New 1948 Jeep CJ2a Owners

[2ofus]

My son has always been interested in classic jeeps, when he found one he liked I told him OK let's get it together, he jumped on it LOL.
We are now in the beginning stage of restoring it, told him this will be a long processes as he wants to bring it back to as original as possible.
We are located in Southern California south of Los Angeles in the Inland Empire. Are there any clubs or events in this area?

[56willys]

Awesome! What a great thing to do with your son. That will be a super fun project! Jeeps are amazing teachers. This site is a great place to get information/help. Post some pics of that new Jeep. Anxious to see updates!

[bmorgil]

A great father son project! I can attest to that. You will find it very informative to restore it back to original. And it certainly can be done. You may have to search hard for a few of the parts if you need them, but I have been able to find everything I needed. There are plenty of Jeep clubs in Southern California. Google will probably give you more than you want!

https://jeeps.club/index.php/category/jeep-club/california-jeep-clubs/

[gmwillys]

Welcome 2ofus!

It's great to see the younger generations willing to get in there and make the Jeep whole again.

[2ofus]

Awesome! What a great thing to do with your son. That will be a super fun project! Jeeps are amazing teachers. This site is a great place to get information/help. Post some pics of that new Jeep. Anxious to see updates!

We anticipate this restoration process will take a lot of time. Work begins.

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[gmwillys]

Outside of a half dozen coats of paint, the 2A looks pretty darn good. The rear wheel wells aren't beat like most all of them are or rusted out.

[2ofus]

Our overall plan is to remove the tub and have all body work done (previous owners drilled seems like a million holes) once that is done plan is to have entire tub sand blasted primed and eventually painted. While that is being done my son and I will have the task of removing the years of grease and grim from the frame and axles etc. and then put on a coating of POR15. Any and all advice is more than welcome and appreciated.

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[bmorgil]

You are on your way for sure. With the tub off, the clean up gets much easier. It is much easier to check it out thoroughly. I am amazed at the condition of the tub. It is in great shape.

My son used to use POR15 quite a bit. We found POR15 to be very hard and non permeable. The rust seems to accumulate underneath it however and it seems to start peeling early in those areas. I have always used the oil based Rust-Oleum. It is a soft paint that seems to work well at keeping the rust from restarting, and can take some abuse from road stones and the like. There are a few choices out there and everyone has their favorite.

[gmwillys]

I'll second Bmorgil's sentiment about the POR15. Oil based paint is best, or an epoxy primer rattle cans from Rustoleum do a good job too.

[2ofus]

We plan to use Rust-0leum primer prior to putting the POR15 on the frame and axels.

[bmorgil]

I an pretty sure POR15 is self etching, meaning it is intended to come into contact with bare metal. I have seen a lot of guys paint over it and it works OK like that. It is not intended to go over any type of paint however. That stops the idea of POR15 preventing the corrosion by its chemical reaction with bare metal. If you want to prime (and you should), you can treat the clean de-greased areas with POR15 rust stop/metal prep then some POR15 self etching primer. A top coat of POR15 after that will be rock hard. POR15 definitely works best on clean, de-greased and zinc phosphate coated bare metal.

[LarrBeard]

I'm just watching, but this talk about POR 15 tweaked my curiosity. As usual, Mrs. Google led me to some straight skinny about the product:

https://por15.com/collections/3-step-rust-preventive-system/products/3-step-stop-rust-system

From the product description, it looks like it is intended to be directly applied to metal - not over another coat of paint, primer or whatever.

[bmorgil]

Surface preparation and ambient humidity are critical with POR15. It is very susceptible to humidity when applying, and metal that has any contaminate on it whatsoever. I have seen meticulously prepped and applied POR15 come off in strips because it was applied when the humidity was too high. I have also seen it peel right off and leave rust underneath because the surface was not perfect when the POR15 was applied. All that said, I have seen it applied over New Steel and it is still there decades later. With POR15 you must put it on a properly prepared surface in the proper humidity, the drier the better. When POR15 is applied and cured correctly, it is rock hard and is very difficult to remove. When its not, it falls off. I have not had problems with oil based paints.

[2ofus]

Thanks for the insight with POR15, we will change our plans and prep the metal first then apply POR15 directly on the metal.