New Trail build?? Navy Jeep?

They must have thrown a chain around it a few times! haha! I have a nice draw bar and pto that will be goin on this next. 

Thanks Steve! you got it buddy! 

My stock spring bushings were toast and the ones the spring shop put in my bag were too small.... so I made my own out of bronze. 

The one I made is on the right. the middle one was too small of an OD. 

Next up is the front axle, pedals and master. then engine and trans. Lot of little stuff too. I am waiting on new shackles and steering box bushings and bearings. stay tuned. 

Here's todays progress.... Nothing too crazy, but its like eating an elephant....one bite at a time. 

Worked on prepping the front axle today. 

Oil was a little goopy but the gears looked good. 

Prepped and hung.... 

Also, Putting together all the pieces for the pto setup. 

 

Here's another HUGE piece of the puzzle.... Large hole MB/GPW tanks are super hard to find right now. all the suppliers are back ordered. A good friend of mine hooked me up with this nice slightly used tank. I will need to devise some sort of skid/plate for the tank sump. Perhaps some type of plate integrated with the rock sliders or something. Does anyone on here have an example or idea of something like that? I thought about deleting the sump and running a 2a tank...but I kinda like the idea of the original look and extra fuel.

- What primer and top coat did you use on the frame?

- Will this Jeep have your trademark Diesel conversion?

Seth,  you always amaze me  . .  you accomplish more in weeks than I do in years!!  

Cool project!     

The frame is ready for the engine, but ive made a "slight" change to the build itinerary... NoFender Hooked me up with a very exciting bunch of parts for this project. so, this jeep will now be getting an sm420 swap. Now I have most of the parts needed to make this happen. Just working out a few details. Today I worked on boring out the bellhousing. I had wanted to do a 4-speed swap on this jeep someday, but doing it now will be much better in the long run. A little extra build time now......a lot of reward later in the for of 93:1 crawl ratio! 

I made a last minute 317 mile turn n burn trip Sunday night to Andy's shop to pick up the goods. 

The two transmissions look great on the inside! Look at that magical ginormous Spur gear goodness!!

He also hooked me up with a spicer 18h pto which I stole the rear yoke off of and turned it on my lathe so now I have a drive flange for the back side of my rear pto setup! 

The main thing I need to do to install this 4-speed is work on the bellhousing. I have to bore out the ID of the hole to accept the larger GM bearing retainer. This is very similar to the t18 setup years ago. 

Indicating it super important....So i took a lot of time getting it all dialed in! 

Time to start cutting! the cast iron cuts very easy but I have a very small machine so Its a slow process. I made .020 cuts to the tune of around .250 total material removed. 

Cast is very easy to machine but boy is it messy! It basically makes black iron dust. 

Here is is finished. In the end it was almost the exact same dimensions as my other bell with the t18 swap. it leaves you with a thin web at the top....but dont worry my diesel swap has been like this for years with no issues and that was with a much thinner early 2a bell. this cj5 bell seems much heavier. 

Perfect fit! The 420 retainer has been modified to work with the t90 fork and throw-out bearing so no other mods are needed. 

The 420 trans case has already been drilled and tapped for the t90 bell So now the bolts will go from inside the bellhousing so I simply have to bore out the threaded holes to allow the 7/16 bolts to pass through. These are not critical tolerance since everything is indicated off the bearing retainer. these bolts just hold everything together. 

Todays mission is to flip the bell over and counter bore the holes just enough to provide a flat surface to the bolts to clamp down on the bell from inside. Easy peasy! 

I needed a different engine tin plate to run this bell housing so as soon as that arrives I can bolt everything together and continue on with our regularly scheduled programming of re assembling this JEEP! Thanks for watching and let me know if you want to see anything specific or if you have any questions! 

off topic BONUS PIC:

I had to push the chassis outside today and thought this gave a cool perspective on just how small these things are.