[Kandisa]

Originally Posted by GTO - Touring

...Their quality of worksmanship is just too darn good. And the beauty is, they know these Jeeps inside out. .....You can tell that the Jeep's upkeep is the least of my worries. Sure, their pricing is on the higher side. But you get what you pay for. I am happy paying a premium price for premium service.

What else can someone ask for to maintain a beauty in the greatest of condition. I must say you are one of the few lucky guys to have such a dedicated workshop in hand. Here people do pay a premium price but doesn't get a service of that standard.
@trammway, the story is getting better and better. Can't wait to read the next part..
-Best regards,

[GTO]

Damn, a shoddy electrical job can be a nightmare! I am eager to see how that panned out.

A tip for whoever is restoring : The Mahindra Major's wiring harness is a direct fit for the Classic. Some minor alterations are required, but quality is way improved over the yesteryears. My Classic is wired up exactly the same way.

[harjeev]

Phew!!!
Just finished reading your thread. Great job trammway 3 cheers: to you
You apart from being a jeep enthusiast, a photographer, an IT professional should also be a suspense writer.
Great writing style man. I'm glued. Keep them coming...
Harjeev

[trammway]

After trying hard again and again found the issue with wiring under the dash board, as it didn’t charge the battery due to some misconnection. I confirmed my finding only with the battery indicator light on the dash board later. Anyway finding the issue is not key solution as I was unable to start the jeep without battery. Also Classic jeep runs with a diesel pump that requires power supply hence running with drained battery or unsure electrical may let me down at any time.

The reason for battery went down also due to the previous night’s hill rounding with head lamps on.

It was around 4:20AM and I was asking all my family members to help me pushing the jeep after connecting some improperly connected wires. Nothing helped me with their muscle power [they are not used of pushing jeeps ;-)]. After 10 minutes, Luck worked favoring my need, as one of my neighbor who owns a truck came back in his truck after a long drive. Until that movement I was trying to push start the jeep with 1st gear, and the truck person advised me of using 2nd gear and only with his help I could start the jeep at first attempt. Hurray!!! a smile on my face and I could watch my father is still worried if I drive the jeep with that condition.

I pushed the accelerator in neutral gear position to see if the battery charges by looking at the red battery indicator in the dash board. It went off and I’m sure the battery is charging now. Another 15minutes just pushing the accelerator in static position to make sure if I can start the jeep without another person’s help. And it worked exactly the way I wanted. After making sure the issue is solved around 5:00AM the Jeep was started its maiden long trip (200kms) to Chennai with uneven and bend tyres.

I was literally feeling like riding a horse ;-). With couple of breaks in between we reached Chennai around 10AM. It was fun and scary to drive the jeep on the high way without side view mirrors, center rear view mirror, glass on the windshield and jumpy tyres.

The Jeep was taken directly to a electrician to fix issues that spoilt my morning and he did some adjustments that’s was the last time I touched the electrical fitments but I’m still looking for original wiring harness to redo the whole wiring, let me see if any Mahindra god comes with a solution.

I forgot to mention, the Jeep had wire wheels which are chrome plated ones, but they had rust on it. I hope you have seen the initial episodes showing the wheel picture. Inside of the wheel under the tube there was a layer of rubber grip to prevent the spokes to puncture the tube. It was like a molded piece and removal of spoke for re-electro plating may again break few spoke which are rare or extinct items. So I decided not to do plating but painting with black color.

I was also analyzed options of using alloys (I really took lots of information from GTOs post on the PCDs of Classic in Team-BHP), finally I made my mind to stick with what I had and to run the jeep with painted wire wheels for now. Since I couldn’t source the spare wheel, as an alternate solution I used the gypsy wheel mounted on my rear and covered it up with a Mahindra spare wheel cover.


In Chennai, I should say the first run for my jeep is to a tyre shop which is the top priority to list. I had many suggestions to go for Geolander, Bridgestone AT and so on. I was also looking out for the original spare wire wheel (one of the wire wheel on the jeep went missing and still I’m searching for replacement).

The tyre shop guy showed me lots of options; in fact one of my friend was also suggesting me to take up used tyres as he was not sure about the wheel if they could survive long. Hence cost and Offroad tyre are the criteria for selecting a tyre set for my Jeep. As all of us know Offroad and Cost can never meet each other, so all branded ones are out of my option. That time only the shop keeper told me about the China made Haida Tyres.

It was economically cheaper and equally priced like the used tyres. But comes with no warranty the shopkeeper added. I was not really worried about the warranty as the price was really low (Rs. 2400 per tyre), and the tyre had really good button which convinced me of good offroading capabilities. I took 4 tyres (215/75 R15) and fixed in my wheels, the jeep had nice outlook and better driving comfort; also the wobbling and bumpy drive went away as soon as the new tyres fitted on the jeep.

From the tyre shop I took the Jeep to a glass shop to fix the windshield glass (tinted and toughed). I was feeling great as the jeep turning with good results. It was time for me to name my Jeep after careful discussions and analysis I have chosen a name to my Jeep. My earlier Willys CJ2A had the name “T.I.G.E.R” on it and Jeep was written with a failure note, so this time my sentiments didn’t allow me to choose a name of animal.

to be continued…

[HappyWheels]

Good narration here! An very interesting read.

It is always a wonderful experience when one goes around building one's own ride! Way to go, Trammway.

[harjeev]

good narration and a very captivating. I love reading about restoration projects
Keep it up

[Kandisa]

Originally Posted by trammway

...Nothing helped me with their muscle power [they are not used of pushing jeeps ;-)].…

That was hilarious!

It was fun and scary to drive the jeep on the high way without side view mirrors, center rear view mirror, glass on the windshield and jumpy tyres. …

Oh, man, it must have been a feeling of a lifetime, particularly after getting used to a normal car!

...That time only the shop keeper told me about the China made Haida Tyres.…

never heard of it. Man the Chinese invasion is everywhere. So these were tubeless ones? How are they performing on and off-road?

..so this time my sentiments didn’t allow me to choose a name of animal...

Ha ha, well-said. Great going as usual. Carry on..
-regards,

[randeep04]

Jeep looks awesome, Happy offroading brother !!!!!

[trammway]

Originally Posted by Kandisa

never heard of it. Man the Chinese invasion is everywhere. So these were tubeless ones? How are they performing on and off-road?

I would have regretted if I didn't choose the Haida. With these tyres I have done couple of Mud, Sand, Boulder and Highway drives and all are with best results.

I have done more than 5K kms on my odo after fitting the tyres and I'm still happy for what I have done.

These tyres are radials and tubeless, Since I'm using it in the wirewheels I've inserted tubes in it.

I think if the tyre serves me for 20K kms for the money I paid, I'm really ok with it.

[Kandisa]

Originally Posted by trammway

I would have regretted if I didn't choose the Haida. With these tyres I have done couple of Mud, Sand, Boulder and Highway drives and all are with best results.
I have done more than 5K kms on my odo after fitting the tyres and I'm still happy for what I have done.

Thats really some encouraging words. I have heard some other chinese tyre name here in Delhi, NANKING or something like that, dnt know whether they are also of same type. Getting a tubeless tyre in those prices are like boon! So how is the thread condition after 5K? And do you have any idea whether these tyres are available in 16 inch size (~235 wide)

Since I'm using it in the wirewheels I've inserted tubes in it

Can you just elaborate this point a bit? I mean why is it required to insert the tube on to the tubeless?
-Best regards,

[trammway]

Originally Posted by Kandisa

Thats really some encouraging words. I have heard some other chinese tyre name here in Delhi, NANKING or something like that, dnt know whether they are also of same type. Getting a tubeless tyre in those prices are like boon! So how is the thread condition after 5K? And do you have any idea whether these tyres are available in 16 inch size (~235 wide)

Can you just elaborate this point a bit? I mean why is it required to insert the tube on to the tubeless?
-Best regards,

Not sure about NANKING, but HAIDA in 235 is available for 15" not for 16". I can inquire and let you know in a day or two.

The buttons after 5K kms is still very good and can easily go above 20K kms.

I have inserted tube into a tubeless tyre because I'm not using a steel or alloy wheels.

• As I'm using the wire wheels where inserting a nozzle or the value is not possible.
• Secondly the spokes fitted on the wirewheels may lead air lead through the spoke joints the tubeless concept wont' work in wire wheels.
• I didn't have HAIDA or the chineese low cost tyres for tubed models

Hence I'm using the tubes in the tubeless tyre.

[harjeev]

Originally Posted by trammway

Not sure about NANKING, but HAIDA in 235 is available for 15" not for 16". I can inquire and let you know in a day or two.

Can you find out if HAIDA are available in size like 275 70 R16 AT's. Actually this tyre has a height of approx 31.15". I am looking for a similar tyre(31") for my 550 and dont want to reduce the height of the vehicle.

If anything is there of similar size's please do let me know

[Kandisa]

Originally Posted by trammway

....The buttons after 5K kms is still very good and can easily go above 20K kms.

Thanks for the explanation. And really with that kind of price if around 25k+ kms can be covered, nothing like that! Yeah, kindly do share some more info on the tyres when available.
-regards,

[trammway]

I drove the RED Mahindra Classic to my office and had an experience of no one. I should say Mercedes or BMW wouldn’t get so much of attraction as my Jeep received on the first day.

The very first thing is it was SWB jeep and almost after a decade of it’s extinction I was driving a brand new looking jeep. Many of the automobile enthusiastic in my office reached me while I was parking the Jeep to inquire about cost, mods and specs about the Jeep. Some even wondered asking me if I spent a huge sum on restoration.

I was fun watching from distance during smoke breaks that there was an exhibition like crowd around the Jeep[FONT=Wingdings]J[/FONT]. In the later days my security personals in the office stopped asking me to show the ID card as they recognized my unique identity the JEEP.

While returning from office, after discussions with my friends I zeroed Crawler or Explorer as an option for my Jeep name. Though Crawler was bit attractive, I found Explorer is the word pronounced by many (Internet Explorer) hence the name Explorer became the official name of my Jeep.

Jeep is ready with all necessary things for exploration, but suspension? Alright the very next week the jeep was undergone major suspension work.

It was the time I found two of the leaf spring plates were in broken condition (may be due to my destructive testing earlier) and same has been replaced with the U clamps.


The grease nipples has also been changed to enable lubrication for the under body parts and prevent dust particles getting into the depreciable areas.

Forgot to mention one of the rear wheel hub which has oil leaking issue and shock absorbers were also undergone the transplantation.

My mechanic in suggested me to take the jeep for wheel alignment check as we worked on the suspension parts, so I was.


It was in the same place where I did change my tyres, a reasonably good setup with computerized wheel alignment machines.

Out of the three wheel alignment angles (as mentioned below) I think the camber angle could not be carried out in the Jeep as there is no option given due to the suspension mechanism. (I’m really not sure but the service personal referred independent coil spring models got options to adjust Camber settings)

• Camber is simply the inward or outward tilt of a wheel compared to a vertical line.
• Caster is the degree that the car's steering axis is tilted forward or backward from the vertical as viewed from the side of the car.
• Toe refers to the directions in which two wheels point relative to each other. "Toe-in" means the wheels point toward each other in a "pigeon-toed" stance; toe-out means the wheels point away from each other.

Driving the Jeep proved me a completed restoration of my Mahindra Classic with few parts (cosmetics) missing there and here, of course most of them were fixed in the later days. There are still few items like side view mirrors, emergency break or parking break cable and windshield joint cover (small plastic cover) are the only stuffs missing.

Jeeps are not meant for comfort, what is the actual purpose of a Jeep? If you remember my very first post saying I was a photographer who was interested in possessing a vehicle for taking me anywhere with a ladder. Keeping the ladder aside the ability to go anywhere, how do I test that? There comes the first off-road idea for my Jeep but you won’t believe by that time I was part of Jeep Thrills for more than 2 and half years and almost the same age as JT, but never had a chance to do off-road either with my Willys or with some one else at JT as co-passenger. So except me in JT everyone was already very familiar with the JEEP and Off-road techniques.

If you know, it is human tendency to have more attraction for a new thing initially and when it gets matured it gradually reduced. So being seniors in JT many of them were not shown me as much as interest to do off-road as I was. Result? I couldn’t get a companion for my off-road plan; also I was not sure if I could make an off-road without anyone’s help. Almost a month passed and still waiting and finally got news from my co-worker that another employee in the same organization is building his Jeep in Ooty under Simpson’s factory. Wow… that was great news to me, my approach to that guy revealed that his Jeep will in Chennai with in that weekend. What else I want, we both planed out first off-road plans plotted and our decision to test the jeep in slightly easy way, hence chosen that location. Where did we go? And was our off the road drive a successful one?

to be continued…

[Kandisa]

Originally Posted by trammway

I drove the RED Mahindra Classic to my office and had an experience of no one. I should say Mercedes or BMW wouldn’t get so much of attraction as my Jeep received on the first day.

So that was some feeling, isn't it?

Out of the three wheel alignment angles (as mentioned below) I think the camber angle could not be carried out in the Jeep as there is no option given due to the suspension mechanism.

I always had this interest to know how the jeep wheel alignment is vis-a-vis normal cars. Now your information clarifies it more.
By the way, any idea on how good is it to chrome polish/plating a steel wheel from cosmetic point of view. I mean how good is the finish generally and whats the cost involved?
Now that you are through your restoration process I guess up next will be your offroading experiences. But the way you have managed to build up your jeep within so many constraints (mainly locational disadvantages), its really commendable
-Best regards,