Builds Two 62s Become One - Build Thread

[diesellibrarian]

Another small update. I hope folks don't mind these nothingburger progress reports. It helps to keep me motivated to document my progress, however small.

I used the last few warm(ish) days of fall to pull the rear axle out of the 89. It's in pretty rough shape. Super dirty and rusty; in fact, the brake backing plates have rusted through in several spots. I'm moving the axle to the 88 so that remains a roller. Spent $20 on casters to make a couple of small dollies. Dollies and a couple of ratchet straps made this job relatively easy even though I was working on my own.

The 89 has OME springs that are in decent shape, though again dirty and rusty like everything else on the truck. I attacked them with soap and water, degreaser, and a wire wheel, getting them cleaned up for paint. This is how they look after a coat of POR-15 and a couple of coats of Rustoleum:

With the axle out of the way, I spent a fair bit of time wire-wheeling and cleaning up the sheet metal. Overall it's not in terrible shape, but still found a few areas to treat with POR-15. The whole underside will get some sort of undercoating before reassembly. But that is a way off as I still have a fair bit of rust repair to do.

 

[diesellibrarian]

On the 89, the crossmember supporting the body mounts immediately behind the rear wheels was quite rotten. The driver's side had disintegrated completely, but the passenger side wasn't quite as bad - or so I thought! Anyway, I initially cut just part of the crossmember out of the donor truck, but then realized that the best plan was to replace the whole piece. Unfortunately, by then I'd already cut it in two. So my first task in replacing the crossmember was to weld so that it was a single piece again:

As you can see. I really hacked it up during the removal process. But was able to get it welded together again, and it's (almost) as good as new!

Even though the crossmember from the 88 is in much better shape than the one its replacing, there was still some pretty serious rot on one end. The mounting flange was swiss cheese, and the box section in that area was very thin and had some perforating rust as well:

This meant that I pretty much had to rebuild that whole crossmember end. It was a real challenge for my newbie welding/fab skills, but I think it turned out ok:

At any rate, the crossmember repair is complete! My plan is clean the whole piece up and spray with an etching primer before painting it and spot welding it back into the truck. Just need the warmer weather to return!

 

[diesellibrarian]

Spent another weekend out in the cold wind, working on my 62. The goal was to get all the suspension stuff sorted, and get it sitting on all four wheels again. Mission accomplished!

First thing I did was install the freshly-painted rear axle. The lower shackle bushings are a little worn, so I'm going to have to replace those before I get it back on the road. The upper bushings are poly, and appear to be in great shape, so they can stay. Also still need to zip off the ends of the u-bolts.

The worst part of this job was installing the bump stop on the right side. Both bolts were broken off inside the frame, so I had to drill them out and cut new threads. Unfortunately, when I was drilling the front bolt, the bit broke off and the end of the bit stayed in the hole, which meant that I kind of had to drill around it. I probably ruined three bits digging the thing out, and then ended up having to tap the frame itself at M12x1.25. So now I have a huge honking bolt holding my bump stop on.

After the back wheels were on, I moved to the front. Replaced the u-bolts and sway bar links and bushings. Also installed new OME shocks.

Also replaced my pitted shackles with Terrain Tamer greasable anti-inversion shackles. These things are beefy! The poly bushings were in great shape, even though the old shackle pins were really rough, so no need to replace them at this time. Aside from the rear shocks and an alignment, the suspension on this rig is complete and ready to go! Feels good.

Once the sun goes down, it gets too cold to work outside, so I headed down to the shop to finish up my work on the crossmember that supports the cargo floor. It is welded, painted, and ready for installation! Hope to get to that next weekend, if the weather cooperates.

That's all for now!

 

[diesellibrarian]

Figured it was time to inject a bit of tech into this thread, so let's talk rear sway bar hangers! When I took delivery of the 89, I noticed that the rear sway bar was sitting on the back seat. Didn't think much of it till I went to drop the fuel tank and noticed that the sway bar hangers were missing. So I made a note to harvest the ones off my 88, which i did a few days later. Removing them proved to be a bit of a bastard due to rusted hardware and the rusty c-channel interfering. Long story short: I got the hangers out, but the mounting bolts either broke off or got mushroomed from me pounding on them. But the hangers themselves were totally usable, if rusty.

For those who don't know, the hanger mounting bolts are spot welded to the hanger (I had assumed they were pressed in), but with some good pounding I was able to free them. Once they were out, though, the problem I encountered was: how do I get new bolts in there? Really it's only the top one that is problematic, because there's almost no clearance. So that is what this post is about.

After some thinking, I decided that the least destructive way to get a bolt in would be to drill a hole through the top of the hanger. I started with a small bit, then enlarged it with a step drill. Then I de-burred the edge with a file and smoothed the edges. The hole was still too small, though, so to get the bolt through I chucked it up in my drill press and put a file on it to round out the bolt head so it would fit through the hole. Worked great.

Since the bolt head is rounded off, and since there would be almost no way to get a wrench or socket in there anyway, I decided to weld the bolt to the hanger, as shown in the pic below:

I'll leave the lower bolt loose, for ease of mounting. The bolts I used are M8 x 1.25, 35mm long, with at 10.9 hardness rating, which is probably harder than necessary, but it's all they had at the fastener store.

Finished things off with fresh link bushings from Terrain Tamer.

And that's it! Hope this helps someone who finds themselves in this situation. All in all was a fun project and most importantly it will mean no more sway bar rattling around inside the links!

 

[HemiAlex]

Those brackets are known to break the bolts off. I disconnected the rear bar on my 60 on a really technical trail last year, it’s actually really nice to wheel with the rear sway bar on for easy and moderate trails. Cuts all of the springboard action out.

 

[diesellibrarian]

Oh yeah, and please admire this vise that I just found on Marketplace for $100. 7" jaw opening!

 

[diesellibrarian]

Those brackets are known to break the bolts off. I disconnected the rear bar on my 60 on a really technical trail last year, it’s actually really nice to wheel with the rear sway bar on for easy and moderate trails. Cuts all of the springboard action out.

The most I'm likely to see is some rutted fire roads, so I'm happy to hang on to the sway bar for now. But that's good to know if I ever get into more extreme wheeling.

 

[HemiAlex]

I have thought about finding a quick connect cam lock bolt for the end links and the frame mounts.

Something like you attach the front wheel of a road bike with.

That would make it really easy to pop on and off.

 

[diesellibrarian]

I have thought about finding a quick connect cam lock bolt for the end links and the frame mounts.

Something like you attach the front wheel of a road bike with.

That would make it really easy to pop on and off.

I almost wonder if a clevis pin at the upper link would do the trick?

 

[HemiAlex]

They do it like that on Jeeps. My buddy lost an end link with that style. I’d want something with a more positive lock.

 

[diesellibrarian]

Managed to get a bit of work done on the Cruiser project over the holidays. Mostly indoor-type stuff, since the weather has been pretty cold.

The first thing I did was touch up the license plate light badge and clean up and repaint the console using Dupli-Colour Charcoal Gray vinyl paint. These little cosmetic touches will make it that much more satisfying to put the rig back together:

 

[diesellibrarian]

Also got my new wheels and tires mounted: 235/85r16 on 70 series steelies. The look is exactly what I was going for.

 

[diesellibrarian]

Had one warm (ish) day in there, so I hauled out my welder and set about working on the driver's side floor, which had a couple of holes in it. A previous owner had covered the whole thing with tar and some kind of sheet metal, so that made this job extra fun!

In the process of removing the floor pan, I discovered some more rust on the sill, so I had to change gears and patch that up:

Patch piece clamped in place and ready for welding. I'm obviously going to have to rebuild my rockers as well. It's nice to have something to look forward to...

Welded up and painted to prevent future rust:

Next step will be to weld in this pan from my donor truck:

 

[MarkBC]

What did you use for the patch piece?

Looks like we have the same welder, Lincoln Migpak 140? Canadian Tire special.

 

[ceylonfj40nut]

Are you willing to part with the manual shift boot and transfer case boot on your part out truck? I am in search of a set.

 

[diesellibrarian]

What did you use for the patch piece?

Looks like we have the same welder, Lincoln Migpak 140? Canadian Tire special.

Just a piece of 18ga steel that I hammered into shape on my vise.

Mine's a 140MP? Is that the same one? I bought this one because it's a multi-process welder and I want to learn TIG eventually.

 

[diesellibrarian]

Are you willing to part with the manual shift boot and transfer case boot on your part out truck? I am in search of a set.

I don't have a manual gearbox so I don't have that boot but I definitely have the transfer case boot. Send me a direct message if you're interested.

 

[Greek Cruiserhead]

Great job done so far mate!
Following along and learning!

PS. You opted for great colour, rims , tyres ...

 

[diesellibrarian]

All right well I'm working from home this week because of a COVID-19 case in my family, so what better way to spend a Monday morning than posting my weekend's progress on this project? My goal was to get the floor pan repair wrapped up, and thanks to a few relatively warm and sunny days, I was able to do that.

So things got off to a slow start, since as I was test-fitting the patch panel, I could see that there was more rust bubbling up on the top of the sill. So, I ended up cutting the floor back a little to patch that, since I knew it would cause problems in the future:

And here's the little sill patch welded in place:

With that done, I moved to welding in the new floor pan with a combination of butt welds, lap welds, and plug welds. I also had to use a bit of kitty hair filler on a couple of spots where I kept blowing through with my welder. I'm sure someone who's better at welding could have made it work, but sometimes us amateurs need to cut our losses. I actually ended up spreading filler lightly over all of the joins, to fill any pinholes that I might have missed with the welder.

So, after grinding, sanding, seam sealing, and paint, this is what it looks like. The welds are still lumpy, yes, but I'm not too worked up about that because this will be hidden by layers of sound deadening and carpet. I'd rather leave the welds a little proud than accidentally grind through.

With this part done, I will move to the rear of the truck and get the cross member and quarter panels installed, along with a few other rusty bits.

Or...maybe I'll do the rockers? It's hard to say - there is so much left to do! Thanks for following along.

 

[kelly saad]

This thread is awesome, and good job on all of this!