After almost 3 years of living with the chinese virus, my wife and I finally got it. Pretty sure I gave it to her, but I have no idea where I picked it up. My symptoms were that of a bad sinus infection. She couldn't get out of bed for about 4 days. That has slowed progress on the jeep considerably. The fatigue that comes with Covid is no joke!
Anyway, I'm back at it. Mostly recovered, though I still have congestion and I can tell I'm not 100%, but I have been working on getting the last few details wrapped up. Things like getting the radio and amp hooked back in, troubleshooting the things that don't work after tearing so much of the jeep apart and just going through and making sure things are ready for the first drive. I've also added a couple projects along the way. One of them was my bull bar that I got parts for a month or so ago. Last weekend, I had some free time waiting on other pieces and parts, so I thought I'd tackle welding that up.
Here are the parts I got from Send Cut Send. Great response and I got exactly what I designed. It was less than a week and pretty reasonably priced as well.
Bolted them down on the bumper and tacked up the Barnes Bull bar. Can't beat it for the 40 or so dollars that it cost
https://barnes4wd.com/products/miter-cut-diy-bull-bar?_pos=1&_sid=d7717f57c&_ss=r
It has, in my opinion, the perfect angle height and spread for a TJ. It just plain fits. The ONLY thing I didn't care for is that it appears that they miter cut the tube ends before they bent it and that caused some difficulty for me. You can see the gap in the second picture that I filled with my welder. With the WRG safety thimble fairlead, I had to make sure there was clearance between the bar and the thimble to make everything work together. I think I would almost prefer the Old Viking tube mount for a thimble. I may work on something like that.
This weekend, I worked on painting it. Used my favorite paint for exterior trim type stuff (Rustoleum Spray bedliner) and got it cleaned up. Here it is, all mounted with fresh hardware
I'm really happy with how this turned out. Been looking for something like this for a while and was contemplating buying some DOM and trying to bend it myself (I have a friend with a bender). This was WAY easier.
The other project I've been working on has been the shifter trim plate for the Auto. The one I got with my transmission fit VERY loosely and had a broken tab...Then Another one broke. These dumb things are like 135 dollars on ebay, if you can find em. I figured I had all the pieces and parts, I just needed some tabs...so I took it all apart and made a 3d Printed trim cover that I can screw the rest of the assembly to.
Here it is, fresh out of the printer
I worked it a little bit with sandpaper and bondo to get it nice and smooth, then painted it to kinda match the original (smooth around the cutouts and textured everywhere else. This also turned out very well. My sheen doesn't match exactly, but its close enough for me. I used satin finish black paint on the cutouts and the bedliner for the rest of it. Here is how it compares to the original
Close up to show texture of bedliner. The original is on top
Fully assembled and installed in the center console. This also turned out VERY well. There are a couple revisions I need to make to the model and printing process, but I may make these available to people who need them.
Right now, the only thing keeping me from putting the interior fully back together is my amp still isn't getting power. Not sure what's going on there, but I'll work on that after dinner.
