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Oh, and bellhousing/clutch issues for a while at first. J-truck T18 uses a long input shaft so i ended up using a 70s amc bell housing, xj clutch setup, a fabricated 1.8" bell to trans spacer i made from steel, and a Novak adjustable throwout bearing which took 13 tries to get adjust Juuuuuuuust right.

Whew. His functional instrument cluster is in- we’ll test the speedo cluster in a bit.



62 noticed the high beam indicator light on newer rigs- including the XJ doner use blue for high beams, so he made a minor adjustment:



I thought it was a nice mod.

Wow, it's a work of art...
Simply beautiful.

Very neat. It's originally orange, correct? My 73's high beam indicator is orange, but 73s got the AMC 3-circle pod gauge cluster. I've never actually seen the high beam indicator lit up on a Kaiser-era dash.

Personally, I'd love to change my entire cluster back-lighting to orange rather than green, but I haven't looked into it much. It seems like finding amber or orange colored "cones" or lenses that go over the bulb on the backside of the cluster would be hard or impossible to find.

Is that a restored cluster or digital aftermarket??


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jaber wrote:Wow, it's a work of art...
Simply beautiful.

Thanks! We’re putting wire looms underneath, or he is, I’m having a beer and supervising.

We are about done with the center console, too.

twisted frame wrote:Very neat. It's originally orange, correct? My 73's high beam indicator is orange, but 73s got the AMC 3-circle pod gauge cluster. I've never actually seen the high beam indicator lit up on a Kaiser-era dash.

Personally, I'd love to change my entire cluster back-lighting to orange rather than green, but I haven't looked into it much. It seems like finding amber or orange colored "cones" or lenses that go over the bulb on the backside of the cluster would be hard or impossible to find.

On the older rigs, the high beam indicator light is red, or reddish- I’m not sure when it all changed, but on the 63-72 era rigs they’re all red tinted and the hole for the light is actually in the speedometer. Jeep used some type of thin semi-translucent tape: green tape for the turn signals, red for high beam.

62 recycled the lenses off the XJ cluster for the signals and high beam. I did detail clean the housing and 63 glass- I love those style instrument clusters. Wimbledon White was the color we used the the metal frames.

My 66, and 68 still have the red high beam:

tedlovesjeeps71 wrote:Is that a restored cluster or digital aftermarket??


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It’s the stock cluster housing and pin out: The transfer case is the Dana 300, so it still uses the old school cable to calculate speed. It did clean up nicely, though.

Yes, it's a work of art.


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66stepside wrote:

twisted frame wrote:Very neat. It's originally orange, correct? My 73's high beam indicator is orange, but 73s got the AMC 3-circle pod gauge cluster. I've never actually seen the high beam indicator lit up on a Kaiser-era dash.

On the older rigs, the high beam indicator light is red, or reddish- I’m not sure when it all changed, but on the 63-72 era rigs they’re all red tinted and the hole for the light is actually in the speedometer. Jeep used some type of thin semi-translucent tape: green tape for the turn signals, red for high beam.

62 recycled the lenses off the XJ cluster for the signals and high beam. I did detail clean the housing and 63 glass- I love those style instrument clusters. Wimbledon White was the color we used the the metal frames.

My 66, and 68 still have the red high beam:

Thanks for those comparison pics!

Nice tip on recycling the lenses off the XJ cluster for the signals and high beam too.

The dash is beautiful. Nice work!

will e wrote:The dash is beautiful. Nice work!

Thank you very much!

A little road trip.

Did you have the trim rings around the cluster and speaker grille rechromed or are they NOS/reproduction? Mine are pitted pretty badly. I thougt my dash came out good buy yours looks way better! Seeing such nice trim rings really makes me want to replace/restore mine now. It just makes it that much nicer looking. Also what about the plastic trim where the column meets the dash? Ive never see a chrome one before. Looks sharp!

Phils67 wrote:Did you have the trim rings around the cluster and speaker grille rechromed or are they NOS/reproduction? Mine are pitted pretty badly. I thougt my dash came out good buy yours looks way better! Seeing such nice trim rings really makes me want to replace/restore mine now. It just makes it that much nicer looking. Also what about the plastic trim where the column meets the dash? Ive never see a chrome one before. Looks sharp!

Thanks! I had a few spare bezels that were chromed at the factory back in the day for the 1414C, D, and X models. Jeep used at least two finishes on those bezels, maybe even up to three- hard to tell after all these years. I just polish the heck out of the parts prior to installation.

The chromed steering column trim piece was also part of the 60’s Custom package and shows up on the X and D models, too.

I’ve been collecting and reusing parts for many years.

Here’s the dash l did for my Panel Delivery Wagoneer (sold it awhile back):







That was one of my favorites.

66stepside wrote:

Phils67 wrote:Did you have the trim rings around the cluster and speaker grille rechromed or are they NOS/reproduction? Mine are pitted pretty badly. I thougt my dash came out good buy yours looks way better! Seeing such nice trim rings really makes me want to replace/restore mine now. It just makes it that much nicer looking. Also what about the plastic trim where the column meets the dash? Ive never see a chrome one before. Looks sharp!

Thanks! I had a few spare bezels that were chromed at the factory back in the day for the 1414C, D, and X models. Jeep used at least two finishes on those bezels, maybe even up to three- hard to tell after all these years. I just polish the heck out of the parts prior to installation.

The chromed steering column trim piece was also part of the 60’s Custom package and shows up on the X and D models, too.

I’ve been collecting and reusing parts for many years.

Here’s the dash l did for my Panel Delivery Wagoneer (sold it awhile back):







That was one of my favorites.

That looks great! Guess i know who i am gonna pm for restoring my next dash! Lol

That clear makes all the difference

Haha, the Panel dash had quite a few layers of clear coat on her.

62 and I were able to install the driver’s side rear finder skirt after modding it for the XJ filler neck.

I plan on moving the hole up, installing a rubber elbow as I don’t like the mild angle the neck rests at.



He did his best to age the new paint on that part.

Here’s the cut down and modded XJ center console:



Here’s the biggie:



We’ve been waiting on these since I lost the other pair!

I hope they’ll clean up nicely. I’ve got some scrubbing and polishing to do... some other time.

We finally had a shop install a new 3 piece muffler system- so out came my cobbled unit with a zillion pieces.

The shop owner wanted to put a chrome tip on it, which I didn’t want to do as it doesn’t fit the patina, but then he said his buddy who had a j3000 with the Buick 350 always ran chrome tips and this truck was the only other Jeep truck he has ever seen and his buddy passed away 6 months ago and that truck went to Alaska so the man’s son could keep it going- so I went ahead and had the chrome tip put on, but he didn’t charge me anything for it. I guess it was his way of honoring his best friend.



It has grown on me.

It hit 104 today in Spokane and the truck did just fine tooling around in the oppressive heat.


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