Okay, so I never bothered to take pictures of the completed body work. Sorry about that. I've been busy for quite a few weeks and the Jeep has sat pretty much untouched in my shop during that time.
About a week ago I started to remove the body pieces and I only have the front fenders and tub left to disassemble. Soon.
There are some things I'm pulling off that aren't going back on. They will instead be replaced with new parts. Hinges. Stuff like that. I am probably going to go back with stainless steel fittings in their place. Steering column will be replaced. And I'm going to get a new and improved heater box. These items will be purchased in January through March.
The body parts will go in for paint some time in April or May and I will need to have the bulk of my mechanical mods done by then so that everything can start going back on shortly thereafter. Right now the only two new mods I have on hand are the new electronic ignition (a DUI distributor) and new wiring harness.
Getting the body tub off is going to take a while since there are so many things that go through the firewall that must all be removed first...brakes, steering column, clutch, etc. Have to clear some room in the shop to store all this stuff (and label things).
Still haven't decided on a color to paint the thing. I was leaning toward yellow or orange but lately I have seen a lot of Jeeps that are painted up like that and now I am thinking that would not make it very distinctive. Not that that is the goal...purple would be very distinctive but very ugly. At this point I may just make it blue again. Just don't know.
The other thing I have to work out and make a final decision on is the dashboard layout. How many gauges and how to arrange them. The dash will need to be completed at or around the same time that the paint is done so that everything will be ready to reassemble.
But right now I am just spending an hour here and there as those times are available to pull one thing after another off of and out of the thing. Probably another six to eight hours and I will be ready to unbolt the tub from the frame and get it onto the trailer for its trip to the paint shop in April/May. Then I can get to work on painting the frame & the engine, doing the front brake conversion...stuff like that.
And no, I am not concerned with "spinning" the tires. I just want as much power as possible to be available to send to the business end of the axles. If I wanted a drag racer I would have replaced the engine and the transmission with something appropriate for that purpose. I kept the original engine because it is, in essence, a tractor engine...something with a lot of torque. That said, though, there is nothing wrong with a Jeep that has a little bit of get up and go in traffic situations.