rust, but other than that they are in really nice shape. I just need some good doors now so I can work towards paint.

[daddyjeep]

For those that remember.... or are even following here, I had an issue with my right rear brake that I could never figure out. It was self adjusting and would eventually lock up. I figured the best solution would be to just ditch the drum brakes and get me some of those fancy disk brakes. I started looking into what it would take to get it done on my Dana 70 and it seems that there are not good kits available and very limited options for an e-brake. I have the Eldorado calipers on the back of my Jeep and they are giving me problems so I really don't want to go that route. What other option is there you ask? Well, how about swapping in a complete axle with factory disk brakes? The only options here are the Ford Sterling axle and the AAM found in Dodges and Chevys. The sterling is a great axle, I have one already that is going under the Jeep, but would require the hubs and rotors to be redrilled for the correct lug pattern. A better option is the 99-07 Chevy AAM 11.5 full float axle out of a 1 ton truck. Well, the only one I could find locally was a semi float out of a 3/4 ton and all the brakes components were gone. The guy wanted $525 for it too. A little more research and searching the on line sales places led me to a complete 03 Dodge AAM 11.5 out of a single wheel Cummins powered truck for $300. It has the same 72" WMS as my Dana 70, the correct lug pattern, the same 3.73 gear ratio, and a limited slip. Now I need to cut off the leaf spring pads and shock mounts and build some new ones to work with my truck. I am going to build the leaf spring pads with 1" of lift since I am going to lift the front a couple inches.