TJ's TJ

Thanks. Painting has been a bit of a slog... but refuse to go on to the fun part of starting re-assembly until all the painting is done.

The portable 10x10 harbor freight tent has been so nice to have to paint in. much better than stinking up the house and worrying about dust and overspray in the regular garage. Would be nice to have it a little bigger, but this is all I could fit in the area that I put it.
 
Hood is done, took 2 bottles to do it and the tailgate (both sides):
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We got the fender support brackets done in black as well:
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And we got the doors and windshield frame stripped down, scuffed and in Grey POR:
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The door and frame took around 1.5 bottles, which is one of the problems with the raptor system... planning the jobs so that you don't have a lot of waste. That was the last of my tintable raptor. I used 12 bottles total to cover all body panels inside and out with good coverage. The plan was to do the roll bar in grey as well, but since we just used up the last bottle, it will be black...

Here it is prepped with the hood louver and tube doors:
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We bought 6 bottles of black, used 2 on the bumpers and flares, will likely use 2 on this stuff, leaving 2 for the hard top...
 
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Hard top is last big item needing bedliner. Finish on it is bad and it has a crack that will need to be repaired.
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We got the body mounts cleaned up and painted in POR-15 as well as a new brake booster:
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There are several brackets on the market for re-locating your license plate to the tail gate. We chose the formed one (Solution Plate) from Full Metal Fabworks because we think it looks the cleanest. Nice part, formed from one piece of .090" Al.

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Tail lights & plate frame (with 3rd brake light) painted black:
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And reassembly has officially started! We got the Rock Sliders and rear flares on. Had to cut down the rear 2 side body mounts to account for the slider steel thickness. Did that on the band saw, cut through easily, but a little grabby, so keep a good hold of the rubber:

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Savvy Cable Shifter. Think this is correct given the complete lack of installation instructions:
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And the E-brake handle:
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Our hard top has a nice crack on the drivers side courtesy of your friendly neighborhood AAA fool, trying to unlock the door according to the PO.

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Drilled a hole at the end of the crack, because it seemed like a good idea to stop the propagation:
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Ground out the crack with a 3" 36 grit disc and backed it up with some painters tape:
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Our tops are SMC, so regular polyester resin will not hold (due to the release agents that are trapped inside the SMC). SMC repair epoxy adhesive is recommended, but all I have seen are large tubes for like $70. We have this stuff at work, we will decided to give it a try and hope for the best:

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25 minute working life, viscosity seems about right, pretty thick, it will stick to vertical surfaces:
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Added in a few layers of fiberglass cloth:
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And finally a clamp to keep the sides in alignment:
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We made some 1/4" Aluminum backing plates for the rock sliders:
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And got the new booster installed:
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Then pulled out the heater box to replace the heater core and evaporator:
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I watched a bunch of videos of taking these things apart, all were different than mine, all my screws were from the top I think with the exception of the screw that goes into the heater core bracket that separates the lines. Fan has to come out. I was able to peel off all the gaskets and re-apply them, some videos say to cut them...

Here is the bottom half:
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New (OSC) and old evaporator, they look almost identical:
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Heater cores not so much (hopefully we don't regret swapping a non-leaking copper factory core for an aftermarket aluminum one):
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Moved all the foam gaskets over and installed:
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Then we turned attention to our faded and cracked door panels:
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Hole at the end of the crack:
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Tape on the good side:
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Scuff the back:
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We are trying the same stuff that we used on the top:
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with fiberglass cloth:
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We decided to reinforce the entire length to hopefully prevent future cracks:
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The repair:
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Cleaned good with grey scotch brite pad and sprayway glass cleaner:
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Then used Upol Grip 4 adhesion promoter and ColorBond 163 Crystler Agate:
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https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00G6ILI24/?tag=wranglerorg-20

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And we also got our roll bar covers cleaned and re-dyed. To clean we wet them with a hose, then scrubbed with a stiff brush and soapy water, rinsed and let them dry in the sun:
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DupliColor Flat Black Vinyl and fabric spray (1 can would do 2 good coats, but we got 2 cans. Having 2 makes it easier to spray them flat when the cans get a bit more empty. Hang them vertical to spray to avoid this problem and you will likely get away with 1 can)):
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Hard to see in the pic, but they look brand new:
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