CJ-3B

[Bob W]

Thanks guys for all the compliments!!! 

[athawk11]

Thanks Bob.  I get it now.  The pivot point is up by the horizontal bar and the plate where the cable connects is not 'fixed' to the lower part of the rear shoe. 

Shows my utter lack of understanding different style brake systems.

[Bob W]

Finally finished up the rear parking brakes. My rear parking brake cables and linkage are now like a DJ-3A. Thanks to the guys over on the DJ-3A forum I was able to get dimensions for, and fabricate, a "DJ" parking brake lever. This is necessary to give a mechanical advantage to the CJ-3B parking brake cane style pull handle.

[Bob W]

Here is more of the story leading up to this project. Off and on for years I had been looking at existing photos of the real X98, trying to figure out how to replicate the unique hood and grill. It has a combination of CJ-3B and CJ-5 characterisitics. I finally decided to go for it and picked up this rough CJ-3B. I'm not a body guy, and I really don't enjoy doing body work, so this was going to be a challenge. First I photographed my "new" CJ-3B from the same angle as an original X98 photo. Using a photo editing program I scaled my CJ-3B to the same size as X98. Then I traced the outline of X98's grill and overlayed it onto the CJ-3B. This allowed me to visualize the changes that were necessary. I was pleased to see that the CJ-3B's 7 slots were the correct height and placement.




The top edge of the grill needed to reshaped to be like a CJ-5 grill and the headlights and parking lights relocated. I already had a DJ-5 hood and grill in stock.






Also in my pile of parts I'd been saving the correct style headlights and parking lights for X98. More mockups and planning....




Then cut and weld. A thin section of the top edge of the CJ-5 grill was spliced onto the the CJ-3B grill, the center of the top edge of the CJ-3B grill needed to be added because CJ-5 grills don't have that little divot. Then fillers were welded into the headlight holes and parking light holes. The final grill ended up being 7 seperate pieces welded together.




Next up was the hood. For some reason I don't have any photos of this. It was way more difficult than the grill, I guess the camera was the last thing on my mind. Except for the front edge, the DJ-5 hood was wrong in almost every aspect. It was too wide and too short at the rear and therefore the sides and most of the top were not even close to correct for X98. I ended up cutting the DJ-5 hood into a T shape to use the front edge and the center raised portion. Even the center raised section was too wide, but changing that is way beyond my limited skill set, so it stayed as is. The rounded front area of the DJ-5 hood had to be rounded further to match the lines of the new narrower but taller X98 hood. This required a lot of metal shrinking. Even the bosses for the hood latches had to be flattened. I removed the rear inner reinforcement and hood hinge from the CJ-3B hood and then welded the DJ-5 cut out T section to the CJ-3B reinforcement/hinge assembly. Now it was a matter of cutting and bending some flat sheet to make up the missing sections of both sides. After it was all welded up there was still days of shrinking metal to force everything into place.




Then the final touch was installing one of the CJ-3B embossed side WILLYS pieces into the center/front of the DJ-5 hood section. The hood ended up being made up from 5 seperate pieces welded together.

[garage gnome]

That's pretty cool Bob! Glad to see that you got it to work. It really does look like a prototype.

[athawk11]

I'm a huge fan of this Willys.  I enjoyed the photos and write up on how you did this.

To the X98...It should have been the replacement for the 3A.  I wonder how this choice might have influenced later designs.

Tim

[JeepFever]

I did not realize until now that the X98 was an actual prototype.    Nice work!   That hood looks like it was fun to make.      

[Ryan_M]

I absolutely love this Jeep. Thanks for posting these extra pics and description. Very tedious work but outstanding result.

[johnrb3b]

Very nice work.
Of course you realize it's going to confuse a lot of old Willys guys.
It's a CJ-5 . . . no, wait . . . it's a flatfender . . . no, wait it's a . . . wait, what?
 

[jpet]

Hey guys,

Here are some more rockin' awesome shots of X98 and Bob W kick in' it at Rausch Creek off-road park yesterday.  This obstacle is called "Crawler Ridge"



Here's one of X98 showing off his abs:



... and picking a tire:



Bob is a great trail boss.  I love wheeling with him and X98.  Charter members of the Super Stock Willys Club.

[Bob W]

Thanks for posting the photos of X98 in action 

[Ryan_M]

What a treat to finally see the X98 in person. A great looking and performing rig. Having an Ace Pilot behind the wheel doesn't hurt either. Fearless Bob!

[Bob W]

Finally, another step forward. Removed the leaking T-90 transmission and noisy D-18 transfer case.




And installed a T-90C and a modified D-18 with 4:1 low range gears.




Hopefully this will slow things down in the rough stuff. Not as low as I'd like to go but I wanted to stay with stockish gearboxes.

Edit, the stock crawl ratio was 37:1, now it is 74:1.

[jpet]

It's about time!

 

[oldtime]

This is an very interesting developement.
I always figured 75/1 is about where true rock crawling begins.
The T90 C is the lowest geared of the Borg Warner 3 speeds @ 3.339.
The drivetrain strength should be ample behind the Hurricane.
I think you could drive it hard using that combo with little fear of breakage.