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I've been spending again! My '43 GPW


Jessie The Jeep

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The grey was left to dry for a while until just a little tacky, and then the olive drab was sprayed. This would give the olive a good chemical and well as mechanical bond to the grey. After drying overnight, the olive was given two more coats and is being left over the bank holiday to fully cure. The tub will then be turned and the top painted.

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  • 4 weeks later...

On Monday 6th May, the Jeep's 70th birthday, the tub was turned over ready for painting the top the following morning. On Tuesday, the difficult to reach areas were sprayed with the airbrush, then the whole tub sprayed grey. Later that day, the first olive drab coat was sprayed. The following day, two further coats of olive were sprayed.

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On Thursday 9th, I started replacing some of the fittings on the tub. The fuel tank strap fitting has a nice 'f' mark on it. Like so many of the 'f' marks, it's a shame it can't be seen when the tank is in!

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Starting to fit out the instrument panel.

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While on the subject of tank straps, I had one of the long sections, but was missing the other, and both short sections. Fortunately Universal Jeep Supplies had two left. However, when they arrived, I sensed a slight problem!

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Both small sections had the hooks riveted the wrong way. I contacted them about it, and they said I could return them, but had no others to replace them. I said I would just un-rivet them and turn them around, but thought they should know in case they had a whole batch made wrong. The funny thing is that nobody else had complained or returned them, so either all the others were ok, and I happened to get the only two wrong ones, or nobody else who bought them has tried to fit them yet!

A few minutes with the grinder removed the rivets and the hooks were turned to the correct direction, and new rivets made from some short lengths of piano wire heated and hammered down.

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Fuel tank fitted, along with the sender and wiring. As on my other Jeep, I've added an additional earth to the sender running along the other wire to the side of the tub.

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At this point, most of the items in the instrument panel are just trial fitted while I worked out wiring routes.

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The wiring harness was almost £200, but nicely made, colour coded, and each section bagged and labelled as to which colour trace goes from what to what. This did simplify the job a great deal. Even so, the stiff wire doesn't make it easy to feed wire around and past each other inside the instrument panel. A blanket on the tub floor made it slightly more comfortable while on my back with my head under the panel.

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While browsing the net, looking at another Jeep restoration, I realised that the bolts for the rear seat clips were missing. Worse still, was that they are blind bolts, fitted to the inside of the hat channel.

The only way to make a repair was to cut some long threads that pass through the hat channel, but not through the rear skin of the tub. The studs were then brazed at the surface of the hat channel, unfortunately damaging the surrounding paint at the same time. I couldn't think of another way of doing it, so need to do a little paintwork touch up.

I think this is pretty much the last job on the tub before it is fitted to the chassis.

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  • 1 month later...

I didn't realise that it's been a while since an update. In early June, I finally got the tub refitted. After moving the aircraft trailer down the drive, and getting both Jeeps out of the garage, the first job was to wheel the tub from the workshop to the garage on the wooden trolley.

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Next the tub was tipped upright and suspended from the engine hoist.

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The chassis was then rolled back under the tub, and two rear bolts fitted to align it. The front was then lowered into place. The steering column came next, followed by the right side handles and bow brackets that had been left off while the tub was on its side on the trolley.

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  • 1 month later...

It's been a while since an update, but I haven't been idle, so here's some more recent progress pictures.

The windscreen rubbers we in fairly good condition, though solid with layers of paint. They were placed in a tub with brake fluid, and left to soak for a couple of weeks. After that time they were removed and given a good wash, leaving me with some nice clean, usable seals.

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The inner windscreen frame had repairs made with brazing rod, to rebuild the corroded areas.

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The holes in the screen frame for the wipers was vastly oversize, perhaps from the fitting of a post war wiper. Steel tubes were brazed in to return them to the correct size.

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These are the steel tubes prior to brazing into the screen, along with some bushes to bring the wiper size to that of the tube.

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