Full Size Jeep Network

I bought this Honcho towards the end of summer 2015, since then I've been working on getting it to this.





Ever since seeing Twister as a kid 20 years ago I've always said that if I was to get a Pickup, it would be one like that Yellow Jeep.


In summer of 2011 I visited the original Dorothy I. I was able to get some great measurements and reference.


I slowly started collecting parts over the years, and looking at FSJ's off and on. When I found that Yellow '79 J10 Honcho with the factory blue stripe package I knew I had to get it. After a 5 hour drive with my boys (and not as much cash as he was originally asking) I had it.

Here is how it looked when I bought it.



(those plasti-dip blue rims were the ugliest dang thing the PO could have done [besides spray painting all the interior and getting over spray everywhere])




My goal was to have it complete in time to take it to the 20th anniversary parade in Wakita, OK but getting laid off from my company of 10 years put a wrench in that plan. I was able to find a new job fairly quickly and busted ass to get it presentable in time for Denver Comic Con 2016 that took place over Father's Day weekend. It was a HUGE hit, everyone loves "THE truck from Twister" I had to put a plush cow on it somewhere and people loved it when they spotted it. "We've got cows" is definitely the go-to line from Twister.

This is a neat photo of waiting to get loaded into the Denver Convention Center, you can see I had not yet put some of the details on Dorothy - I removed the vertical pipe for driving through the roll up door.




This Dorothy with Dorothy has got to be about the cutest photo ever.



I've taken photos along the way and will be uploading those as well as more adventures with Mellow Yellow.

-Charles

Nice! I should've gone to nerd fest after all!

Dang that looks awesome!

Thanks guys!

I have a ton of work in progress photos I'll post.
Plus a really amazing story from Denver Conic Con relating to that first photo as well as where the name Mellow Yellow coming form.

-Charles

Besides having a nice fsj pickup, add some ice, a keg, and a tap on Dorothy, and you'd be the hit at any meet and greet.

First thing I had to do was fix the kid's (PO) goofy spray can mess of a dash repaint.

Whole dash looked like this:




Major runs, terrible masking, grey primer was EVERYWHERE.



Every knob had to replaced.

Sanded down smooth:




Welded in brackets to be able reinstall a post mount radio.



The faceplate covers the gaps.



Masked EVERYTHING:




MMMM primer.



Looks so much better not high gloss.


Next up, carpet replace (the kid had ripped it out torn pieces at the sills and under the seats was all that was left)

-Charles

This was all that was left of the carpet:



Got the replacement carpet from RockAuto, great price.





It went in pretty well



The bottom of the seat brackets had a fair bit of rust






The other thing I did to help with the saggy seats and the non stop yellow foam from falling out the bottom of the seats was add a layer of foam mat.



worked out pretty good



-Charles

That is a very cool truck

My dream truck has always been a Tremors clone

Since you just did this you probably know, but are the seat brackets the same for drivers and passenger sides? I'm converting from a bench to buckets and the bucket seat brackets I got are two sets of the same brackets.

Stuka wrote:That is a very cool truck

My dream truck has always been a Tremors clone

Thanks Stuka!

REDONE wrote:Since you just did this you probably know, but are the seat brackets the same for drivers and passenger sides? I'm converting from a bench to buckets and the bucket seat brackets I got are two sets of the same brackets.

No they are different.





its the inner pass one that is really weird.

I might have one or two spare brackets, I'll have to look.

That's exactly what I needed and couldn't find a pic of on google, Thanks CK!

The passenger side inner bracket is the truly odd one. It bolts to the trans hump about 6" higher than the floor. The drivers inner raises up as well, but not as drastically.
From what I remember, the outer brackets are the same on bench seats.

Ho-Lee-Chit man. I didn't realize just how much work you did. It looks awesome!

Nikkormat wrote:Ho-Lee-Chit man. I didn't realize just how much work you did. It looks awesome!

Thanks Nikkormat!

Finally got around to painting my replacement glove box door.

I'd say that's a slight improvement in quality over the PO's work (top)




I'll be nice to get this in.

Looking good!

I started puling the trim and gasket around the windshield - which is starting to get milky and bubbly at the bottom- to replace it with a nice one Nikkormat helped me pull from the junk yard BUT I just realized the new one has the blue tint.

My truck doesn't have the blue and it shouldn't to be movie accurate.

I guess the odds of finding a good non blue tint windshield are going to be slim to none. maybe I can find someone to trade....

One of the things I realized I had to do after installing the Twister grill (muscle) was paint the core support. there was way too much yellow visible through the large openings.

This photo is kind of dark, but you can diffintitly see through the grill.



My truck originally had the pig nose (see above) so all this yellow wasn't visible.




I took everything off and painted the core support a nice satin black. Look how mean it looks like that.



You can see a bit of the chorme on my front bumper is flaking off, I'll need to replace that eventually and that rear bumper sitting there is for sale!

-Charles

Awesome truck! I saw the one in Gatlinburg, TN a few years back. Still has the rail mounts for the cameras. Got a few interior pictures too if it helps.

BTW, any idea if the movie jeeps were v8's or 6's? I couldn't tell.