Daddy/Daughter Daily Driver And Mini Monster

Hello all.

This has been one H*ll of a year, and I will not be sorry to see it go away! I hate the brave new world that we are now living in. But...

I just had the best summer EVER!!!

I am hoping that you won't mind hearing about it.

I have 2 daughters. I have been sharing my love of cars, and motorized conveyances with them since they were born. My eldest came home from the hospital in a 1973 gold Monty Carlo. The younger in a 1968 Oldsmobile station wagon. Both caught the bug, but for the younger one, it is a terminal case.

She is now 17, and has just started her senior year of high school. She has been driving for over a year and is relaxed and at home behind the wheel.
When I asked her at 16 what she wanted for her first car she said:

1) a Model A
2) but, with a truck bed
3) with fins
4) And it should look like "Mad Max"

Cue the summer project.

My daily driver is a 2015 jeep wrangler. I sold off one of my finished cars and bought it a year and a half ago. Its a great car and I love it, but it is boring.

Cue the summer project again!

We decided to do a big push on both the projects.

We finished the Jeep and she drove it on her first day of school last week. We got a lot done on hers (which she has named Igor-think Marty Feldman) and she should be able to drive it on her first day back after the winter break.

Here are some picts of what we both started with...

Ok, so the boring one first...

The first thing I did was order a Gladiator front end kit from Chris Durham. This is a great kit and is super easy. It turns the boring-every-day front end of a JK wrangler into an 1960's Classic truck.

We stripped all the Tupperware off the front end of the jeep and installed the kit. I am amazed at how much Plastic there was!!!

I dug through my pile of parts and found a Bumper off a '80s Dodge truck. We cut and modified it to fit the front. It is painted with black bed liner.

vwry cool! I have 3 daughter, 6 and the twins are 4. they also show an interest in my hobby. hopefully one of them will stick with it.

I like the jeep project, very cool!!

I can't believe that I am jealous of a 17 year old girl from North Carolina. She's gonna have a nice ride. Can't wait to see the fins. [P [P [P

Great story [cl
I have two daughters, now 32 and 30. They started when in their teens. The older started with a 85 Caprice nice wheels, tinted windows and lowered. She mover up to a Toyota Forunner
The younger one started with a 70 Camero, mild restore and some custom started it at 14 and her first driver to school, warning!!! Boys
She is still into the old ones but now a mom things have slowed down..
Enjoy you time with the girls, it goes by very fast indeed.
!!![P!!!

Ok, so on to the cool one, But a quick confession...

We started the project late last year and I did a lot of the frame and basic stuff on my own, with visits, planning and consultations with my daughter. She really started in this spring when she finished school.
And then I went fishing, and oops, I went for a swim. So did my phone, so did the pictures, and I hadn't done a back up. So there are no early stage photos.

I'm Sorry!

Here is the rundown on her project.
We started with a 4 door body Model A. We played around with the frame for a while, then she decided she really wanted a 4x4.
I just happened to have an old K10 chevy frame ('87) from another one of my projects so we used it. It was too long so I cut 3 feet out and welded it back together...
We inventoried my pile of stuff and she decided on a Toyota 22r motor, 5 speed and transfer case from a '79 pickup. It is ported and polished and has a 20r head and we might put a turbo on it...
Years ago, I was dumping some recycling at the scrap yard and they had a 57 ford body that someone had dumped, it was rusted out well past the floors but... the fins were in good shape, and I had a sawzall...
I had some rear fenders off a '58 chevy truck, so we welded them up to the floor from the chevy truck bed.
I ran to the steel store and Kinda went a little crazy, but we ended up with a custom bed with expanded steel tail end.
A quick trim to N*rthern tool for some trailer springs and we had a rear bumper.

Bach to the boring. So I realized that I could get bed liner that could be tinted, several hundred dollars later I have Stinger Yellow bed liner in 2 part epoxy!

We both ruined a good pair of pants, but here is the result;

The Day I drove off the lot with my Jeep, they Un-vailed the new Jeep wrangler trucks, and I kicked my self a little for not waiting to buy one of those. Man they are sexy. But then I took a closer look...
No offense to any one who owns one, but on closer look, they just don't do it for me. There is something wrong with the proportions. They are a little fugly, in a lovable way, but still fugly. Plus, they are NOT going to offer one in a 2 door, just the 4 door version.

I started thinking it over... I could do that... It kept rolling around in my head... I mentioned it to my wife who promptly told me that she would file for divorce... I would wake up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night knowing how I would do it... I would find myself holding my sawzall, not remembering picking it up...I started driving by Lawyers offices...

Then I found an old emblem on Etsy and the avalanche swallowed me.

Chrysler had a kit that they would sell that could turn a 4 door wrangler into a 2 door truck, But it was , in my mind more like an El Camino style, where the body lines continued from the door all the way back to the rear end. I wanted mine to have a separate bed with a gap in-between.

I found an old hardtop on eB*y and Heavily modified it to fit my plan.

I removed the rear seat and cut out the old roll cage, and welded in a new one that fit under the new roof.

One of the things I dis-liked about my jeep Is the placement of the spare tire. I think it looks ok hanging off the back, but it certainly impedes your vision while driving.
I decided that when I built the bed I would do it in a way that would provide a spot for the spare.
Years ago A friend of mine gave me some barn wood, And I had always wanted to build a truck bead out of it.

My daughter and I started in on the jeep again...

We cut the whole rear end off one afternoon.

I looked around to see if there were any truck beads that I could modify to fit, but none would work or look right. I Bought some rear fender covers / protectors that were made for my model jeep and we used them as a base to custom build the bed.
I am amazed how quickly my daughter learned the subtleties of welding. What has taken me decades she picked up in an afternoon. When I look the picture of her welding I wanna cry...

I also included one of her test welds.

She has always been crafty, and frequently uses a hot-glue-gun in her projects. She said that welding was "a lot like using a hot glue gun, but in the dark, and it's p*ssed"(meaning the sparks)

Young folk can see better than us and they're steadier too

She laughs at me when I can't see, or need really bright lights. She could also kneel on the floor all day then bounce back up, I have to crawl around like a crab for a while as I straighten up.

We then started painting the bed...

Test fitting the bed. On then off again, way too many times.

I guess I've done these out of order, sorry.

We had to fill in the holes left over from the doors. I used some 16 gauge steel and we bent it by hand. A little bit of spray foam, some fiberglass, and a little bondo did the trick. Then more epoxy paint, I can still smell it!

I used to have a 61 F100 4x4 that would climb almost anything, but it wouldn't do that.

Coming along nicely.[cl
Have your daughter show you how to orient your pictures. I get dizzy if i look at them to long.

Skip said:

I used to have a 61 F100 4x4 that would climb almost anything, but it wouldn't do that.

Click to expand...

Ha! [cl

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I agree with you, the new Jeep pickups have a fugly aspect to them. Yours is coming along very nicely great work

Ok, So last set or pictures for the modern Jeep. I think it turned out pretty well.It still needs a little interior work, but done for now.