Posted by: F Bill
« on: July 11, 2012, 12:01:37 PM »If you haven't actually bought your first jeep, here's some suggestions on how to go about that process with the best results..
First, you normally get what you pay for or a little less. That parts jeep someone offered you for free looks like an amazing deal right now, doesn't it? �Before you go get it and start the long path of restoration, sit down with a pen and list what all it needs.Add up the costs.... Engine rebuilds are no longer cheap, and if you have to hire it out to a shop you might be looking at $2500... Trannys and Transfer cases also get expensive fast. A radiator is now in the $500 range for a new one..
What I am trying to say is buy the best jeep you can afford to to start with. I got hooked on the 2WD version of the 3A a while back, and just had to have myself a Surrey.. I ended up buying 5 cheap DJ3A projects, two of which were actual Surreys...And a DJ3A that was already running and driving. Guess which one I enjoy the most? Looking back, had I bought that one first, I wouldn't have even needed the others.With what I spent on all 6, I could have bought a good survivor Surrey.. and 3A's are really no different...anyone want a Surrey project?
Next, look out for freshly dolled up junkers. The old Lipstick on a Pig technique sells a lot of junk. Just for grins, I took a parts jeep I had and spent an afternoon with about ten cans of Rustoleum, a roll of aluminum tape, and not much more.. The neighbors thought I had bought a restored jeep when I was done..but it still had no motor, didn't shift, and had no brakes. In pictures it looked awesome. The rusty holes were covered with the tape, and the paint made them disappear. New mats or carpeting can hide a world of sins on a floor, and undercoating can hide tons of rot underneath. You need to look beyond the shiny paint (or the fresh coat of olive drab tha seems real popular right now) and really look at things.
Rust is the chief enemy of the flatfender. The 3A has a superior frame to the earlier jeeps, but it still rusts. Look for rot anywhere there are multiple layers of steel, places like spring mounts, crossmember ends, and the battery box. A new frame can be obtained for a few hundred dollars plus transportation, so if the rest of the jeep is awesome, you might still be able to save one with a rotted or severely damaged frame. Just price it accordingly.
The bodywork phase is where many restorations stall. Tub repair takes skill,tools, and money. Fortunately jeeps are pretty simple, and a patient restorer can build a tub back from little more than a cowl and a few bits here and there. Getting all the little details right , like the ribs in the floor or the script Jeep on the toolbox under the seat, is tough, so unless you want a driver and not a show jeep, plan on spending some serious money on replacement panels or.. a new tub.
A place in the Philipines makes 90 percent of all replacement jeep bodies out there.. MD Juan is the company name, and a quick google will reveal that opinions are very mixed on their quality. �For what they are able to sell a replacement tub, you couldn't pay most body shops to rebuild a rotted tub. If you end up going the new tub route, know that you will spend upwards of $2500 for it. Plus paint, modifying the incorrect stuff, etc...
So, check that old tub well. Obvious patching may be over good metal, but chances are it is just holding the rot together. �If you notice that there is no vertical seam in the door area, or the tail light area, someone has been busy...Worst case is that they just filled over the rot with bondo and smoothed over the factory seams.. While it looks pretty now, it will be ugly again soon.
The original rear floor and wheelhouse tops were ribbed. It is common to skin over them with flat steel, or even diamond plate. A new rear floor can be pruchased and installed, just the floor is close to $400 now. Front floors can be patched well with flat steel as there were only a few character lines in them.
Underneath the tub are hat channels that add strength to the floor and keep it from oil canning. Original ones are spot welded to the floor, and have wood inside of them to add a little stiffness. Common bad fixes are to leave them off, or use angle iron, tubing, or c channel to replace them.. All are incorrect and lessen the value of a jeep. (Again, for a rockcrawler or trails jeep, you may not care, if the repairs are sound)
There is also a quarter panel reenforcement by the spare tire mounting area on the right back corner of the jeep. It is a curved hat channel, which is tough for the home shop guy to reproduce. When it rots out it normally rots the coner of the jeep too.. Look for bondo and skinned over panels here too.
The original passenger seat was mounted on hinges over a toolbox. The toolbox had a hinged lid, an dis a wonderful place for mice to build a nest , and rot to occur. It is not unusual to see to the ground when you lift the lid. To fix this, the toolbox should be removed, the floor repaired, and the repaired toolbox reinstalled. Lots of times the toolbox has been eliminated when some previous owner decided he wanted to use the seats from his old Firebird in the jeep. (Normally the Firebird seat modification also means relocating the gas tank from under the driver's seat too. )
Mechanical issues when looking at a jeep I will touch on later..
There is also a good guide on purchasing a jeep at eWillys... Go to ewillys.com and click the boxes up top.
First, you normally get what you pay for or a little less. That parts jeep someone offered you for free looks like an amazing deal right now, doesn't it? �Before you go get it and start the long path of restoration, sit down with a pen and list what all it needs.Add up the costs.... Engine rebuilds are no longer cheap, and if you have to hire it out to a shop you might be looking at $2500... Trannys and Transfer cases also get expensive fast. A radiator is now in the $500 range for a new one..
What I am trying to say is buy the best jeep you can afford to to start with. I got hooked on the 2WD version of the 3A a while back, and just had to have myself a Surrey.. I ended up buying 5 cheap DJ3A projects, two of which were actual Surreys...And a DJ3A that was already running and driving. Guess which one I enjoy the most? Looking back, had I bought that one first, I wouldn't have even needed the others.With what I spent on all 6, I could have bought a good survivor Surrey.. and 3A's are really no different...anyone want a Surrey project?
Next, look out for freshly dolled up junkers. The old Lipstick on a Pig technique sells a lot of junk. Just for grins, I took a parts jeep I had and spent an afternoon with about ten cans of Rustoleum, a roll of aluminum tape, and not much more.. The neighbors thought I had bought a restored jeep when I was done..but it still had no motor, didn't shift, and had no brakes. In pictures it looked awesome. The rusty holes were covered with the tape, and the paint made them disappear. New mats or carpeting can hide a world of sins on a floor, and undercoating can hide tons of rot underneath. You need to look beyond the shiny paint (or the fresh coat of olive drab tha seems real popular right now) and really look at things.
Rust is the chief enemy of the flatfender. The 3A has a superior frame to the earlier jeeps, but it still rusts. Look for rot anywhere there are multiple layers of steel, places like spring mounts, crossmember ends, and the battery box. A new frame can be obtained for a few hundred dollars plus transportation, so if the rest of the jeep is awesome, you might still be able to save one with a rotted or severely damaged frame. Just price it accordingly.
The bodywork phase is where many restorations stall. Tub repair takes skill,tools, and money. Fortunately jeeps are pretty simple, and a patient restorer can build a tub back from little more than a cowl and a few bits here and there. Getting all the little details right , like the ribs in the floor or the script Jeep on the toolbox under the seat, is tough, so unless you want a driver and not a show jeep, plan on spending some serious money on replacement panels or.. a new tub.
A place in the Philipines makes 90 percent of all replacement jeep bodies out there.. MD Juan is the company name, and a quick google will reveal that opinions are very mixed on their quality. �For what they are able to sell a replacement tub, you couldn't pay most body shops to rebuild a rotted tub. If you end up going the new tub route, know that you will spend upwards of $2500 for it. Plus paint, modifying the incorrect stuff, etc...
So, check that old tub well. Obvious patching may be over good metal, but chances are it is just holding the rot together. �If you notice that there is no vertical seam in the door area, or the tail light area, someone has been busy...Worst case is that they just filled over the rot with bondo and smoothed over the factory seams.. While it looks pretty now, it will be ugly again soon.
The original rear floor and wheelhouse tops were ribbed. It is common to skin over them with flat steel, or even diamond plate. A new rear floor can be pruchased and installed, just the floor is close to $400 now. Front floors can be patched well with flat steel as there were only a few character lines in them.
Underneath the tub are hat channels that add strength to the floor and keep it from oil canning. Original ones are spot welded to the floor, and have wood inside of them to add a little stiffness. Common bad fixes are to leave them off, or use angle iron, tubing, or c channel to replace them.. All are incorrect and lessen the value of a jeep. (Again, for a rockcrawler or trails jeep, you may not care, if the repairs are sound)
There is also a quarter panel reenforcement by the spare tire mounting area on the right back corner of the jeep. It is a curved hat channel, which is tough for the home shop guy to reproduce. When it rots out it normally rots the coner of the jeep too.. Look for bondo and skinned over panels here too.
The original passenger seat was mounted on hinges over a toolbox. The toolbox had a hinged lid, an dis a wonderful place for mice to build a nest , and rot to occur. It is not unusual to see to the ground when you lift the lid. To fix this, the toolbox should be removed, the floor repaired, and the repaired toolbox reinstalled. Lots of times the toolbox has been eliminated when some previous owner decided he wanted to use the seats from his old Firebird in the jeep. (Normally the Firebird seat modification also means relocating the gas tank from under the driver's seat too. )
Mechanical issues when looking at a jeep I will touch on later..
There is also a good guide on purchasing a jeep at eWillys... Go to ewillys.com and click the boxes up top.