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First jeep, opinions welcome

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First jeep, opinions welcome
JEEPROOKIE said:
I did the same thing, paid $100, took 3 1/2 years to drive it, it was awesome, still work to go to road ready. I kept it stock, and I agree, that big engine and girls could be a bad mix.
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Well, from a female perspective, you're right about girls & big engines- volatile combination- and I'm way past being a teenager!

Sent from my GT-I9152 using Tapatalk
 
Well it has been a while, with buying more project motorcycles (up to 4 now), buying a house, my daughter breaking her arm twice I really haven't been staying up to date with my jeep. Well beyond better judgement and opinions Ive gotten here I decided to push forward with the CJ. The motor turned out to be a Chevy 305, which was garbage, a Dana 44 intermediate CJ rear and a exploded Dana 27 front, A cracked Th350 and a frame which had been cracked, twisted and re-welded too many times. Well the tub wasn't in bad shape and determined to get $600 out of this thing I decided to use it as a learning experience and try fixing new things.

Fist I started by pounding dents, Everywhere there is primer used to be a large dent. Eventually I'll get the tub and body parts blasted and then I'll finish smoothing everything out.

Then I took the tub off the frame, (This is when I learned the frame was so bad).

A few days later my buddy called me and said he found some TJ seats near by for crazy cheap. I figured since they were "crazy cheap" it wouldn't hurt. $50 later I had both fronts and rear seats and they were never used. The guy bought the jeep new and put Recaro's or something like that in immediately. My daughter wanted to try them out and she got a little crazy when I realized I ran out of screws when I put the sawhorses together and never remembered to finish them. Well the first crash is out of the way.

I then found a full size Dana 44 and 12 bolt with 4.55 gears for $180.

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Back to craigslist and I found an SM465 and another NP205 for $100 so I picked them up and stripped them down. Had them hot tanked from a friend, painted and rebuilt them with new gaskets and bearings. I asked my daughter what color she wanted her jeep and she said pink. I didn't really want a pink jeep in my driveway we compromised. I also modified the shift rail and stole a lever from my other 205 and twin sticked it. So now I have independent control over front and rear axles.

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My wife jokes that I am the king of craigslist. I am on there everyday looking for that one thing I need for my projects, and one night I found a Meyer hardtop with doors and filler plates for $500. I woke up the family at 5 am drove to Denver got it bought and was back by 2 am. Good thing my family are as crazy as I am. I need to figure out how to keep the bumper sticker attached to it.

Next up to try and figure out what to do with the frame, and I decided it wasn't worth the hassle to put a band aid on a sucking chest wound so I went to the steel yard and came home with a pile of steel. Then tacked two frame rails together, then added the bumpers, then plated the joints. The fame is upside down in the picture but it will be much stronger and willing to take more punishment as well as allowing me to stretch my wheel base a few inches.

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Since the motor was toast I went back to craigslist, and soon discovered it would be better to buy a whole parts car rather than a used motor. So I found a 99 tahoe with a TBI 350 and 340k mi for $600, and "ran when parked". I decided with would be worth it for the parts and I would have a good block to bore out and rebuild. Well I got there and the lady said it was her husbands car who recently died and he last drove it 3 months earlier, but the battery was dead. She also told me the motor blew up at 310k mi so her husband had a brand new crate motor put in and it burned up the tranny. I hooked up some jumper cables and the thing fired right up and ran like a top. She said my girls were so cute and I told her I was going to pull the motor for them so she sold it to me for $400.

I pulled the motor, harness, computer, powersteering, all accessories, mounting hardware, and even the collapsible steering column. Then I sold the rest back to the scrap yard for $AMC 150 .

And last there is a picture of how its sitting right now. I still need to find some springs to mockup the suspension, then I can put the tub back on and set the drivetrain. If anyone has extra yj springs laying around they want to get rid of, let me know,

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Nice! That's how you build a Jeep from the ground up :chug:
 
Not sure if you're nuts or brilliant yet...:popcorn:

HA! Only kidding - you're both!

Seriously though...with that frame, those axles and absolutely zero existing hardware - I'd give serious consideration to putting a homebrew coiled suspension on it. You'll have the best riding 5 around... :chug:
 
007 said:
Not sure if you're nuts or brilliant yet...:popcorn:

HA! Only kidding - you're both!

Seriously though...with that frame, those axles and absolutely zero existing hardware - I'd give serious consideration to putting a homebrew coiled suspension on it. You'll have the best riding 5 around... :chug:
Click to expand...

I thought about coils but I will be narrowing the axles some and Im not doing a huge stretch, so packing all the necessary stuff under to locate the axles on coils would be rough. Plus I still need some older technology so it has old school character.
 
You wont regret painting that gearbox pink :notworthy:
 
I have a set of YJ springs
 
I'm about a hour from Cheyenne. And I don't know not much.
 
Any more pictures of the hotrod? Looks nice.
 
So this morning I brought home a boat and expecting to get yelled at, my wife was actually pretty excited. Then she said the only place to put that is on the side of the house, but the jeep tub is in the way. I told her I needed about $400 to buy new suspension, so I could get the frame attached to the axles and then I can put the tub on and roll it in the garage. She said then go and buy them... I'm not sure what happened but I think my wife has been kidnapped and replaced with a robot.

Or something really big and bad is about to happen.

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You all are overreacting. I tell my husband to buy new tools and jeep parts all the time…. No no.. It's me that buys that stuff.. 😃.. Good luck!
 
Love this thread lots of conversation, twists and turns. Cool project, cool hot rod, lucky husband.
 
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