Update!

Sandblasting awesomeness!!

Ever sandblasted anything?  Well if someone ever offers nicely to let you help them out by doing it.  Politely decline, or tell them to go pound sand.  It might be one of the filthiest most dirtiest things I have ever done.  I was wearing protective head gear and safety glasses, and still the next morning when I got up I was picking sand out of my eyes.  Not to mention the other unmentionable places you get sand.  Kind of like going to the beach, and rolling around in the sand...naked. =)

 As you can see from the above pic.  We used an above ground spider rack to lift the body off of the frame.  Not the easiest things to do, and seemed entirely too unstable because of how small the tub is on the Jeep.  Either way it stayed in the air for a couple weeks while we worked on the frame.  Also while we had the body  off we put a new clutch kit in just to be sure it was new.

Boxes of parts

Now is when we started getting into the real nitty gritty of the tear down, and my father has a super amazing way or organizing everything he takes apart.  Just throw everything you take off into a box.  No rhyme or reason.  Just fill multiple boxes with every nut, bolt, or piece of hardware that you take off.  At this point I am thinking he is quite mad, but he has worked as a frame technician in a body shop for years so it goes without saying that he knows that he is doing.

As you can see we literally stripped everything out of the jeep, and just made a huge pile of parts in the corner of the body shop.  During the process of tearing down we were also making a list of parts that should be replaced while we had it apart.  That way I wouldn't have to worry about something stupid like a water pump blowing up on me after only having the jeep back together for a month.

Someday when I find a scanner that I can just feed paper through I will be sure to scan all of my bills.  Then I will be able to come up with an actual total of everything I put into the Jeep, and also it will be a great way for me to keep a hold of my receipts just in case if I do have any problems with the parts that I installed.

The beginning of the restoration

So after I bought the Jeep my father and I decided that a frame off restoration would probably be the best idea.  That way we both would know exactly what type of condition the Jeep was in, and know if there were any other nasty rust spots in the frame that couldn't be seen with the body on.  I had no idea what we were getting into since it was the first time I had ever even attempted any sort of project like this, but everyone just about shat their pants when I would say the phrase "taking the body off of the frame."

Now would be a good time to state that my old man is super handy when it comes to anything automotive so without him none of this would have been possible in the least for me without spending a ton of cash monies.  He really has put a ton of time into this for me, and I owe it all pretty much to him for the direction that this project has gone.  Guess I will have to come up with a clever way to repay him, and show my appreciation.

The start of the covert mission

   This is the Jeep the first day I got it.  I had told my fiance that I was going to my father's house to help him with his porch roof, and that we had to drive to a Lowe's in Warren, PA to get supplies for the roof.  That was the best lie I could come up with, but it worked!  That night we had dinner at my parents house, and it was all my father, mother, and myself could do not to let something slip out about the day's events.
   

  We had to tow it home from a place up by Rochester, NY that is about 3 hours away with a truck borrowed from work, and a u-haul car dolly.  The trip up was eventful to say the least.  Ever hauled an empty car dolly before any sort of distance?  After running over the first set of railroad tracks I wasn't sure if we were going to make it or not, and pops was white knuckle driving for most of the distance.  The trip home was a whole lot smoother, and the only issue was that the damn trailer made so much noise, because of the loose loading ramps that rattler over every bump that you hit.