Build Thread 1981
1981 CJ5
Greetings all. Moving things from Misc to a Build Thread here.
I used to wheel a 98 Dodge Dakota that was heavily modified with a tube bed, 2.5ton Rockwell Axles and hydraulic 4 wheel steering. Had tons of fun in that Ol Goat. But life changed and I had to let her go. Missed that ol girl.
Fast forward a few years and the itch to wheel and wrench got too strong to ignore. Always have wanted a Jeep so the search began. I found this 1981 CJ5 in a price that I could afford. Went and took a look and bought her. Not having a truck or trailer, I had to drive her home. Nothing like a 4 hour road trip in an untested rig. Lost a tire to bead separation about an hour from home. Had a bunch of fun with that. Wound up dropping her off at a friends house. Found a cheep used tire, and got her home a few weeks later.
The Jeep had a AMC 304 , SR4 , Dana 30 front, AMC20 rear, and a driver seat that was held up by a 2x4 jammed behind the back rest.
First thing first, get her registered and titled. Ran into a bit of an issue with that as the vin that was on the windshield did not match the vin on the title I had gotten from the seller. Big mistake on my part not verifying it. The vin plate on the fire wall was unreadable.
Cleaned it up with some paint stripper and wire brushes and got this:
Success! Was able to verify that the vin on the title and the Jeep actually matched. Got her registered and retitled in my name and she is now officially mine!
My Jeep is supposed to be Mountain Blue with Blue Vinyl Denim High Back Bucket Seats with a 4 cylinder 4speed manual Transmission . I intend on repainting her to her original blue and I want it to look like this:
The SR4 was giving me problems already by not staying in gear, espcially reverse so after some research and searching, I found a T-176 and Dana 300 for sale locally and pretty cheap too.
Got wrapped up in actually doing the swap that I didnt get pics. But in verifying fitment, I did make this little diagram that may be helpful to someone. Here are the dimensions of the input shafts for both the SR4 and the T-176 .
After installing the T-176 , I turned my attention to the steering. She wandered quite a bit, and for some reason, the PO had removed the power steering pump and just 'capped' off the lines on the steering gear. Power Steering with out a pump sucks. While investigating my next steps, I noticed this:
]
So, found a pump, brackets, and a lower column bearing and got all that installed. Thought I had to clock the distributor in order to clear the pump belts and ran into issues with the motor running. During which I found out I had a points type ignition.
Borrowed a timing set and got that straightened out. Now the motor is running nice and strong and power steering to boot!
Somewhere in there I lost headlights. The dimmer switch on the floor board just disintegrated! Little bit of research and I decided to deep six the floor switch for a dash mounted toggle and relays to lessen the load inside the body. Again, no pics. Ill try to get some next time Im out working on the Jeep.
This whole time, the turn signals have been a bit wonky, and brake lights non functional. So in working to get those fixed, this happened:
So thats where we stand. This is going to be a slow build as I am on a shoestring budget and very little free time.
Greetings all. Moving things from Misc to a Build Thread here.
I used to wheel a 98 Dodge Dakota that was heavily modified with a tube bed, 2.5ton Rockwell Axles and hydraulic 4 wheel steering. Had tons of fun in that Ol Goat. But life changed and I had to let her go. Missed that ol girl.
Fast forward a few years and the itch to wheel and wrench got too strong to ignore. Always have wanted a Jeep so the search began. I found this 1981 CJ5 in a price that I could afford. Went and took a look and bought her. Not having a truck or trailer, I had to drive her home. Nothing like a 4 hour road trip in an untested rig. Lost a tire to bead separation about an hour from home. Had a bunch of fun with that. Wound up dropping her off at a friends house. Found a cheep used tire, and got her home a few weeks later.
The Jeep had a AMC 304 , SR4 , Dana 30 front, AMC20 rear, and a driver seat that was held up by a 2x4 jammed behind the back rest.
First thing first, get her registered and titled. Ran into a bit of an issue with that as the vin that was on the windshield did not match the vin on the title I had gotten from the seller. Big mistake on my part not verifying it. The vin plate on the fire wall was unreadable.
Cleaned it up with some paint stripper and wire brushes and got this:
Success! Was able to verify that the vin on the title and the Jeep actually matched. Got her registered and retitled in my name and she is now officially mine!
My Jeep is supposed to be Mountain Blue with Blue Vinyl Denim High Back Bucket Seats with a 4 cylinder 4speed manual Transmission . I intend on repainting her to her original blue and I want it to look like this:
The SR4 was giving me problems already by not staying in gear, espcially reverse so after some research and searching, I found a T-176 and Dana 300 for sale locally and pretty cheap too.
Got wrapped up in actually doing the swap that I didnt get pics. But in verifying fitment, I did make this little diagram that may be helpful to someone. Here are the dimensions of the input shafts for both the SR4 and the T-176 .
After installing the T-176 , I turned my attention to the steering. She wandered quite a bit, and for some reason, the PO had removed the power steering pump and just 'capped' off the lines on the steering gear. Power Steering with out a pump sucks. While investigating my next steps, I noticed this:
]
So, found a pump, brackets, and a lower column bearing and got all that installed. Thought I had to clock the distributor in order to clear the pump belts and ran into issues with the motor running. During which I found out I had a points type ignition.
Borrowed a timing set and got that straightened out. Now the motor is running nice and strong and power steering to boot!
Somewhere in there I lost headlights. The dimmer switch on the floor board just disintegrated! Little bit of research and I decided to deep six the floor switch for a dash mounted toggle and relays to lessen the load inside the body. Again, no pics. Ill try to get some next time Im out working on the Jeep.
This whole time, the turn signals have been a bit wonky, and brake lights non functional. So in working to get those fixed, this happened:
So thats where we stand. This is going to be a slow build as I am on a shoestring budget and very little free time.
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