'58 CJ5 'Willie' project

Not much accomplished on Willie lately, except driving and enjoying him. I've made a bunch of trips around town that are in the 20-30 mile round trip range. Working on getting the turn signal painted and put back together. Tired of hand signals and people have no idea what I'm doing. Many have waved back. It's a lost part of history.
 
Not much accomplished on Willie lately, except driving and enjoying him. I've made a bunch of trips around town that are in the 20-30 mile round trip range. Working on getting the turn signal painted and put back together. Tired of hand signals and people have no idea what I'm doing. Many have waved back. It's a lost part of history.

Send pics since I have 57


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Finally got the Spartan turn signal cleaned up, greased, painted and reinstalled. Had the help of a 2 year old Willys assistant. The horn used to scare the bejeebies out of him. Not anymore.

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Heard noise and lost some power coming home several weeks ago. Sound coming from upper area around the head. I had planned to rebuild the motor anyways. Just looks to be sooner than expected.
 
Well got the motor pulled last week and over to the rebuilder. With everything going on, it'll be late January or February before I get him back on the road. Here the old beast waiting to get loaded in the truck.
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Stopped by the rebuilders to give him a new water pump, NOS exhaust manifold and check on progress. No ridges on the cylinder walls and was original 60 year old build. Crank good so no turning, just a polish. So far looks good. The original speedo showed 16,000 but no telling how long it had been dead. When I looked at it, the drive gear was stuck. Probably never had been oiled, like most of them. Sent the generator off to the Gener-Nator guy to have it converted but using original case. Expensive, but it keeps original look yet gets me the ability to run seat heaters and not worry about battery. Dropped the starter off and guy said it had been over heated at some point so he will redo the guts completely. Can't wait to get it all back and running.
 
FINALLY, got the motor back today. Hurrah! The guy really apologize for how long it took (dropped it off mid December and now mid March). But I had planned to eventually get it done since it was an unknown quantity to me. The compression numbers were in the lower 80's as I recall with one slightly lower than the rest. Will be interesting to see when I get it stabbed and all hooked up. May even check them on the floor first. As it turns out, not sure what the original issue was as he didn't see any issues as he went thru it. He did pistons 20 over which he says you should always do just to make sure everything smooth and lined up (and I get all that extra hp), crank ok so just polished and replaced the cam, again he says he always does. I forgot to ask about lifters but I can't imagine him not when replacing the cam. I'll call just to verify tomorrow. Also said all valves good and it came with hard seats so didn't have to do anything other than standard valve job. I've already got the rebuilt starter back, as well as the generator converted to Gener-nator. Waiting on a few parts to get back from powder-coater then I'll start replacing the various oil, vacuum and fuel lines I've had in waiting. The fuel pump was already new and carb had already been totally restored. I already put a Pertronix in the distributor but had not really cleaned and painted it. I'll look inside but I'm leaning towards sending it off to the WillysDistributor.com guy to restore it. As much as I've spent might as well. The clutch was only about half way thru so I'll look into just replacing it all now while it's out.


So here's the damage so far (from memory): engine $1700, starter $350, Gener-Nator $1,000 (with shipping), Pertronix $100, carb restore $216, fuel pump with glass bowl and dual action $50 replacement exhaust manifold $75 (was not necessary but I hated looking at the pitting), water pump $65, radiator $80, miscellaneous hoses, belt, plus, wires, cap, rotor, coil, choke/throttle cables, oil/gas/vacuum lines, motor mounts, battery, etc, I'm guessing another $500 and throw in another couple hundred for what I had powder coated. So I'm approaching $4500, plus tires $800, wiring harness $240, soft top $1000, NOS speedo $200, seat belts $100, roll bar $200, front hubs $50 and who know what else I've forgotten.


Still left: create back seat and upholstery all 3, pull body and do minor body work and paint, have tranny and TC gone thru, disc brakes up front (have the Geo version back plates already) and 11" rear, rebuilt Ross box and whatever steering components, plus whatever else comes up.


Damn this adds up in a hurry.......someone start a go fund me account.
 
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Finally got to getting the engine back in, but with the Texas heat and humidity, the next step it to roll it into the air conditioned garage to finish putting things back together. In such a hurry that I totally forgot to take any pics. Next step after getting it running will be doing the Geo brake conversion.
 
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Also finally getting back to the heater control knobs and cables. The cables have a few separations and don't slide as easily as they should. One I think actually has a kink in it. I've tried cleaning real well and soaking in tranny fluid for several months while periodically pulling them back and forth. It has helped a whole lot but with the breaks in there also, has anyone tried actually undoing the crip and replacing the cable?
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As a follow up to what I started probably 2 years ago, I'm back on the heater control knobs. Here are the pics of them in process. I first cleaned them good, then sprayed red heavy so it would get thick in the letters, let it sit for a couple minutes then wipe most of it off. After A day I started cleaning overspray on edges and face.
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Mickey,

What did you use to get that paint off and not ruin the chroming? That looks real sharp and beats using a paintbrush
 
After letting it sit few minutes, I first used rag to wipe off the bulk of the paint being careful around the wording. Then the next morning I used 0000 steel wool and took my time. I'm pretty sure they are stainless steel. Here is the finished product. The pic is not so good because of the concave and reflection, but other than the 50 years of metal scratches, they look new.
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Very nice, I am going to have to try this on my knobs. Thanks for the detailed response.
 
Finally after a very long 9 months, I finally got the engine stabbed and everything hooked up. The last step was filling the radiator when I hear drip, drip and see green on the floor. Two steps forward, one back. Sure enough the radiator that was fine when I pulled it, had a number of drips and one stream. Radiator shop said I had me a bubbling spa when pressured tested in the bath, so $400 later they recored it. I guess 60 years out of a radiator is reasonable. Too many things going on but finally tried to fire Willie up. The fuel pump just wasn't getting the gas up so I went to get some out of my jerry cans, and as luck would have it, I forgot I rotated the gas a month ago and never filled them back up. So a trip to the gas station and 30 minutes later, I poured a little down the carb and he fired right up. And sprayed oil everywhere. I didn't have the oil filter lid on tight enough, so I spent the next hour cleaning all the mess up. Then I tried again and he's running. I let him warm up and varied the RPMs some for about 30 minutes and no puddles. Going out of town for couple weeks, but when I get back, it's gonna be busy breaking him in and doing the Geo disc conversion, if I have any hope of doing the September Colorado Fall Colors Tour.
 
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Got back in town and drove Willie a little around the property before I started on the front Geo disc conversion. It's a pretty easy conversion, once you've done it. The first issue is really just getting all the parts first. I assumed things would be in stock, come in correct, etc. But of course things never go like you expect. So I'm going from a greasy, grimy mess with scary stopping to disc. In the process, I decided while in there might as well replace seals, re-pack the bearings and check everything out. So now wait for more parts to come in. Then trying to disconnect existing brake lines for the new hoses, the old steel lines were so rusted they refused to come apart without crimping, etc, so then everything comes to a halt again to get the new lines ordered. Oh well that's part of the process.
 

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Actually making decent progress, but have run into some delays. Got the dual master from Herm and why should that go easy. After bench bleeding and installing it, when to bleed the lines and the master leaks. He replaced it but now too late to make the Colorado Fall Colors Tour this year. Was really looking forward to it. Oh well, next year. While at it, I decided to go ahead and install the rear 11" Bendix I had gotten a while back. So I got them installed, replaced the rear brake lines, installed self bleeders and pulled both differential covers to inspect and change fluid and get rid of the hideous orange silicone the PO used liberally on them. I also scrapped and picked off at least a couple hundred pounds of grease/dirt mess. The brake peddle was very wobbly so sent it off to get a bushing installed and ordered a replacement clutch/brake shaft. While waiting on various things to get in, I tackled replacing the cracked, walmart trailer taillights the PO had installed and fixing his butch job on that rear wiring. But of course, the cheap Chinese repos didn't work. After hours of chasing things down, finally took them apart only to find the idiots had painted the inside of the bulb socket, hense no ground. I also sent the floor and shifter covers put to be powder coated. I should be able to bleed the brakes as soon as that shaft gets here and hopefully get to go for a drive this weekend. I'll post some more pics soon.
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Well it's been a while since I posted any updates. After putting in the rebuilt motor in and getting about 100 miles on it, I kept hearing noises. Ended up being the main bearings. He said had some trash go thru the system some how so he tried to replace them and polish to crank to avoid pulling the motor. But it didn't solve it for long. So I pulled it again and he went thru it again. This time he did turn the crank and new bearings. He made good on it and did all at no cost. Even offered to pay whatever it took to pull the motor. So I just got it back in and fired it up. Sounds fine for now, but time will tell as I get miles on it. I did get the Geo conversion done along with having the brake peddle sleeved so it no long wobbles. Once I get time I can get back to the rear seat. I just need to do some re-springing and get it upholstered. Then rear seat belts. But for now, priority is getting miles on the engine to get confidence it working now.
 
Another update. I've put about 500 miles on engine and all seems well. I flat towed it to the cabin in southern NM. It started fine at altitude with just a slight bump in the advance. It cuts out some so I finally pulled the carb and found crap in in it. Cleaned it out real good including all the passages. Ran great then started up again. Time to put a filter on the line. Had to head back to Texas so saved it for this trip. Maybe this winter I'll pull the tank and clean it good. All the lines are new so must be tank. Back up at the cabin and that's first thing in the agenda before we head to the Colorado Fall Colors Tour next Saturday. After sitting for 3 weeks, Willie fired right up so that's good news. I also got the Ramsey winch rebuilt so next step is the mounting frame. Hopefully this winter.
 
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