Well, finally wrapped up the weekend.
Lots of time spent sandblasting and painting small parts. I'm sure i'm not the first one who has thought of this, but for blasting my fasteners I used a scrap piece of Fence Board and drilled holes in it for the bolts to drop in to. It may seem strange to go to this effort to save bolts, but I always read about guys and "F" script bolts etc on their GPWs. The AM General built M151A2s all have "D" scripted bolts throughout, so I figured, why not clean them up and reuse them. Time consuming yes, but i'm sure its quicker than trying to inventory all of the correct bolts, grades etc, and then gather them all up at Fastenal, plus save a ton of money in the process. None of these will be exposed to the element without paint, so i'm not too worried:
Once I got all of my bolts done, I started installing items inside the dash. This is probably the hardest part of the assembly, and really, its still quite easy compared to a modern vehicle. I'm top coating most of the primed items with Krylon Camo spray bomb. It will all be painted again in 383 Green, but in case a spot gets missed, this will blend much better than Red Primer. The M Series wiring system is brilliant. I bought a NOS harness last year, so everything went together in a matter of minutes:
Unfortunately, I can't go any further in the Engine Compartment until I get some Semi-Gloss OD paint. My main effort is to get everything above the "Frame" reinstalled, then move on to the Suspensions, Brakes etc. When its all together, it will get the final coat of 383 Green. I'll start working on the Powerpack while the painted Jeep is curing.