M1009 aka RED project under way

Sorry I missed the start of this but I've caught up now.

Man I'm glad you wound up with that instead of me trying to figure it out. I probably would have crushed it by now.

I've got a 16 y.o. friend looking for a 1009 at the moment. He keeps wanting me to drive 350 miles (one way) to look at one. I told him I already knew what they looked like and didn't think he wanted to waste a couple hundred of his car money paying for my diesel to browse.

It has been frustrating some Mark. But a perfect learning experience for Colton. This weeks subject was cutting and welding with a torch. We need to make new floor sections. So, he got to learn how to set up the tanks, torch and cut steel. Then just for fun, I showed him how to weld with the torch. He did pretty good. Once he got comfortable with the torch welding, he didn't want to stop. Actually, he was out there this evening trying to join pieces of scrap. We never got to making the floor sections due to some other stuff we had to do around the house. Maybe next weekend.

Gas welding is great training for TIG. Just a bit less intense.

I didn't realize it had been 4 months since I had updated this thread. We have been busy without much time for posting.

Back around Christmas he sanded down the inside, finished welding up the rocker and floor with a home made patch panel, painting the interior, Mount up a set of M1008 replacement doors we found a few years ago, wet sanding the fiberglass top and painting it this morning.

The truck is looking awsome. Your son is going to be miles ahead of the other kids. My nephew just turned 16 and he barely knows the difference between a wrench and a screw driver. Are you going to have this truck at the march rally? I am looking forward to meeting everyone there.

We hope to have it at the rally so he can drive it on the trails. It should be all green by then and water tight. Before I let it be driven on the road, he still needs to replace the front springs, new calipers, ball joints, tie rod ends, drag link ends, ujoints, all brake hoses and at the least repack the bearings in the front if everything looks ok. Then find a set of real M1009 rims to get rid of those silly chrome things.

Surprised you haven't placed you wheel order with your dealer. You CUCV parts junkie....

Tell Colton, Good Job!!!

When is he going to start posting his own pics?

I thought I did place an order. Or at least a request some months ago. I was displaying great patience by not asking again.

I guess I do need to tutor him on picture posting.

if it is stock springs he needs and if I still have the front springs on the 1008. If he gets the truck to the rally, I will donate the springs to his cause.

Bman,

I gotta tell ya, it does my heart good to see your son doing this work. I just wish the 'younger set' had a more inquisitive nature when it comes to automobiles, because most of them just want to play video games.

Hey, maybe somebody could come up with a VIDEO GAME on how to rebuild an MV?

Good idea, but video games don't put grit under your finger nails, cuts on your knuckles and crud in your eye. Or make you work for hours on something that gets messed up at the very end. Colton can handle the physical stuff but the persistence thing is why this keeps dragging on and on. We are working on it though.

Two months have gone by and an another update is past due. Colton spent a good bit of his spring break sanding RED down and making all the interior panels the proper color. I took off a few days to help him paint it Friday. Then, we spent most of today putting it all back together. Our goal is to trailer it to the Rally behind my still being repowered M715. We are just short the quarter window glass being installed for it to be ready. We still need to put insulation and vinyl mat down on the front, but we need more heat to make the mat lay down better over the tunnel. That will be a summer project.

Here are the progress pictures.

Looks amazing! We're going to try and get Timbo's interior prepped and painted this week. He gets his license in 2 weeks and it's driving him crazy not seeing any real progress.

Even though this is the 33rd post about my truck, this will be my first post ever. While meeting with Warthog yesterday, he threatened to cut off my parts supply. Mr. Joe will this keep the parts coming? Even the gray interior pieces??

Here are some current photos of the project.

See that wasn't too hard was it....

Now you just need to get a lock for the console.

$9.95 at LMC, item #12

http://www.lmctruck.com/icatalog/csb/full.aspx?Page=177

Colton?! Welcome aboard!

Yes, that was him Chris. He is off at football practice right now. Thanks for the part number Joe. I hadn't been able to find that before.

He is mighty proud of how the console came out. It was some other odd color and he was going to paint it to match the rest of the interior, got creative and ended up with a two tone console.

I ordered the console lock. It showed up today and is not the correct part for those consoles. Totally different than what goes there. It is probably the part for the older style console.

what a junker

He turns 15 today and we will get his learners permit tomorrow. RED is going to get driven some to shake all the bugs out soon.