Definitely getting closer to drivable…

With the gas tank relocated to the rear of SSDutch, I was left not only with the space under the driver’s seat, but the hole/recess in the side of the body.  On my prior CJ5 I had just pop-riveted some sheet metal in that spot but this time I wanted to make it look like the recess was still there for a reason.  After a bunch of brainstorming and noodling around, I found a little 3 gallon RV water tank that would fit under the rollcage in that spot, and the project was off and running.

First step was welding the gas fill shut:

The water tank arrived and lowered into place nicely:

I was pricing out water pumps on eBay and at the local RV store when a Jeeper friend from EarlyCJ5.com offered to donate a spare, unused pump. Gotta love that - saved me ~$80!  Here’s test fitting the donated water pump:

Here’s my first attempt at an outlet - an RV water tank fill fitting with the check valve removed:

For a mount I just went with some 1” angle iron.  Here’s the mount:

I also puzzled over an enclosure for the pump.  I wasn’t worried so much about heat as just wanting the pump out of sight.  I also wanted a place to mount a switch and light.  As it turned out an ammo can was just the right size, and flipping it and using the bottom worked perfectly:

I did have to do some fusswork to allow the water fill for the tank clearance with the ammo can.  It’s not great sheetmetal work but by the time it’s painted and installed you aren’t really able to see it:

Here’s the whole setup painted and mounted.  The unit secures into the Jeep with four sections of threaded rod that pass through the Jeep floor, through the bottom frame section, then up past the tank and through the top frame section. I bolted in the bottom frame and tightened it to the floor, then tightened the top frame down.  The idea here was to avoid cracking the water tank by just clamping the whole deal down from the top.

I had to go back and remove some of the paint, tape, and re-paint in order to leave myself a sight-line for the water level:

The hot setup for the water outlet is from the marine world - a nice surface mount “washdown” hose connection - not cheap at $20 (especially when the water tank was only $30) but it’s just the ticket and looks to be a nice quality peice (even if it doubles the amount of chrome on the Jeep):

On the backside I used a 90 degree fitting, and the hose is nicely tucked against the side of the Jeep:

So - how does it work?  See for yourself:

The “bugs” I mention at the end of the video are just in the elbow I put on up by the output.  It leaks a bit as it’s just a standard elbow with no seat to let the connection seal.  A little rigging there and we should be good for a quick trailside shower setup by just ball-bungeeing the hose to the Jeep rollcage. 

I know some guys have figured out how to add a heat exchanger setup for hot water but that looks pretty involved, and I’m not sure yet how much and for what exactly this setup will be used.  MsBoyink isn’t big on camping where there are no bathrooms close by, so it’s likely that this will be used on “just us guys” trips with my son.  We can get by with quick “room-temperature” showers.

The other thing we’ll have to be careful of is conserving water, as running full-bore the pump will drain the tank in just over a minute.  The sprayer handle I bought does allow for adjusting the flow, so that should work well.

Overall I’m pretty happy with this setup - should be both handy on the trail and a fun conversation piece.

Jared has this to say about his new purchase:

Shes very rough, I have my own four wheel drive shop in Nebraska and have big plans for it.  I pretty much just bought a frame and a title, everything is shot.  It had been sitting for several years when I found it.  I put a battery in it and poured gas down the carb and it ran.  I hooked up a pop bottle full of gas and hooked it to the fuel pump and drove it around, i was amazed.  it has the 304 with 3 speed and dana 20.  Dana 30 front 44 rear.  I think I stole it for $800, even though i have to put a small fortune into it.  I love my 5s but I love having something that nobody else has. 

I chose this picture because I live in....................................Texas, that’s right I said Texas.  We got about a foot of snow here today!!!  I know, I know, one foot big deal right but, I’ve never seen anything like it before around these parts. Anyway, thanks alot and I really enjoy reading your website.

The interesting thing is that we were in Texas when this happened—but further south where it was just cold and rainy.  I assured David that even here in West Michigan a foot of snow is still a pretty big deal, and we have the equipment to deal with it.

All within like - 6 weeks.

Needless to say - it’s been many hours at the screens and not out in the garage - but I did jump back into things this week. 

The water tank project is at a point where I need to paint - and Michigan refuses to release it’s grip on winter.  So while I’m waiting for the weather to turn a bit I decided to start on the brakes.  The last few times we were driving SSDutch, the brakes kept slowly locking up—like they were releasing pressure back to the master cylinder once you let your foot off the pedal.  Since it’s happening on all four wheels and I still have the original single-circuit system I’m figuring it’s the master cylinder.

But this potentially opens a whole new can of worms since on my previous CJ5 I had power brake setup from an 80’s era Jeep and I have that whole setup sitting here on the shelf yet.  However I’m still not sure that setup will graft into SSDutch nicely as the Saginaw steering conversion means the steering shaft exits the firewall right about where the new master cylinder would need to mount.  And - I’m not sold on needing the power brakes.  The original master cylinder and 11” drums do a great job of stopping the Jeep.  I might ditch the power in the name of simplicity.  But I’m in a hurry to actually drive this thing again so am just going to replace the original master cylinder to get us back on the road.

However I did allow for a bit of scope creep.  Old Jeeps with the through-the-floor pedal setups often have pedals with lots of side to side slop in them.  The pedals run off a shaft that runs through a pivot tube mounted to the bottom of the frame right under your feet on the drivers side.  Over the years this tube wears out and the whole setup gets play.

The trouble is that tube is riveted in place - and I’m not even sure it’s a replaceable part.  Military Jeeps, on the other hand, have a pivot tube that’s both beefier and a bolt-on piece - so the solution on the civilian Jeeps is to cut off the original pivot tube and replace it with the military version. 

So I’ve started down that path - I’ve got the master cylinder and all the pedals removed and have cut off the original pivot tube.  A fellow Jeeper provided the military version of the pivot tube (thanks Steve!) so this shouldn’t be a huge deal.

Of course all those pedals and linkages need to be blasted and painted...so once again I’ll bump into the need to paint....

I mainly did two things to the ammo box - I cut 2” or so off the bottom of it to make it shorter, and I cut one of the lips off the side of the lid.  This allows the lid to open up and slip off the hinges without having to open all the way up. 

Would it work?  Yes - it looks like there would be enough room - with some larger holes in the sides of the ammo box to accommodate the hose fittings for the pump.

The problem? In order to make it all fit, I’d have to flip the water tank 90 degrees, which puts the holes for the fill, breather, and output towards the front.  In this location they’d be more visible, as would the edge of the tank in front of the seat.

So...I don’t think I’m going this way.  What I’m going to do is make up a frame to mount the tank that also accommodates the pump, get it all placed and hoses run, then I’ll have a HVAC place bend me up a cover for the pump.

It started simple enough.  SSDutch came from Texas, and had no heater.  I wanted a heater.  So I bought a heater - a two-duct version of this Heatercraft unit.  I found one on eBay that had been purchased and never installed—so saved a few bucks.  It came with the heater, ducts, vents to mount in the dash, a switch, and some misc. connectors and fittings.

But - I wanted to run one of the ducts to a defroster tube to help clear the windshield, and SSDutch came with gauges mounted where the duct has to run.  While pulling down the dash in order to redesign it I decided that it would be a good time to completely strip and repaint the interior.  Then it also seemed like a good time to completely rewire the entire Jeep.

Add in some house projects, other Jeep-related projects, and life in general and it ended up that the heater installation has taken the Jeep off the road for over two years.

As of this writing I’m still working on getting the Jeep back together, but the heater installation is now complete so I can put together a project page for it.

Heater Unit
I started by finding a place to mount the heater unit on the firewall when the dash was off.  There isn’t a ton of room to work with, but the unit does seem to fit the space nicely.  There is a small piece of channel on the firewall right behind the heater (originally a support for the oil-bath air cleaner), but the brackets allow the unit to be spaced out from the firewall by 1/2” or so.

I’ll need to move it back towards the firewall by 1/4” so I can fit a duct hose on the defroster duct:

Unit will be visible under the dash.  The 4” hole will be where a dash-vent is placed.  Looks to be enough room for the switch panel that will mount over the rectangular hole.  There is plenty of clearance between the heater and the glovebox.

The project then went on hold while the entire interior was stripped and repainted (insert spinning clock here).  Once that was done I started by making a small modification to the defroster tube:

These aftermarket ones are basically two pieces of plastic with a seam that’s supposed to be plastic-welded together.  This one was split already, and overall it just looked designed to collapse when you tightened down the vent hose. 

I found a PCV elbow that matched the inner diameter of the defrost tube, so cut it off and screwed inside the end for support.  I also put a series of screws down the seam then sealed it up with some silicone.  Looks like an old ladies boot, doesn’t it? 

Then re-installed the heater and defroster tube:

Heater Hose Routing
I routed heater hoses through the firewall on the passenger side - below the glovebox.  On the engine side this puts them just underneath the battery tray. The left hole was there already with a cover screwed over it, the right hole I had to make.  The hose boots were grabbed off a junkyard Toyota 4Runner.

Switch and Vents
I used the switch that came with the heater:

I mounted it to the left of the driver.  This isn’t my first choice for a location - I’d rather have it in the middle where the passenger could control it (my wife being more temperature sensitive than I am), but as the dash worked out this was the best location.

The vents that came with the heater rotate in addition to having the flaps that open and close.  This will allow pretty nice control over airflow - I can force it all to the windshield or more to the passenger side by changing my vent:

I mounted the vents as far outboard on the dash as possible - you can see them in this picture:

Ducts
I have two outputs on the heater - one goes directly to the defrost tube for the windshield.  The other is runs to a “T” located above the steering wheel, then from there to the driver’s side and passenger side dash vents.

Here’s the heater.  The left output is obscured but does run to the defrost tube - visible top right.  It runs up right behind the switch panel mounted on the dash.  There is room - but it’s tight.  I wrapped the duct in two layers of milk jug plastic, then duct tape in an effort to prevent the wiring from poking holes through the duct.

The visible right heater output is running to above the steering wheel where the “T” is secured.  The left-most duct runs to the passenger side dash vent.  I’ll have to tidy this up a bit yet as I expect some interference with the gas pedal that isn’t yet installed.

The angle on this picture is tough - you’re looking up towards the cowl right next to the steering column - you can see the support for the hood hinge in the background.  This is the “T” that splits one heater output to two dash vents.  It’s held in place by wire ties that are attached to anchors with adhesive strips on them - stuck to the underside of the cowl.  I located this here simply because there was room to get it out of sight.

Driver’s side dash vent - the other end runs to the “T”.

Passenger side - this runs between the heater and glove box, over the heater hoses.  It’s a bit of a tight fit but seems to work OK:

Summary
I have yet to field test the heater - but have had the Jeep running long enough to know that it works. The volume of air out the dash vents is pretty good.  The only thing I may add in the future is an inline water valve - both to adjust the temp of the air and to be able to shut off the heater in the summer.  Those heater hoses get pretty warm and they are a bit close to the passenger’s feet.