Build 68 Kaiser Jeep Gladiator

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Threw the front grill together.
Wife helped me put the hood on for a pic.
Dash is starting to come together
Doors are getting stripped and sealed.

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Got a couple of exhaust studs out. New ones went in and the the Trailblazer down pipes and cats bolted up. The motor is about hammered in. Front clip is all back on.
I don't know i should just print a radio delete plate. I have a 2 knob cassette deck, but even with the knobs all the way it, they won't fit.
Next big step is wiring in the 81 bulkhead connector to the engine harness and light harnesses, wiring in the LS fuse/relay box, and adapting the 81 cab harness to the 68 dash.

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Sexy for sure.
 
Wiring. Sourcing a trans adapter. More wiring.

Back of the 68 dash. New PCB. The wiper switch lost a terminal. The knob and washer button are cool. 81 switch would be better and a plug in. I'll have to figure out a way to make the knob fit.

Both the Lincoln and the Heep need a single 4x10. Guess I'll order a pair.

68 dash is wired except for the heater. Neither the heater or wiper are labelled as to switch position on either 68 or 81 diagrams. It'll take a minute with a meter and the power probe to see what's what. The 68 diagram doesn't even have colors.

I made spreadsheets with pinouts and splices. Printed up a ton of heat shrink labels. It looks like a mess, but I'm in good shape. Best practice seems to be adhesive shrink on the crimp and label as just a label.

Trailblazer harness is about all wired up too. Doing it dirty this time to start. All the TB harness is there. I kept all the stuff I'll disable in the PCM for now. Get it running. Make it clean later.

Got the right trans to transfer adapter finally. Drove all over MI this weekend getting parts and tools. Great weather for road trips. Scored a stomp shear that will be handy on this project. NP241c is bolted to the 4L60. Driveshafts can be ordered.

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Lots of progress. It runs. I had it pretty close, then finally hooked up the data link and checked the PCM. It was a 4.8L with VATS enabled, so I fixed that and it runs well. Idles fine. No smoke.
Doors are on and thrown together enough to move around. Got the right combo of 81 door latches and strikers in the random year doors so thet close and latch.
Core support is modified for the bigger rad and a big trans cooler.
Headlights re-wired and new bulbs. New TS lenses with LED bulbs.
Fuel tank from a 98 Grand Cherokee and skid plate/mount fit great with a little help from a porta power. Bought the Dorman kit and did nylon lines. So much easier than AN
Gotta grab some updated pics tomorrow.
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Been working on the bed. The 68 bed is 7" too long in front of the wheelwells and 5" behind. I sectioned 7" from the upper and lower bed sides. The bed floor just needed to be replaced in the corners.
Gave it a quick 80# bag of sand before it gat dark and before the weather turned. Drilled out the crossmembers, there was rot through the bed at the spot welds and they were all in the wrong place on the late frame.
One of the bed drops was bent badly. After the section the halves didn't much match. Lots of hammer work to get it smoothish and lined up.
Repaired the front sections to get some datum points back. Had to repair several layers deep. Installed the floor corner too soon. Now i have to stand up the bed to planish the upper bed weld. It's got a pretty mean valley of sin.
I did the upper bed side repair first on the other front corner. That side has a better drop and the rust is better on the corner. Less slush on the driver side to rot away the panels.
You can see how bent the wheel arches are. It took a minute to get the other side to line up.

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Punch list keeps getting shorter. I need to order driveshafts and it should drive. New steering linkages, rag joint and column coupler. New brakes all around. New calipers, wheel cylinders and everything. Exhaust is built and hung. Lights work. Getting close
 
Been working on the bed over winter break. Patches are done except for the crossmember spot welds on The bed floor. The corners of the floor are done. In front of the wheel wells is shortened 7". I started picking out dents. There's a ton of them. Clearly a wood truck that's had a lot of split wood tossed in the back.
The worst was probably this crease in a fender flare. It's getting close. Plenty close for filler, but I want so see how good I can get it with a hammer.

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Lots of work done. Not a lot of pics.

Bed is getting the crossmembers welded back in in the new location for the 81 frame. My students are doing a patch panel challenge on the holes in the bed where the rust holes were under the crossmembers. About half of them are filled with varying degrees of competence. I don't care how good they look. The bed really needs a new floor and it's not good enough for that.

2003 Power steering pump hoses connected to the 81 box just fine. Gotta love Saganaw interchangeably. Steering column has new joints and is all bolted up.

2005 silverado NP 261 bolted up to the 2004 4l60. I have a 1310 to 1330 adapter U joint where I should have a 1310 to 1350 so there a lot of slop there. The driveshaft is just tacked together. I picked up a 2005 silverado front driveshaft and ordered 2 1310 to 1350 joints. It's amazing AMC used tiny CJ sized 1310s in the full size trucks.

Took it for a drive. Lots of skids and donuts is more accurate. Tires are smooth. RWD only and polished ice everywhere in MI this week.

Headed out to pick up tires this afternoon.

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I grabbed the winch off the trailer so i could mock up a bumper. Then I took the CAD mock up and put it in CAD so I can get it cut out of plate. HF had a sale, so I can put the 9k winch back on the trailer.

Replaced the axle u-joints and ball joints just because.

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Door glass lifts and channels all in. I did the drivers vent window seal and divider bar. Hole crap what a nightmare. Im holding off on the passenger door vent until I recover. Doors close like butter.

Heater core failed on a test toast. I got the blower motor to turn, but it wasn't happy and drew a good 30 amps. New parts coming.
 
Blower motor with steel cage for extra dicing of rodents, new resistor block and heater core from BJs in. Heater core required some custom mounts and mods, but it fit.

Sheet of 3/16s in and waiting on some CAD clean up. The plasma didn't like the FreeCAD .dwx file, so we're gonna see if AutoCAD can open it. If not, I'll re-draw it quick in AutoCAD.
 
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