I always have "plans" for every one of my car projects, and yet very few of them ever end up looking the way I saw them in my head when I started.
But, here's what I'm thinking I'm going to do with the green 66, and the red 6258 - and yes, the "nickname" for the red one is going to be the 6258 Patrol from here on out- it says 62 on the title, and has a 65 serial number in the registry , and it has a 68 engine in it - ergo, 6258. I'll probably also refer to it as "the Keeper" from time to time.
The green one is still going to be referred to by the myriad of creative nicknames I already have for it:
El Paso/Suicide/Deathtrap/Marty Robbins/Psycho/Hackjob -- you get the picture.
Anyway, back to the plan: I spent this past weekend Pertronix-ing the disty in the red one, and I rebuilt the assortment of Rochester B carbs I had floating around here.
I managed to get both Patrols running, idling, and revving smoothly- and I'm not talking farm tractor smooth, I'm talking Cadillac smooth - I'm talking yogurt, banana and whipped cream smoothie.
Like room temperature butter- smooooooooooth
Luckily, the red Patrol came with an extra carb baseplate that has the two-hole style Patrol throttle arm, so I will use that to return the throttle on the green one back to the correct original design, and lose the old chevy pickup carb, and the assortment of springs and bailing wire that were hacked together to hook it up to the Patrol throttle arm
Both engines make great compression across all cylinders. The 63 engine in the green monster makes 125-130 psi across all cylinders, and pulls a steady 15 inches Hg at idle, while the 68 engine in the 6258 Patrol makes a smokin 150psi+ in every cylinder, and pulls a ridiculous 28 inches of Mercury at idle - that engine is TIGHT - every fear I had about it when I saw the coolant mixed in the oil after I brought it home has been alleviated. It's solid.
So, meeting that goal (establishing a clean bill of health on both engines) was the first objective I had to meet in order to decide what to do with both Patrols going forward, so here't the plan:
I'm going to build them BOTH- One to keep, and one to sell (or also to keep- you never know
).The "Keeper" is going to use the frame,firewall, front fenders and tub from the Red 6258, plus the doors and hard top from the green Deathtrap. It's going to be blue (or gray, or white, or tan, or whatever other mellow neutral color that I decide on, but not red), and I'll give it the gray interior and engine compartment which are correct for a hard top Patrol. It's going to keep the 68 engine, and get the Mark's 5-speed tranny behind it, and a set of 3 inch (or 4 inch if they can do them) Alcan springs. I'm not going to do a wild suspension under it- I'm not grinding off any factory spring or shackle mounts - I'm just going to make it tall enough to clear 32-33 inch tires, and to be tough and dependable enough to take us camping, and to handle the semi-rough stuff on weekend 4-wheeling trips- There will be no "Johnson-Valley" style rock crawling in this Patrol's future.
In short, the best parts from both Patrols are going to be combined into the one that I'll keep.
Everything that's left will be used to make the other one- It will get the frame, fenders, tub, and the 63 engine and 3 speed from the Marty Robbins machine, and will get the half doors from the 6258 Patrol; and, even though the frame and body panels are going to be more rough, don't think for a minute that I'm just going to "throw it all back together" and put it on Ebay - I could not pass off this shoddy, unsafe suspension work to someone else, so even though I don't plan to keep it, I'm going to tear it all down and rebuild it as if I was... in fact, when the grinding dust settles and the tools are put away for the last time, I expect that I will have put more than twice the time and effort into this one than it will take to build my "Keeper".
Since it's going to be a "no top" project, I'm going to give it the "tough guy" look (roll bar, bikini top, big wide wheels and tires, blah blah blah), and I'm going to completely tear the suspension out and re-do it to eliminate all the hacks, and be able to handle some serious desert off-road capability. I will maintain the spring-over axle suspension design (because spring over axle is the best configuration for getting serious articulation from leaf spring suspensions), and yes- I'm going to use Urban60's long rear shackles when she sends them to me (although they will be "enhanced" with a cross bar to keep them from flipping). It's going to look tough, run tough, and drip testosterone out the tailpipe.
I don't know what color it's going to be - I have about a quart of the left over green paint left that the previous owner gave me, and it's an off the shelf color- so I might just shoot the red half-doors with the green, then wet-sand it, buff it out, and call it good. Besides- if I paint it some cool color that I really like, it might make it harder for me to put it on craigslist some day, lol
Now, about that Koenig PTO winch... It works, but the Koenig PTO unit can only mate up to the stock 3 speed Patrol tranny, and it will not hook up to the Mark's 5 speed; so the winch will either have to go with the topless Patrol, or (if someone wants it badly enough) I will remove it and sell it by itself. In fact, I will probably shoot some video of it running and put an Ebay ad out there sometime in the next couple months and see if there is any interest in it - I've got plenty of time to come up with a plan for the PTO winch. Heck, if one of our Aussie friends finds me a cheap Thomas' transfer-case style PTO drive gear for it, I might just use it on my Keeper Patrol...
So there you have it- My Patrol plan as of Oct 7, 2013; and even though a lot of the work will be done on them side by side, I'm going to start a separate, dedicated build thread for each Patrol to track their progress individually, so that someday, whoever owns the green one will be able to see what went into making it right, and tight.
So, here is the final pic that shows both of them at the moment that both of these projects got underway:
No, wait- actually THIS is the more correct starting point (since this is exactly how they are sitting outside as I am typing this post on Oct 7, 2013 )- the brakes are torn out of both, and will be step two on both projects, now that both engines are running):
I'm looking forward to watching the progress on these. 
