By Tony Konovaloff
For anyone who hasn’t seen it I brought a rusty BJ60 down from the great white north. The road salt of Lethbridge, Alberta had taken its toll. And to say it was rusty was a bit of an understatement. Lets just say there is not much original rig left. Considering just how much work was involved I am a bit surprised how fast things went when I look back, it went from just a frame to Rubicon in less than a year. But even with all the work it was worth it, even the long nights laying in the gravel side yard getting things put together. It didn’t help that the neighbor hood cats all use the side yard for a cat box.
When all was said and done it took parts from 12 wagons to make up this one. I had to get a frame as the old one was totally shot. Not too bad of a swap but even this one was bent a little and had to be straightened with the help of my HI-lift and a weed burner. Once I got a good look at the body of the diesel I came to the conclusion that it was not worth saving, just too many salty road miles. Fortunately for me, Eric had bought a donor rig for his tranny swap so there was an extra body in my yard that we were going to have to get rid of anyway so onto the diesel it went. 
The 3B ran really well when it first came home. There was a bit of a leak on the bottom of the pan that I decided to fix and that is when I found the remains of the cam bearings. I think there was more bearing material in the pan than on the bearing shells around the cam journals. So a partial teardown was in order. Along with the cam bearings and excess wear on the cam, I found 4 cracked precups (not at all uncommon) and not much else. I decided to check the main bearings and some rod bearings and they all spec’ed out within the tolerances for a new install so I decided to leave them alone. I went ahead and had the head re-done while it was off. All the valves just needed a touch up and new guides and stem seals. Valve springs were a bit soft but I will change them out later when I get a chance. Had to get a new radiator once everything was re-installed as the original was another victim of the salt.
Swapped out the axles with my 62 as I had already swapped out the gears and installed my airlockers so I didn’t really want to do this again. At least not any time soon. After some recent breakage I decided to swap out the rear axles with chromoly ones. Don’t want that kind of breakage again.
One thing that I kept when I swapped out the frame was the original manual steering box. While you might think I was crazy for doing this, I wanted to keep things simple and reliable. And I was used to it anyways as I drove a large pickup for 12 years that did not have power steering.
To avoid a wiring nightmare, when I swapped the body I pulled the entire harness out of the diesel. In all of about an hour the harness was installed in the new body. It did make things easy by having the dash stripped off to the firewall. Kept the original dash and gauge cluster too. Kept the cluster because it’s in kilometers which is not very common in the US. Another nice thing about factory diesels is that they generally run dual batteries. Not that my battery trays weren’t rotted out, but at least I didn’t have to move anything to make room. I used Blue top Optima AGM’s. I also added a couple of fuse blocks in key places to clean up all the extra wiring as well as make it easy to get to. One was added at the back for lights and the refrigerator and another was added in the hinged console from a 62. The console holds all kinds of extra switches. Winch controls, air locker switches and light switches are all in it with easy access in case something goes wrong. 3 DC outlets are also in it to provide power to a AA battery charger and other accessories.
Skidplates and other armor added a bit of weight but it is more than worth it. I can not imagine just how bad of shape the body would be in if I had not added rock sliders and quarter guards. My rock sliders were designed for a mini truck but they fit on the wagon really well. The quarter guards are just a cut down set of sliders. This way they match the style of the sliders without even trying. The joke of a factory skidplate was replaced with a fabrication of my own design. It”s 3/16th’s thick and easy to remove if needed. The tire and fuel can rack are more refugees from my 62. No reason to make 
new ones when I already like the ones I have. The other spot with some protection is my roof rack. While the rack is just a standard Yakima, I added some roof sliders to help fend off the trees, or at the very least keep them from catching the rack. I have leaned pretty hard on these things but the Yakima bases they are attached to will bend. What I hope to do in the near future is bolt new sliders through the roof and directly tie them to a partial cage. This way I can use the rack to right the rig in case I ever dump it on it’s side god forbid.
One of the best things I did was to swap in a 5 speed. When I swapped in the axles with the 4.88 gears I lost pretty much all the top end, the overdrive in the H55 tranny gave it back to me. Found out the hardway that an early t-case will not bolt onto an H55 but this turned out to not be a problem as the t-case attached to Eric’s old auto tranny was a direct bolt on. And not to long after I put the 5 speed in Eric needed a new t-case so he ended up with my old tcase from the diesel on the back of his H41. It’s amazing how many parts me and Eric have swapped between our wagons. I just think it’s good Kharma…
Just like my 62 I am running two winches. My worm gear driven Ramsey on the front and a small winch in the rear. While the Ramsey gets most of the work, the little one in the rear is indispensible for keeping the body off of rocks and trees. Usually in a direct side pull.
An absolute must is my hand throttle. I like to call it the Eric Mod as the first place I saw one was in Eric’s rig. A bike brake control lever is mounted to the stick connected to the throttle. This thing works like a charm when you absolutely positively cannot remove your foot from the brake pedal. Don’t know how I ever got along without it. Another mod that has been indispensible is the holes cut in the tailgate to create storage. The space created is now full of spare parts. Kept things simple by just using the carpeted panel as the access door. Another change you will find in my wagon is the toolbox in the back. This steel and aluminum box holds all my tools, creates a bunch of storage and made a protected space for my compressor.
