The Jeep Heap - '49 CJ3a

[DaveW]

The weather is pretty chilly in the winters here in Wisconsin, so over the holidays, I was looking for some more parts and managed to snag two rear pto setups.

One was kind of greasy and came with a shortened shaft, which was fine because I intended to shorten it more to use with my overdrive setup.




The other was a bit rougher looking and came with a full-length shaft.

[DaveW]

I had some free time to work on the Rear pto gear box a little.


The outside looked okay. It seemed that someone sprayed a coat of red primer over the whole thing.




Turns out the guts looked a little rougher than I had hoped.




The bearings an races were definitely shot


Thankfully all the cast pieces cleaned up pretty nicely with the soda blaster


Here's all the bearings, races, seals, and gaskets I intend to replace.


All the new stuff.


Soaking the guts and hardware in Evaporust


Everything actually cleaned up and came out pretty nicely.

[DaveW]

I sold my set of seats that came in the jeep so I needed to get my correct 3a ones installed.

I live close to Lake Winnebago in Wisconsin, so it's a pretty big deal to go out on the lake in the winters for ice fishing. On February 9th is the opening day of Sturgeon spearing (spearing a huge 6' long fish with a trident) on the lake, so I wanted to have the new seats done by then so I can go romp around the lake in the jeep.

The set of seat frames that I got a while back needed a bit of repair work to the driver's side legs. Seems they have nearly rusted away over the years.



There are the remnants of the legs that were left that I cut off.


I made some new legs using 1" 16ga tubing. It was pretty simple to flatten the tubing in a smooth jawed vice, then bend them over.


I first tacked them together, then test fit them in the jeep to make sure that the legs were clocked correctly. I did end up adjusting the right leg a little for a better fit, but I was pretty close.


Ground the welds smooth and they look at good as new.

[DaveW]

The next project was to upgrade the sealed beam headlights. They aren't overly bright as most of you are aware.

I found a post a while back about these Euro style lenses from Hella that use an H4 bulb that plug right into the factory harness.


The lights are noticeably brighter. I haven't taken a measurement, but I'm going to see what kind of voltage is actually getting to the headlights. I think I can get even more output if I wire in a relay setup.

[DaveW]

One week to go until Sturgeon spearing, so I've got to get moving on these seats. I ordered covers and springs from Walcks. Then picked up the rest of the supplies (foam, batting, and muslin) from the local craft store. I'll post some more pictures of the upholstery process when I get to it.

Tonight I was spraying some self-etching primer on the frames after about two hours of wire brushing and using a scotchbrite pad to prep the surface.

[squidtone]

Nice stuff. I've got overdrive/PTO envy!

[DaveW]

Nice stuff. I've got overdrive/PTO envy!

Thanks!

I'll have to do a little work to shorten the driveshaft, but it'll be fun once it's all together.

[DaveW]

Little more work this morning on the seat frames. After I got a solid base of the self-etching primer, I sprayed some high build primer on them in hopes of filling in some of the pits. After this coat, I'll send them and  spray another to even it all out.







Since it has been a few months since I've taken the jeep out for a spin, I couldn't resist today since it's up to 35 degrees (it was -25 Wednesday and Thursday). I tossed a bag of rock salt on top of the gas tank to sit on and took it for a spin around the block.

Before going, I did manage to get my new horn wired up. It was pretty simple since the wire was still in the column. I just had to run a hot from the ammeter to the horn, then another short wire to the column wire to ground it.