My First Jeep CJ

Started on to work on the passenger side.
The body mounts were also shot, but the metal overall is in a little better shape.
The rear body mount metal looks to be the worst of the group (i.e., had the worst/best iron weight reduction package option).

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Had to fabricated some new metal and use some weld through primer.

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The small plate with the weld primer is there to stiffen up the 18 gauge sheet metal that the square nut sits on.
The stiffener was welded to the new sheet metal and then the assembly was welded to the Jeep.

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Hopefully, some time will free up to work on the other mounts soon.
 
Had some time to work on the rest of the body mounts on the passenger side.
The bolts were in ruff shape.

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While trying to get the bolt that was underneath the passenger side off, it broke.
The only way to get the square nut out when then happens is to cut into the floorboard or the cross member.
Luckily, the blue flame wrench trick and vice grips worked!

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The area on the front side of the wheel well for tub needed some help
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Time for some more 18 gauge sheet metal and some bending to make a patch panel

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A piece of 1/8" steel was added to stiffen up the patch panel

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The perch that the body mount sits onto needed some help as well

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The patch panel was welded into position
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Now all body mount bushings have been replaced and should work for a long time.

The gas tank will have to be installed again, then its back to the brakes.
 
Had to address one area on the left rear section of the frame (that iron oxide weight reduction option keeps me busy).

Made a couple of plates (turned out only one was needed)

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Then a bit of welding and a bunch of grinding later

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Luckily, the passenger side is in good shape.

Now onto removing the rest of the bed liner material from the tub so a coat of POR-15 can be applied.

One lesson learned from my limited experience with CJ's... bedliner material is great, but its all about the prep.
Based on the work done during prep, bedliner material is really great at trapping moisture between itself and the metal, which naturally leads to more rust.
A lot of folks recommend applying a primer before applying the liner material.
I am hoping that removing the old bedliner, removing the surface rust, applying POR-15 and then applying new bedliner material will keep A_Kelly's iron oxide weight reduction option in check.
 
As the work continues to remove the bed liner material from the tub, more iron oxide has been discovered.
One bad spot is on the drivers side under the roll bar
At some point in the life of the jeep, it appears that someone attempted to put some kind of filler that did not work.
Of course the bed liner did a nice job of covering up the holes and the rust.

This is what is there with the bed liner removed.

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Time now for some more sheet metal fabrication, cutting, and welding...
 
Had time to remove some rust behind the drivers seat.
I think that my mortal enemy will always be iron oxide.

To remove that portion of the floorboard, the body on the drivers side had to be lifted up again.

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Made a cardboard model of the piece of sheet metal needed.
After a trip to Lowes for the metal, the replacement piece was cut out.

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Some welding and a bunch of grinding, the new metal was installed.

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The old body mount connected to the old floor board had to be removed.
So a new one had to be made.

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Hope to have this new piece installed soon.
 
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Had some time to weld in the bracket.
First was to weld in the stiffening piece to the bracket.

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Then the bracket was placed into position as to mark where the spot weld holes were to be drilled into the new rear floor board patch

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The bracket was removed and the spot weld holes were drilled.

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Seems kind of strange to drill holes into a new floor board...

The bracket was put into position and welded in place.
A pipe and a jack was used to push the bracket up against the bottom of the floor board

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The welds were ground smooth...

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Then it was time to put the body bushings back into place and bolt the body back to the frame.
Onto to more removal of the bed liner material.
Hoping this was the last of the iron oxide replacement tasks. (Wishful thinking...).
 
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As with all good CJ's, more iron oxide was discovered...
So more cutting, welding and grinding on the floorboards and the FB was finally in good shape.

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Next came the tedious task of removing all the old paint so the POR 15 could stick.
The the floor board was nice and shiny.
Then came the POR 15.

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Now for the bed liner.
Think I am going with the DIY route.
A have some research to do...
Experience? Reviews? of bed liners.
 
I think herculiner is the way to go if diy. Just wear gloves so you not like the guy on whatever forum that posted "how to get herculiner off my hootus" look it up if you've not seen it yet... There's also raptor liner, monstaliner.... No personal experience - I hate bedliner & mud.. difficult to clean the mud of the surface isn't slick.
 
Finished up the bed liner.
Put the gas tank back in.
Hooked up the brakes.
The E-Brake seems to be working well.
Front brakes are OK.
Rear brakes are going to need some more work.

Next, it was time to see if the CJ could come out of hibernation.

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The CJ made it outside under its own power.
A bunch more work left to do, but it can now drive around the yard.
 
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To install the old winch plate, slots on the side had to be cut out due to the out-boarding of the YJ springs.

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As shown above, the winch was installed.
Took me a little while to figure out how to connect everything back up.
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It's not fancy, but it works.
Hopefully, next week, the muffler guy will install the exhaust.

Anyone know of someone who could help me build a roll bar into a cage in the Hickory, Charlotte area?
 
Had some time to tighten up the suspension bolts.
Next was the sway bar (SB).
Pickup up a set of quick release SB links off Craigslist.

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The original thought was to weld the lower tab to the top spring plate.
Due to dimension limitations, that plan was a no go.
The best place was on the axle

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As shown above, the tab that came with the kit was beefed up with some more metal.
The beefed up tab was then welded to the tube.
Repeated the process for the other side

The SB links were then attached.

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A few washers and a couple of longer bolts were used to make the SB link line up with lower bracket.

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Not sure if all this was the best way to install a SB, but it seems to be working...
Hopefully this week, the exhaust will be installed.
 
After installing the SB links, it was time to take the CJ outside again.
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Then over to a couple of small inclines to check the flexing and look for clearance issues.
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So far so good.
As front flexes and turns, the 22" front brake lines may be a little short, so the 28" brake lines will likely be installed at some point in the future.

Though the CJ sounds good with just headers, the man may not have the same opinion, so now the Jeep is at the muffler shop.

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Hope to get the CJ back this evening.

Next big item is to find someone bend some tubing to install a cage.
 
Got the CJ back from the muffler shop.

The owner of the shop was real easy to work with and had some great suggestions.
The CJ came with a dual exhaust setup.
With the addition of a track bar, a dual setup was not as ideal since a quite deep rumble was the desired outcome.

The new system starts with the headers and then goes to a two-in one-out muffler.

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When the suspension seats were installed, the original passenger seat bracket was used.
Though the seat bracket system worked, the passenger seat sat up too high, about two inches higher than the drivers seat.

They sell a universal seat bracket for about $120

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Since the CJ floor board is not level, the above would have to be modified.
So the original seat bracket system was taken apart and its lower brackets reused.
Since I had some steel left over from other projects, figured it would not be too hard to make a bracket system.

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Then a little paint
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Then bolt in the passenger seat.

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When looking under the CJ trying to figure out why the xfer case is stuck in four low, discovered the starter wires were touching the headers.
To reroute the cable as a little more involved than originally planned as the bolt would not loose up that holds the wire to the starter.
Eventually, the old wire was removed.
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The starter was cleaned up and painted
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The new wire was installed and the CJ taken for another drive around the neighborhood.

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Hope to get some more items into the done column and be ready for some trails soon.
 
Very nice looking! I forgot how cool these can look without the cage in them. Did you figure out the stuck linkage thing? I'm assuming you've got a D300. In my experience with them, that's just an inherent trait of them...Mine would be fine in 2-hi with an occasional struggle to shift into 4-hi, but I would feel like I was about to break the lever off trying to shift it into 4-lo...that was even with the occasional "rock-the-jeep-forward-and-back" trying to catch the range shift on a slow roll...turns out it's just in the way the linkage was engineered. If you take the linkage apart and scrub all the crap out of it and grease it up, it usually will work better. Not flawless (come on, it's a CJ :lol:), but better anyway.
 
Based on the numbers on the xfer case, its a Dana 20 matched to a T18.
During this upgrade, a twin stick was installed,
I may take it off and go back with the stock single stick setup.
If that doesn't fix things, I maybe taking out the xfer case and rebuild it or upgrade to a Dana 300
 
Based on the numbers on the xfer case, its a Dana 20 matched to a T18.
During this upgrade, a twin stick was installed,
I may take it off and go back with the stock single stick setup.
If that doesn't fix things, I maybe taking out the xfer case and rebuild it or upgrade to a Dana 300

Did you do the twin stick upgrade? I put in stiffer detent springs in my d300 when I did mine and it felt like my cable shifters were going to snap sometimes.

Mine only liked shifting smooth when popping the clutch at a crawl speed then getting the clutch back in. That sort of unbinded the gears and wahlah.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Well works been kicking my tail...

One thing that has always bothered by about the CJ was the bolts that are to secure the xfer case pan the frame were barely doing their job.
The threads in the frame that were to secure the bolts were almost stripped out.

So out comes some angle iron and the welder

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Next was to reinforce the pan and add some extensions.

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Then the modified pan was bolted to the welded on pieces of angle iron

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Now I can drive the CJ around the yard w/o worrying about the Dana 20 falling down.

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Of course the Dana 20 is leaking like crazy.
The rebuild kit is on back order.
Might be time to have the cage installed.
 
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