The Tipping Point

I think at this point, I've gotten carried away. Suddenly, there's a big pile of parts where a Jeep used to be. Bonnie is not quite herself these days.

However, we are making progress! I had a local specialist, (as the guy on "Wheeler Dealers" would say) Mike Deaderick at  Auto Electric on W. Market in JC rebuild the original starter and generator. He has 27 years experience and did an absolutely amazing job. Better than new bushings and bearings in both of them. The manual oilers on the generator won't even be necessary any more! He bench tested everything with the voltage regulator to make sure everything worked. He repainted everything back to the original, factory look. Bill was barely over $90 for everything. That is an AMAZING deal.

Generator at top, starter at bottom. All cleaned up and brand-new again! 

Since everything on Bonnie is in such great shape, I just keep taking more and more apart. I'm pretty much diving in head first and stripping her down to the frame. Thank goodness we have a large garage/basement and an understanding landlord. Yes, landlord. I'm doing this whole restoration in an apartment! 

Front axle and frame rail. This is as bad as any age/corrosion gets on Bonnie. No reason to not strip it down, clean it up and rebuild it while I'm here. 

The only problem is... I'm starting to end up with a big pile of parts in baggies, piles of big parts, crates of big parts. What do I do with those? Hmmm... does anyone remember the episode of M*A*S*H where Radar tries to mail home a Jeep one part at a time? How much is postage these days...

2 of the bigger parts I have to get out of the floor: the fenders. They don't need any work done, just a good cleanup. 

At this point, I have to figure out how to sneak a paint-booth and sandblaster in the apartment. Maybe this has gone too far. Eh, resistance is futile... prepare to be restored! 

Also, tonight, the wife had me stop and look at a 1986 Grand Wagoneer for sale. $3900 or best offer. I swear, we are in danger of starting a herd. You know you're a Jeep fanatic when someone ask you how many head of Jeep you have. 

Would it be a herd? A pod? A gaggle? A murder? 

A friend says they are pack animals. They recognize your own. You park yours in a parking lot, and almost always, when you come back out, another one has parked near you. I guess they keep each other company whilst their owners are gone.

Bonnie Blue: 51 years of crud.

So Bonnie will run, but it's been a few years since she was on the road. While thinking about this I get an idea (this is where Emily usually says Uh-Oh!). Anyway, I decide to strip down the engine and pull it out for a really good cleanup, while reworking as much of the original equipment as I can.

Here's what it looks like so far.

About 50 years of oil, grease, and grime have built up a huge mess! Some places it's almost an inch thick! The good news is that anywhere there's grease, there's no rust or corrosion. Yay! Here's what the starter and generator look like. Yep, I said generator!

Lots and lots of gunk! 

Well, at this point I get a little carried away and decide that it will be a lot easier to work if a few things are out of the way. By this point there are zip top bags and boxes of parts accumulating at an astonishing rate!

Lots of photos and notes might help me put all this back together!

Lets hope!

The motor is ready to come out now, and the best news is that the front section of frame and firewall are solid as can be! I think at this point I need to decide just how far I want to go with this. Just a few more bolts and the tub would come off. Hmmmmm........

Bonnie Blue Comes Home

Once a Jeep Guy, always a Jeep Guy. Before I could even drive, I'd go four-wheeling with my brother and his friends in their Jeeps. I loved how they could take such a beating, and that getting a few "battle scars" just added character. My first Jeep was a 1994 Wrangler. I took it from stock to rock crawler. Still regret getting rid of that one. For the past couple of years, I've been driving a 2000 TJ (Sahara Edition). It's a little nicer than what I usually go for, but the wife-type-creature (Emily, who inputs all this for me, because I type really really slow) loves luxury things like doors and air conditioning, so ya gotta compromise.

But, all this time I've really wanted to get my teeth into a restoration. Bringing an old Jeep back from the dead. I finally got my chance, in a field in Stony Creek, near Elizabethton, TN. This is where I met Bonnie Blue, the 1961 Willys Jeep.

She's a 1961 CJ5 Willys, owned by the same family in Stony Creek since she was new. The original owner drove it until he was 92. Everything on it is original. Never been taken apart. She was kept under a shelter most of her life. In pretty good shape, but the reason the gentleman quit driving at 92 was the part where Bonnie got to take a slide in a ditch. She got parked after that, and also got a good crunch to her passenger side. She's been sitting since 2000. Now, she's living in climate controlled comfort in our garage. She's made it smell like old car, which is the best smell in the world. Thankfully, my wife agrees!

Notice the original painted Leach Motor Company logo. I'm going to try to keep it in the restoration, as it was the Jeep dealership in Johnson City TN from the mid-1950's until the 1980's when Jeep/AMC was bought by Chrysler, at which time it closed. 

So, she got towed to the garage, because of the small problem of not having the gas tank hooked up yet. It does run, but the tires are rotten, and the tank at the time was a gallon milk jug. Didn't quite seem DOT legal.  I've started doing some restoration on her, and wanted to keep a good log of it. Thought fellow Jeep fanatics might want to join in on the chaos that is bringing a Jeep back to life.