Page 1 of 1

1985 J10 build with my son

Posted: Fri Jun 22, 2018 7:04 am
by JDooney76
So my father in law had this J10 that he got about 6yrs ago. I don't know the story of why it was completely spray painted olive (including trim and seals :-? ), my guess is it was a deer lease truck. We live in Texas. It may have actually helped to preserve the body since it is in really good shape. It has the 360 v8 with auto trans. He used it for a few years just beating around not as daily driver. At some point he couldn't get it to start anymore and he just left it parked in woods by his camp for 3-4yrs. He also left the passenger side window down. Anyway we tried to buy it from him a few yrs ago and he had other plans for it so we gave up. Well a few months ago we were visiting and he pulled the title out and signed it and said "I want this to be my grandsons first vehicle"....so we got it for free. Now, I am not a mechanic but I have some skills. I am a control systems guy so I can troubleshoot things if I know what to look for. We are going to do most of this ourselves.

What we have done so far:

replace starter relay and starter
replace ignition control module
replace distributor, plugs, plug wires
replace ignition coil and a few electrical wires
new thermostat
new fuel pump and sending unit
replace fuel lines and filler and vent hose
repair crack in gas tank
fresh oil and filter
new air intake and filter

After a month, we got it started and i must've got lucky on the timing because it runs pretty good. Has 125000 miles. Transmission shifts good, brakes work. A lot of things are functional so we are doing good. Now we have moved on to replacing floor pans. Then i want to get it painted. I am starting to have a lot of things rattling in my head of what i need to do and what i need to buy. One of the things i was going to do was strip the paint and do what body work i thought i could handle then let a pro finish the paint. I think now that it would be a bad idea to strip paint now but maybe not paint it for 3 or 4 months. So I am going to just strip where i want to do repair work and then prime over it so at least the metal is staying preserved under paint. I am sure i will have many questions and would welcome any good direction someone may have. This is my first post and i will try to post some pics with it. I had some trouble with pics attachment and don't know if it worked but here we go.

Re: 1985 J10 build with my son

Posted: Fri Jun 22, 2018 8:33 am
by tedlovesjeeps71
Welcome, cool project, and good luck!

Fwiw, I use Tapatalk for the site as it makes posting pics much easier.

Re: 1985 J10 build with my son

Posted: Fri Jun 22, 2018 9:21 am
by JDooney76
Try this again with tapatalk

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

Re: 1985 J10 build with my son

Posted: Fri Jun 22, 2018 9:24 am
by JDooney76
Arrrgg! I will get it eventually
20180622_111245.jpeg
20180622_111255.jpeg
20180622_111302.jpeg
20180622_111308.jpeg
20180622_111315.jpeg
Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

Re: 1985 J10 build with my son

Posted: Fri Jun 22, 2018 9:28 am
by JDooney76
Thank you Tedlovesjeeps71...I loaded tapatalk on my phone and fumbled my way through it and got pics to load it looks like. Dang rookie!!

Re: 1985 J10 build with my son

Posted: Sat Jun 23, 2018 5:53 pm
by twisted frame
Looks good! Great to see another one come out of hibernation. And hey, you've got a tailgate! Bonus. They're not easy to find.

Re: 1985 J10 build with my son

Posted: Sat Jun 23, 2018 6:09 pm
by JDooney76
twisted frame wrote:Looks good! Great to see another one come out of hibernation. And hey, you've got a tailgate! Bonus. They're not easy to find.
Yea i think the tailgate will be fine. I begun stripping the paint today and removing trim. Maybe floorpans next weekend.. so much to do. My wife is beginning to hate this jeep and my son has had enough

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk

Re: 1985 J10 build with my son

Posted: Tue May 14, 2019 9:08 am
by JDooney76
Update on the J10
We have done so many things since my last post but here are some latest pics since it came back from paint and body
It is dark sapphire pearl paint
Once we got it inspected and registered, insured, first day my son takes it to school , the water pump shaft snapped and oh boy does that cause a lot of damage in a hurry. Water pump, belts, fan, fan clutch, radiator....all destroyed. Not bad for a first impression at school and a good memory i would say. Anyway it is going to be a work in progress for a while until all issues are discovered. Notice the tailgate is solid now. Body man said he couldnt repair original stamp and it would pop out again if something hit tailgate so we decided to just go solid...i like it.ImageImageImageImageImageImage

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

Re: 1985 J10 build with my son

Posted: Tue May 14, 2019 9:09 am
by JDooney76
Update on the J10
We have done so many things since my last post but here are some latest pics since it came back from paint and body
It is dark sapphire pearl paint
Once we got it inspected and registered, insured, first day my son takes it to school , the water pump shaft snapped and oh boy does that cause a lot of damage in a hurry. Water pump, belts, fan, fan clutch, radiator....all destroyed. Not bad for a first impression at school and a good memory i would say. Anyway it is going to be a work in progress for a while until all issues are discovered. Notice the tailgate is solid now. Body man said he couldnt repair original stamp and it would pop out again if something hit tailgate so we decided to just go solid...i like it.ImageImageImageImageImageImage

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

Re: 1985 J10 build with my son

Posted: Thu May 30, 2019 8:32 pm
by twisted frame
The tailgate looks slick like that...seems like a good solution. I really like the dash treatment where you kept the brown dash pad and painted the steel areas dark blue. (maybe it's black?)

Re: 1985 J10 build with my son

Posted: Fri May 31, 2019 4:38 am
by JDooney76
I had leftover body paint. It is actually dark sapphire pearl. And yes it came out great. Love the contrast between the dark sapphire and the tan interior. Then the door panels from bjs offroad really cleaned it all up. Thank you

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

Re: 1985 J10 build with my son

Posted: Sat Jun 01, 2019 8:34 pm
by jpswapmohn
First time seeing this post. Great looking truck, you did great by it!

Curious about the bed rails that were on it. Never seen those before. Did you keep them? They would look great on that truck if the chrome survived.

Re: 1985 J10 build with my son

Posted: Thu Jun 20, 2019 3:23 pm
by JDooney76
I do still have the bed rails. They are painted olive and i am not sure about putting them back on the truck. My plan is to wait until bedliner sprayed in then try to get them back to chrome and possibly install.

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

Re: 1985 J10 build with my son

Posted: Sun Jun 23, 2019 1:53 pm
by offthebeatenpath
Looks damn sharp!