My YJ is no longer square man

Whats more patriotic than making my Jeep look more traditional on 4th of July (long) weekend?

Friday I was at the salvage yard picking up a couple odds and ends that can only be gotten at a salvage yard (or the Dealership if you want to bend over and be violated) like rubber firewall grommets a fuse/buss box out of a TJ for rewiring, some weather striping etc. I happened across a TJ grill with a small crush dent... cheap round headlight conversion anyone?

TJ grills go for over $400 from the dealership and commonly sell for $250+ on ebay (used) I got this one for next to nothing because of the damage, so I grabbed a second damaged one, that had good metal where the other was crushed; for cutting a sheet metal patch to weld on the first grill. Worked like a charm. I am constantly impressed that my $120 dollar Harbor Frieght flux based mig can do things like this (with a little extra dressing of the welds of course).

Working out the turn signals proved to be the biggest time consumer, the biggest fustraition was some re-welding I had to do when I over used the 60 grit deburring wheel and wore a hole in the fresh weld patch. Causing a new mini patch to be made and welded in.

I used 2" round flush mount trailer sealed ambers as my signals and marked out their location based on old flat fender pics about the same placement as a CJ's signals. Of course these are MARKER lights and don't have a second filiment like running/signal bulbs. So after checking a couple trailer places and having no luck. I had to cobble something together using PVC pipe, the old YJ turn signal sockets, and the lens of the 2" amber markers... The white plastic on the backs of these is PVC! so the PVC pipe (1 3/4 OD) glued right to it after I carved a hole out the same size as the inside of the PVC. The stock YJ sockets actually SNUGGLY slid into the PVC tube. That'll do until I find dual filiment 2" flush mounts. What I ended up with looks exatly like flush mounts but behind the rubber gromet is about 1.5" of PVC tube with the YJ's bulb and socket at the end.

I cut off the grill rod supports from my YJ's grill and welded them onto the TJ (the TJ's rods aren't a good fit and aren't adjustable like the YJ's are; and I may need the adjustment to make things nice and tight)

The sheet metal was another minor adventure... it's not as snug as I'd like and the fenders are about 1/2 inch pushed out on either side due to the TJ grill being a bit wider. The hood line is pretty decent but there are wider gaps in the corners of the grill (I used my YJ hood) that would make a customizer or autobody guy cringe; But it's a Jeep and an extra 1/4 inch of gap isn't that bad. I haven't decided how I'm going to make the gaps nicer (curf and relieve the hood to decrease the curve in the corner, or patch and build up the grill in the corners to meet the YJ's sharper radius) but I'm planning a new paintjob so there's lots of sheetmetal work in this round headlight YJ's future anyway.

I can't think of an easy way to share some pics of the finished (mostly) product besides updating my jeep project page so I am going to take some time this week and do that.

Reply to
Simon Juncal
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Simon Juncal did pass the time by typing:

alt.binaries.pictures.autos.4x4 :)

Sounds like a cool project.

Reply to
DougW

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