nice, looking good, to nice to take off road

Hey Dave, where the horn button come from? I've got that wheel on my CJ & need a button. Nice work on the tire rack, I'm building one too. They kinda proud of those latches.

Thanks Mark

Thanks a lot. Mark

I needed to install a shoulder harness bar on my roll cage, and I thought I'd have to resort to getting one made, but I found one online for a Jeep for $50 bucks, so I took a chance. I figured if it didn't fit, I could make it fit. It's a good thing I was prepared, because it didn't. It was about 2" too short, and it stuck out away from the backs of the seats too far for my liking.
So, I shortened the legs by 3". It was almost a shame to cut them off, because the notches fit perfectly. Well, Johnny Roll to the rescue! After cutting them off, I slipped on a Johnny Roll, and trimmed it to match the contours of the notch, and used it to mark the cut lines on the new ends of the harness bar. Broke out the angle grinder, and went after it.




I chop sawed it in half, and slid a DOM joiner tube inside, which allowed me to get the new length just right. I'll add a short length of DOM tubing over the joiner, of course, and add some rosette welds. I'm also going to add a pair of vertical bars that will join the new harness bar with the other horizontal bar below it.

The shoulder harness bar is in. It's about 50% welded, I'll finish up the welding when I pull it out for painting.

Today, I disassembled and washed the heater system, inside and out. I'm going to replace the heater coil, blower motor, and the resistor. Better to replace them now, then when its back under the dash.
While the outside of that steel cover panel looked good, the inside is pretty rusty. A little sandblasting and a coat of paint will give it a second lease on life.

BREAKER-BREAKER 1-9, THIS HERE'S JEEPER DAVE, DO YOU COPY... COME-ON......

Well, it seems that Jeeps ought to have a CB, so I bought one. Its the same old story, I was planning to buy an inexpensive CB, but then I figured, for a few bucks more, I could get a nicer one, and for a few bucks more, I could an even better one....and so I ended up here.
After a lot of thought and going back and forth, I finally decided to go with the Cobra 29 LX. I really didn't want the chrome model, but it was actually the best price I found for this model. I figure that since I'm mounting it inside my dash anyway, 95% of that gawdy-azz chrome will be unseen, so I went for it.
Now, I'm going to have to think of a good handle....

A pic of the tentative layout for the center part of the dash.
Similar to what I made for the tach and speedo, I'm going to create angled cups for these gauges, so they can be angled toward the driver.

Forget that dash layout I posted earlier, here is the final dash layout. I'm going to make angled mounting cups for the four gauges, which will be mounted to a common mounting plate, so they can go in and come out as one unit. The angled housing for the radio and CB isn't done, obviously. I still need to make faceplates and brackets that will secure those units to the housing. The housing itself will be attached to the dash panel by four 1/4-20 studs.




In case anyone was counting and noticed a gauge missing, I liked the looks of the 4 gauge cluster, so I'm going to mount the trans temp gauge on the center console in an angled cup, just like the other gauges.

I am sure you thought of this but just in case. Is there enough depth behind the radios to clear the heater box?

Is there anything you don't think of? Silly question, sorry. As always, the work is impressive and attention to detail is unparalleled.

Some more dash progress. Got the stereo head unit and CB mounted in. The mounting plates will be painted wrinkle black, to match the gauge cluster panel.

American Autowire Highway 22 wiring harness kit is on the way. I didn't need that many circuits right off the bat, but the extra circuits will come in handy down the road when I add things like EFI and auxiliary lights.

You can get a 90 degree coax adapter that will give you a tad more clearance for the CB coax if needed.