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July 7th~11th - Follow Me Light Box Modification Since moving to Durham, I've had a problem with the Jeep in its Flying Control scheme. The picture to the right shows the Jeep with the standard olive drab canvas on. You can see how close the roof is to the garage door. This means that when the Follow Me light box is fitted, it won't go through the door. The old roller shutter door on the Washington garage was much taller. If the wooden side panels aren't fitted on the Jeep, I can undo the canvas and lift the bows out of their sockets, lowering the whole assembly so it fits. When the side panels are fitted, this can't be done and the light box frame needs to be unscrewed from the bows, which isn't quick. Over early July, I had been studying
the frame, to see if it could be modified.
I worked out that by careful cutting
of the welds, I could modify the frame to allow the part that supports
the light box, to swing backwards and down, out of the way of the garage
door. This would allow the Jeep to go through the door with the canvas,
sides and frame still attached. Before grinding out the welds, I drilled
two holes through each side of the frame. One was a pivot point while
the other would lock the frame in the up position.
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| The welds didn't have a very deep penetration so were fairly easy to grind out, separating the two brackets that bolt to the Jeep bows. Some temporary socket screws were fitted to check the movement and trim the angled piece to allow free travel. After cleaning up the sharp edges, the light box frame was refitted to the Jeep for testing. Removing the top bolts allowed the box and frame to swing rearwards and down, out of the way of the door frame. |
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I welded some nuts to the angled bracket so all I'd need to do is unscrew a machine screw with a screwdriver to lower the frame. The pivot would have a nyloc nut and wouldn't need touching. The parts were given a coat of red oxide primer and left in the sun while I had lunch. A coat of olive drab was applied after lunch and once again left in the sun to bake. I ordered some pan head slotted machine screws from Ebay as the local DIY stores only had pozidrive head screws and these arrived on the 11th. |
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The frame was bolted back together again and then fitted to the Jeep bows. It was a quick job to unfasten the upper screws and swing the light box down, hanging just above the spare wheel. It now takes just a minute to fold the box down to put the Jeep through the garage door. |
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| July 9th - Canvas Repair When the wooden sides are fitted to
the Jeep, two machine screws hold the panels to the top of the canvas
bows. Over the years since 2008, when I first made Jessie into a Follow
Me Jeep, the front screw heads have slowly worn through the canvas,
causing it to split on both sides. I had some thin olive drab canvas,
salvaged from the original Norwegian metal frame doors on the Dodge. I
cut two patches which were glued on the inside on the Jeep canvas,
followed by a small leather patch, directly over the screw position.
This will hopefully stop the canvas from tearing any more and prevent
the screw head from wearing through again. |
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