Does anybody even give a crap about this thing? That's what I got to thinking after spending the majority of my weekend working on my hot rod Jeep. Yeah, I know it's kinda out there and unusual. It's not normal for a Jeep or a hot rod, but is it cool? I'd like to think so, but I want to know what you think. I've really only posted snippets of my garage Jeep rod build on jpmagazine.com because I wasn't sure it belonged in the pages of Jp magazine.
I had been collecting parts, most of which were the free kind that just so happened to be dumped on me. Don't get me wrong, it's not like I'm bumping into fuel-injected big-blocks and Dana 60s here. Most of the components I've been stockpiling are of the odd-ball variety. Ya know, the kind of stuff you see people throw away or haul to the steel recycling plant. With some minor exceptions of course.
It really started about two or three years ago when I saw an artist's rendition of a Jeep hot rod. I quickly started looking for a flatfender to turn into my very own real-life version. A few months later I somehow managed to get my original '48 flatfender frame and body back from the local Jeep hoarder. I had given it away a year or two prior and had begun to regret it based on the pricing of flatfenders at the time. The owner hadn't done anything with the rotting hulk and eventually it got to a point where he couldn't keep it any longer. The body was beat and cut up and the frame had more patch metal than actual framerail, but I still hauled it home. I figured most of the body was unusable and the frame wasn't much better. So it sat in my yard. Once people found out I was collecting crap, there was plenty of it coming my way. A buddy gave me a bucket-full of early CJ knuckle parts and an empty Dana 25 housing from an M38A1. Soon after, Hazel had purchased a Willys truck and tore out all its drivetrain. This resulted in me acquiring a pathetic but cool-looking 194 GM inline-six along with a Dana 25 front axle and the real score, a mid-'70s Ford 9-inch rearend complete with a factory nodular third-member, 3.50 gears and a limited slip. At this point I pretty much had 90-percent of the drivetrain for my hot rod Jeep and I hadn't spent a dime. Hazel had already come up with a name for my compiled-for-free Jeep and it became known as Sloppy Seconds. I don't know if he was referring to all the second-hand parts or to the fact that once it's done it will likely be the slowest vehicle to ever hit the 1/4-mile raceway. Either way, I finally decided to work on it.
I pulled the '48 flattie body off and drug the frame into the garage. After several days of torching, cutting, welding and grinding I wasn't happy with it, but at least I had the frame in a relatively useable form. A few months later Trasborg found me a flatfender tub for $100. It came with a bunch of other bonus parts including some seats that looked as though they had been attacked by a herd of angry rabid 10-legged cats, a fuel tank that stunk like varnish, and a windshield frame that had been modified by a team of mentally challenged monkeys armed with a drill, a pop-rivet gun, a hammer and a saw.
By this time I had mocked up the rear suspension and I was just about done when Hazel offered me a mostly-unmolested frame from an M38A1. So I nabbed it, tossed my battered but rebuilt '48 frame into the yard and went to work scaling this new frame of its factory suspension mounts and booty fab. While on the same trip to grab the M38A1 frame from Hazel, I managed to score an SM420 for $50 from a friend who had converted it into a black widow housing development in his garage.
Anyway, I redid the rear suspension on the new frame using the Ford 9-inch axle and some hand-me-down CJ-6 front leaf springs. It's a little different than the first iteration but better and lower. Overall the Jeep will sit about 6-8 inches lower than a stock flattie. Imagine the bottom of the framerails about 8 inches from the ground.
Recently I located and attached the motor and transmission mounts to the frame. I was able to reuse a lot of the old parts I had lying around. Not all my parts are hand-me-downs though. I've been scouring over hot rod catalogs looking for and purchasing front suspension parts. My Jeep will have a hairpin suspension with a transverse-mounted leaf spring, much like a typical hot rod. But it will be very different, and I think pretty cool when I'm done.
So do you want to read about it? Don't get me wrong, I'm not letting you decide the fate of my flattie. I'm building it whether you like it or not, but go to jpmagazine.com and vote to let me know if you think Sloppy Seconds belongs in the pages of Jp magazine. --John Cappa