TJ's Build Thread
Hello! I'll start this by introducing myself. I'm TJ I live in Gig Harbor, WA and we are a Jeep family. Grew up driving my family's J pickups. 1976 J10 honcho (grandpa bought brand new), 1978 2dr Cherokee chief 401 (Mom's ride, our vacation curser), 1978 J20 401, STD trans (Dad's ride), 2nd J10 short bed pickup, 1948 Willys flat fender. My wife and I both drive JK wranglers and have been around the western states off-roading them pretty much everywhere. (13yr old daughter has a 125cc mini jeep (sold at tractor supply) that I've modified to 4x4 with off-road gearing. So we do alot of jeep related stuff. I'm a master mechanic at a local shop so I've always worked on everything myself.
I've always wanted a M715, Just the body styling I've always liked more then the J pickups. I finally found one just last month (10/24) Local to me for 5k. I'm sure the previous owner might have been on here.
Mine is #12874 (6-67) No winch. Looks to have been Fire truck, Holes had been cut in the bed for Water tank and Pump. Brackets below the bed. Chevy 350 with SM420 trans swapped. Other then that it's completely stock with original parts minus someone replacing lights and adding a old school Napa blinker switch. Headlight switch was missing and pull style switch added to turn everything on. Newer 255/85/R16's are on it, with 2 spares in the bed dated 1967. The rims look to have been cleaned up and painted, split rings cleaned and used for these tires. Custom headache rack added at some point. The canvas top looks to have been replaced recently almost new looking and a got a bare hard top included in the sale. It's just bare fiberglass the previous owner said it didn't fit very well. I have yet to try it. Also got a bag of misc parts including an extra gauge panel with gauges still installed.
No rust that I can find at all. Frame has some surface rust coloring but the interior looks to have been painted with rust encapsulate at some point. I own a few cars that I've done restoration work on so I do know how to spot a rusted panel hidden by paint. Bed other then the cut holds looks to have been sealed up too. This is a really solid truck. It doesn't look recently coated so maybe the fire dept. did it? I would love the history on this truck.
First drive home was about 20miles of backroads and boy you guys aren't kidding, the NP200 sounds like a jet engine inside the cab. bearings have to be bad for it to be that loud. I would compare to flying in a bellranger heli. It drove great!! I was really impressed with 4wheel drums it stops pretty decent. Steering is only rough when parking. The seats are original but the backs where completely gone.
Plans for this truck? We have a camping property we go to at least once a month as well as other camping we like to do. Plan is to make the truck drivable to 2-3hrs at 60mph min. So we can use it to haul camping supply's and just have fun driving it.
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Originally Posted by Twobit
