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Nope have not died so far...

7K views 28 replies 3 participants last post by  OlllllllOCJ 
#1 ·
The old red Jeep has a new windshield frame, painted to match the original Sebring Red from the 1980's... Hey why not?

New top. Guess I'll have to fix that! :laugh:

And for the first time in over twenty (20) years... No cracks in the windshield glass! Actually it freaky to drive like that, it's not even dirty.

I impressed myself with strange cost overruns and I won't even mention the fact that you can't buy real replacement parts. What a bunch of junk. Lots of wasted effort but it now is what it is. Still looks like an old dirty 1985 CJ!

I have pictures and complaints... Who would look and listen?

:cheers:
Dale
 
#5 ·
Who would look and listen?

:cheers:
Dale
Oh, I'd probably take a glance. For you, I'd probably even long in to view the pix if I had to.

I pretty much click my bookmark to the board daily, maybe every other day if I get busy. I haven't posted, I pretty much treat new posts as ding-dong dash. Don't know if anybody will be there to read it if I post a response.
 
#6 ·
Well OK....

For Jim and Taz.... I well get the pictures off of the new fricking devices like my phone and tablet, onto an actual computer. Teach myself to post pictures again. This get harder as we go along....

And then you will get tired of my complaints about the junk that I bought and had to use. Should pretty much be a thread killer. :shocked:

:cheers:
Dale
 
#7 ·
Could only find a couple of different version aftermarket windshield frames for an old CJ. Went with this one...



Proving that ISO certification means darn little.



Not sure that I have a picture that shows how poorly the frame was constructed. I complained to Omix and they sent me another one pretty much just like the first one. Both had razor sharp and jagged edges, could carve a ham, could not handle them without wearing gloves. The worst issue with the assembly is that the two stamped halves, inside and outside, do not match up evenly for the window opening. and then there is the mounting hole spacing...



This looks much worse than it actually is if you don't know that the threaded plate inside of the assembly is intended to float for alignment. When you get the silly thing the dip coat paint is holding the threaded bar solid. Not hard to fix that but you first need to know to do it.

Test fitting, no extra charge for my finger in the picture.



Notice the bottom edge of the window opening... Can see that the ridge where the rubber seal needs to seat is much taller in the middle. That isn't a good thing.



After sanding off the sharp edges so that the junk could be handled with bare hands... Marked out a straight edge on both top and bottom of the window opening, grind grind...



Grind some more... And then a base coat of POR15.



That stuff smells scary even for a life long smoker. :smirk:

Let me digress a little. Here is the old, 1985 vintage windshield frame. It was not exactly healthy.



Nice huh? All of that rot was hidden by the rubber seal and the dash pad. Here is the dash pad's back side.



That got a coat of POR15 also.

And a tangent... Anyone remember Don Garlits? Very brave to race this car.



Here is the relationship of the drivers seat to the Ford 9" diff.



To be continued...

:cheers:
Dale
 
#11 · (Edited)
Well OK then, a great tangent in that not so many folks will remember a drag racing crash from 1970. I was young, dumb and full of fun (or full of something like that). Heck I was still in high school. :laugh:

So something that I jumped ahead on with the windshield thing... Yes I guess this should be the windshield thing thread (not really drag racing or whatever other tangents come along). Drilling out all of the freaking holes!!!

This craptastick windshield frame is going to outlast me by years. And how is that you ask? Well it was worked down to pretty much bare metal... Cleaned and treated with nasty, caustic metal prep products. And then coated with some strangeness that is POR15. And before much of that.... Every place that there needs to be a fastner, the hole was drilled out for a nutsert or rivnut or I really don't care what the term should be of the day...

https://www.mscdirect.com/product/details/56586878?rItem=56586878

I still call them nutserts.. Call me crazy as many of you likely do.

So since I don't have access to all of the pneumatic tools that I did twenty some odd years ago... I have to do it by hand, bummer!

I bought this thing... And a different tool for the 1/4" fastners.

Surebonder 8510 6-32, 8-32, 10-24, 10-32, 1/4-20 Threaded Insert Tool - Solid Rivets - Amazon.com

Now before you jump on line and go out to buy the very limited and poorly crafted pile of stuff linked above... Please know that it won't work for very long and you will spend some time making it do what you bought it for. And BTW you better stick with aluminium inserts, likely useless for anything else.

The goal for all of this effort you might ask? There will be absolutely no ferrous metal screws holding on anything! All of the accessory mountings to this craptastic windshield frame will be done up in stainless screws into aluminum nutserts or stainless steel fastners into the POR15 coated pile of junk frame.

Now at the end of the day.... It cost too much, was a total pain in the tail... We have not even gotten to putting glass into it...

:cheers:
Dale
 
#13 ·
Nope not so much. Extra $100 for a weaker frame... All of the hard tops were indeed fiberglass. I don't know of anyone that has used a fiberglass windshield frame even on a fiberglass tub.

When it comes to the windshield... It needs go be pretty solid (even if it's craptastic). And no I didn't look for a stainless one either.

Guess you got me there... Maybe the Kevlar built windshield frames are all the rage, bullet proof!

I don't expect that anyone will be shooting at me... The trees don't seem to have much tolerance no matter what the material construction is!

:blush:

:cheers:
Dale
 
#14 ·
OK, let's just git back to it....

Note the mud and crud, while painting the hinges.



Not exactly a frame off restore... Just working to make that old fool comfortable! Well crap I am that old fool. :smirk:

Cleaned up all the glass and crud on the hood... Rear diff is still leaking, what would it take back in the day to fix that? Oh about 15 or 20 minutes.



There's Grumpy the Scrambler (yard waste hauler)... Leve should remeber that Jeep. But notice the drip pan on the far left of the picture. I really need to dump the rear diff, smack it flat again and put a new gasket in there... Not to mention refill it.

Still have not done that!

Let's just take a tangent! (put some content on here even if it sucks!)

Where where you on July 17th ?

I had a castle with a mote for a really long time that day.

Here's the front (after it drained down a bit.. I wasn't going out there in the pouring rain).



Really better than back in the day.



But I don't think I had this much water from behind me then.



I didn't drown... Just my septic tank did for some time.

And for a happy note... I did some laundry today. :)

:cheers:
Dale

And yes there is more....
 
#15 · (Edited)
OK, so I went to Arbys for lunch... Cloudy and rainy Avon Indiana. There is only one Arbys. Some days might be different weather wise but there will still be only one Arbys, so far. I'm sure that someone will build another.

There was a young kid and his nice young lady... Been to the Bash for the past several years (not this year). She also has a Jeep... Maybe I should pay more attention... Tall fellow and his name is Jordan, darn if he isn't working at a transmission shop just across the street from Arbys! I freaking live here!

I explained that I trashed the windshield and top (again) and took over a year to fix it.

Just go figure...

:cheers:
Dale

Edit: Not Josh... His name is Jordan. I won't name the transmission shop... The nice young lady may well be his wife.. If not then very long time girlfriend. She doesn't say much... Watch her face and eyes...
 
#16 ·
OK, you all have it figured out...

How to take a Taiwan built windshield frame and a Chinese windshield glass and make them fit together? And by my standards... Look like 1985!!!

It's a little bit more tricky than you think And yes all the parts are junk. Guess if it were easy anyone could do it. :laugh:

Grind, grind, grind... I already said that...

So I really don't want to dwell on how the windshield glass ended up being installed. But it did happen.

And then there is something else that I simply had to do. It takes some sort of Jeep or a long relationship, maybe both.

Here's an old picture... Scott Sperling, a couple of kids, me and Wally.



Wally is the Jeep!

Scott is a treat to share a motel room with... It's really easy to tell it Scott is asleep or awake.... Is he snoring? Yes, asleep, no awake.

I enjoy this guy and that is the reason that I simply had to do 4XKids day this year. I am so very sorry that I missed last year.

HOME - 4xkids

I didn't ride any of the kids around this year... There were all of those nice clean new rigs (that really don't go off road) to do that.

I'm good with many things, like the above mentioned things...

But I still want to bitch about some stuff!

:cheers:
Dale
 
#17 ·
Back in the day... Went out to Haspin with some Fat Boys... Everything was frozen and that seemed really good to me (I didn't sink). Someone wanted to go back up the creek! Frozen water falls!

It was fun... Don't ever let Crazy Eddie (Aaron) tell you to give it more gas!

Here's a picture... While fixing it.



Can you imagine the trail that the bent spring left behind? Didn't actually drag the ground when the road. I drove it home.

:cheers:
Dale
 
#19 ·
Nope have not talked to Aaron or Zach for over a year. I don't think the 4 angry squirrels have been to far from the farm.

So I'll continue since no one is complaining...

Windshield frame painted up nicely with base coat, then clear coat rattle can paint, in Sebring Red from Automotive Touch Up Paint from PaintScratch - Order Pro Grade Paint - PaintScratch.com.



Actually nicer than I should have for poor old sled. It matches very well to the places that are not scraped and faded.



As you can see I haven't even washed the Jeep. Also all of the new fasteners are stainless into aluminum nutserts.







Here's one that show the mud still on the glove box door. :shocked:



So as I said at the start... Still looks like a muddy old 1985 CJ!



With a bent up chrome front bumper.





You can actually see through the new side windows. :grin:



And what you see is all the old dust on the roll bar and saddle bags.

That's all good.

But as for the junk. Here is an old wiper arm and a new Omix wiper arm...





Wiper arm won't go on because the silly little clip is too big. Put the old clips into the new arms, works fine.

Ever try to find 11" wiper blades? Just go to NAPA.



That should be boring enough for today.

:cheers:
Dale
 
#21 ·
Nope... Not quite that craptastic....

Seems to be some pot metal casting that has a chrome plating. Its actually three parts the hub as you mention. The sheet metal part that connects the hub to the arm, seems to be stainless... And the arm, could be made of most anything.

Doesn't look exactly like an old CJ wiper arm but unless it rusts down to dust in the next few months. It's close enough.

Too bad that they couldn't make it so that it simply fit.

I bought a bunch of Omix stuff that simply didn't work.

And since I simply want to bitch...

I bought a windshield gasket... Didn't use it because it seemed to be pretty much useless... Had an old gasket hanging out for about 10 years... We used that.

:cheers:
Dale
 
#23 ·
OK, for the windshield gasket but. Absolutely impossible for the wiper blades, I know that you don't take that kitchen ware rig out in the rain but... No way

And btw... The mud is holding my junk together. :grin:

That Haspin mud is actually stronger than steel and most certainly stronger than rust.

:cheers:
Dale
 
#24 ·
It's true! There are three factors responsible for the original wiper blade's long life; Rain-X on the glass so I seldom use the wipers; Silicone on the rubber which protects it from ozone and other nasties; and the Jeep almost never sleeps outside.

Thanks to the Rain-X it was three years after the restoration until I got around to installing the wipers, and the main motivation was that I envisioned a problem justifying their absence if I were ever involved in an accident in the rain.

Toby and I have never been to Haspin. I guess we should do that some time.
 
#25 ·
It's true! There are three factors responsible for the original wiper blade's long life; Rain-X on the glass so I seldom use the wipers; Silicone on the rubber which protects it from ozone and other nasties; and the Jeep almost never sleeps outside.

Thanks to the Rain-X it was three years after the restoration until I got around to installing the wipers, and the main motivation was that I envisioned a problem justifying their absence if I were ever involved in an accident in the rain.

Toby and I have never been to Haspin. I guess we should do that some time.
Not likely that you really want to go to Haspin. Great for breaking stuff! And a long way fro St Louis.

:cheers:
Dale
 
#27 ·
Surely!

What about a fall ride? You folks can bring your mobile houses with a Jeep on a trailer in tow. I'll just drive there in my old "craptasitc" 1985 CJ....

What do you think about that?

I don't want to replace motor mounts, springs or much of any thing else.. Nice long drive... In the freaking old Jeep and then some trail rides. What is that place that you guys have gone to in the past? Land of the Lakes?

Seems like that is it (I could be wrong), needs to be in the next few weeks... Winter will be here soon enough.

:cheers:
Dale
 
#28 ·
Land Between the Lakes. It's between Lake Barkley and Kentucky Lake. It would probably be a lot longer drive for you. For something different I'd just as soon go to Redbird. Haven't been there for a bunch of years, and there's more variety than LBL. Toby is probably out either way. He's got a lot of stuff going on for the next couple of months.
 
#29 · (Edited)
It's always good to have Toby along, the cigar smoke covers up many other bad things like my cigarettes burning.

Well I'm not really a big fan of Redbird, have not been there is a couple of years so maybe it's not valid. Might be marvelous. If we need to do that I'll have to find Tom, he lives right there.

The long drive is part of it, I want to completely shut down my kidneys. :laugh: Old Jeeps ride so smooth on the highway.

Not really looking for much of a challenge other than to spend two or three days out in the old junk, in the woods, interesting views. No rock crawling or extreme stuff is needed. Some simple trail riding would do nicely thank you, I don't have to grab the shift lever to lock the front but it's there as required.

:cheers:
Dale
 
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