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Don's Jeep Garage

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21.01.2022 This is what the inside of a fuel tank looks like after sitting for 10 years half filled with about 40 litres of unleaded fuel.

12.01.2022 Congratulations Don on the purchase of your Jeep Grand Cherokee! We hope you're enjoying your new car! From Andy & the team at Browns Plains Mazda.

12.01.2022 Mr. Facebook keeps telling me I haven't posted for a while, so to shut him up here's a teaser of the dozen or so petrol bowsers that I'm in the process of restoring. Golden Fleece collection, just have to fit decals and nickel plate the bezels and other brass bits. Nine more bowsers (gas pumps), a couple of hi-boys, some oil jugs and bottles to do yet. I know that some people like them crusty and rusty but I think they deserve to be bought back from the dead.

08.01.2022 After 9 years but only 55,000km, the Wrangler is up for sale. Reason being the 2,300kg towing capacity won’t handle the 2.5t GVM caravan that we want to buy for some R&R touring over the next few years. Thus the reason for Gloria the Grand Cherokee. The Wanger is in excellent condition and never been rock-hopping or gung-ho four wheelin, just a bit of beach cruising on Stradbroke Island. I am sure going to miss the ease at which he floats over the powder sand tracks with no effort and the enjoyment of snatching the newbies out of trouble when they take their SUV’s onto the beach with full tyre pressures. Albeit the amount of plastic bits on the JK’s, they still maintain the tradition since 1942 of real 4 wheel drives.

01.01.2022 "DESIGNED TO RUST" With all the plastic body components the JK's are reasonably good to keep deterioration at bay. But with most car manufacturers, they neglect the undersides leaving all the cast suspension parts as raw steel and painting plate panels and chassis with a guick squirt of black "jam". Looking under the Wanger to tidy him up for sale I found considerable rust in the skid plate that supports the fuel tank. Not wanting to give a potential new owner any grief, beca...use with only 55K on the clock he is in as-new condition otherwise, I removed the tank to effect repairs. Thus the heading above..... the pressed steel support panel has three enclosed channels across the inside and are obviously raw steel within. With three very efficient sand catchers along each side, any mud, sand, dust, or water is effectively caught and no amount of flushing out with water would remove it entirely, so you have a perfect environment for corrosion to grow. Any JK jockeys out there, even if you've just driven it off the showroom floor, drop the tank and send the support panel out for hot dip galvanizing. No other form of spray on rust protection systems will work.... maybe you could seal up the drain holes and fill the channels with Lanotek then slosh it around, but that won't last forever. My solution, being a tight arse and not wanting to spend over a thousand bucks (+galvanizing) on a new one, I removed the outer cross plates leaving the inner sections in place so that the pressing would maintain it's shape and then I sandblasted the whole thing. Next step was to weld new 1.6mm plates to replace the outer sections then I cut away the inner sections and whip blasted the new pieces from both sides. After etch priming, we (ie: No.1 son) applied a good 2mm+ coating of Polyurea Elastomer to each side. So the panel is now encapsulated to a thickness of around 4mm and without boring you too much, Polyurea is not your conventional spray-on bed liner as such, in that it's tensile strength is up there somewhere near steel.... well, maybe that cheap imported Chinese stuff. A few hints if you are going to have a crack at it:- # Drown all the exposed threads inside the box chassis with penetrating oil before you attempt to remove the bolts. # Don't neglect to clean out the bucket of sand you will find in the recess of the poly tank where the gauge sender is fitted, and give the steel locking ring some love before you refit it. # There is no way to drain or syphon the tank with it fitted, so drive your jigger until the red light tells you you're running out of juice. The support panel + a tank full of fuel is f*&$%# Heavy. See more