Build Thread 83CJ7 rebuild "sort of"

[mikeyb]

New here so I thought I would start a rebuild. I have had the cj for about 4 years. When I bought it, it was covered in about 2" of mud, inside and out. Floor pans where totally shot so I cleaned it up, welded in some patch panels and commenced to torturing it on any trail I could find. Over the last couple of years I noticed the Passenger side starting to sag, the two body mounts in the rear had rusted pretty bad and where giving out.

I dont have the room to pull the tub off the frame so it is kind of a partial rebuild, Transmission is original automatic A999 I had rebuilt about 2years ago. going to pull engine and tranny at a later date. So here goes!!!!

 

[mikeyb]

left out a lot of the strip down so I will pick up with a few pics of where I am. this is the passenger side mount where the roll bar mounts. cut the whole corner out and replaced with 16ga, I am on a tight budget so I do everything myself. So dont be shocked with a little ghetto fab going on.

 

[mikeyb]

A few more of the corner in process, tacked and ground.

 

[mikeyb]

corner finished up, starting on passenger floor pan, they where very solid with the patches, but I wanted to try and make it look like one piece so I can herculine it.

 

[mikeyb]

couple pics of the rear corner mount repair, and the mount under the rear floor panel.

 

[mikeyb]

few more shots of floor repair and a couple random

 

[mikeyb]

passenger side floor pan sheet metal work complete, all paint stripped off. moving on to rear floor pan this weekend.

 

[tarry99]

Mikeyb

Looks real nice, keep up the good work!

 

[mikeyb]

thank you, def more of a job than I thought it would be. Started out I was just gonna paint it, realized it needed a lot more.

 

[mikeyb]

Saturday turned out to be a fairly productive day, removing the rear floor panel was more difficult than I thought it would be. In the pics I finally got the old sheet metal removed, fixed the body mount in the crossmember, drilled mounting holes in the new rear floor support, cleaned up the old brackets, replaced half of the step brace. going to work on the other half today along with the driver side seat belt mount and roll bar mount.

 

[mikeyb]

A few more pics.

 

[mikeyb]

and yet a few more:

 

[tarry99]

Mikeyb,

Wow your hard at it.
If your replacing large panels like that one, hopefully your using a replacement panel or have the ability to roll some groves in the blank sheet metal as the factory did. Those grooves are there to add some rigidity to the otherwise thin sheet metal. Also those floors in the rear near the tailgate never seemed to have enough bracing to keep that floor flat, so adding an extra brace now might be a good Idea.

 

[mikeyb]

Thanks tarry99, although I am not using replacement panels, I am however replacing everything with 16ga. I bought a 4x8 sheet. I think I am gonna add an extra brace in the back where the step is. thanks for the advice. the front floor pans still have the factory brace. so far everything seems pretty solid. I def go a little overboard If something seems flimsy, Its taken me more time to cut my old patches out more than anything else.

 

[mikeyb]

Well today was a beautiful day here in VA. I cleaned the shop really well. remove d the risers off the old seats and trashed the seats. swapped the 33's and put the 31's back on, unmounted two of those, the other two will have to go to a shop could not get the beads to break loose.

They are mounted on 15x8 wagon wheels that I am gonna re-use, after I have them sandblasted. Did manage to get the driver side rollbar mount cut out. luckily the body mount is in good shape and doesn't have to be cut out.

Then my buddy Sam Adams showed up and the progress slowed to a complete stop after that.

 

[mikeyb]

This is the seat I built for the back, the seats are out of a Subaru Brat, had to lose the middle handles. I made this several years ago and plan on re-using it. Everybody that sees it seems to love it.

 

[BamaCJ]

Looks like it is coming along. Good luck.

 

[mikeyb]

Making progress monday I mocked up the floor panel and rollbar mount. Then on Tuesday started doing the final fit and tacking everything in. I should have called this thread a Tub Rebuild. oh well, I enjoy the cutting, welding and fabricating and it will look better than it did. Anyway off on Friday so I hope to have the floors done by the end of the day on Friday.

Heres a few more pics of where I am at:

 

[mikeyb]

couple more pics and a question.

Should I herculine the inside of the tub before or after I paint the outside?

 

[tarry99]

Mikeyb

So what kind of bolts are you using to go through those rear tub mounts that are in the rear floor? I think Jeep was using carriage bolts at one time and are a pain to get off. I've got mine all apart right now and I'm thinking of using some button head stainless allen bolts as replacements?