I test fitted the new Bestop soft top today.

I got the 1 ton steering welded up. I'm still deciding whether to paint the bars or get them powder coated that speckled silver/black that you see on a race car chassis.
As a side note, I'm going to place the order for both driveshafts on Monday. Carolina Driveline will get the call to build them.

After I test fitted the soft top, I wet sanded and buffed out the hood, and added the name of the Jeep.

Other side. I wasn't sure that matte black was going to look good, but I like the contrast between the glossy red and the matte black.

Half doors are painted. So, that's it for the smaller body parts. I hope to lift the tub off the frame next Saturday, and begin stripping it down to bare metal, and get going on the body work. My plan is to paint the tub on Memorial Day weekend, or at worst, the weekend after.

Looking great Dave!

Houston....we have separation.

In addition to the body work, paint, and Monstalining the interior, there is work to do on the chassis as well.

its neked !!!

I completed half of the paint stripping work on the tub today. I used several different methods: chemical paint stripper to get most of it off, and a DA sander and a wire wheel to get the rest off. I'll finish stripping the other half tomorrow, and then it'll be ready for epoxy and high build prime coats on Monday.

The tub is now completely stripped of all of that crappy orange paint!!
Tomorrow, we prime.

Made a small amount of progress on the exhaust system this evening.

Hmmmmmmmmmn, that's interesting. Do I spy a trans cooler right above the skid plate? Keep on chugging along. I love your build. I hope I can get to my Dart soon.

I admit, this isn't much to look at, but in the interest of chronicling all of the steps of my build, I'm currently in the process of doing the body work on the tub.



In an effort to give the sheet metal a smoother, continuous look, I filled in all of the body seams with All Metal.


I welded shut and smoothed over all un-needed holes in the firewall. I think it was about 25 holes in all.

Building the tailpipes was a lot easier than I had imagined. A couple of 45º elbows and a section of straight pipe with a 25º baloney cut, some welding, and done! It's about time something was easy to do on this rig!! I plan on sending out the head pipes and tailpipes to be ceramic coated the same gray color as the headers.

Wow, its a good thing I checked the blower motor to firewall fitment! Many months ago, I bought a new blower motor for the heater system. I recently read somewhere that the replacement motors are larger than the original motors. So tonight, I looked through my parts storage room, and found the new motor. I put it up to the hole in the firewall, and sure enough, its way too big. So, I grabbed the tin snips and increased the hole diameter by about a half inch. The adjacent smaller hole for the electrical connector had to be trimmed larger as well.
I'm just glad I discovered this BEFORE the firewall was painted! I'll make a sealing gasket out of closed cell foam.
BTW, the tub is scheduled to be painted on June 14th.

Good catch