Stormin' Norman - the 99 TJ rebuild

Blaze

Blaze

The Jeeper Reaper
Joined
Aug 9, 2005
Location
Wake Forest, NC
So after taking way too much time to build that 2 door XJ, I bought this TJ as a parts vehicle only to take it for a test drive and realize that it was too nice to part and I would rather have a Jeep with no top or doors. :lol:

Overall it is really solid. Does leak a little oil, but what Jeep doesn't.....

It is a 99, has like 145k miles on it, around a 4.5" lift, some new Dynapro MTs, other goodies. Overall well built and looks to be well maintained. And also slid into a pole.

Yes, it appears someone went for a wild ride in this thing and hit something cylindrical. Amazingly enough, it did not damage the frame. It still runs and drives great, frame checked out good, so really other than the mashed body it was pretty good. An ordinary person would probably just do a body swap. You guys know I am not ordinary. We are repairing it in the shop.

So after removing the seat and all that stuff, we welded on some plates and pulled the body back to close to where it should be. Still going to take some massaging, but it will get there. Going to cut the door frame out of another Wrangler here and bought new sheetmetal and torque boxes for it, plus new floor pans. Going to stick a new hard door and cage from another TJ we have here on it. Throw a softtop on it and have a nice new daily driver.

Thought I had more pics of when I got it, but I don't. Argh. The full door was bent concave and I took it off. Looks good from the passenger side...
2016-04-12 21.15.52.jpg


Driver's side is a different story....
2016-04-12 21.16.34.jpg


And the repair work has begun. I'll update as we progress on it.
2016-04-19 15.29.08.jpg
 
Oh, I forgot to explain the name. I found a TJ for a buddy of mine a few months back. When I got mine I texted him and said "mine's bigger" because, of course I did. He texted me back that at least his wasn't in the Gulf War. :lol: So the name stuck.
 
Slow progress, we were all set to start cutting and welding and I bought another TJ at auction that was a rollover. The body is not usable as a whole but in sections it is. We are going to cut the section we need off of it and install it on this one. We've been cutting on it today, hopefully will have some progress pics here soon.
 
:lol: The Scrambler is at the shop having the cage built now. Hopefully will have it back next week sometime.

I thought I had a pic of the progress, but apparently I don't. We have all the damaged junk cut out and the frame stands straightened. Hopefully next week we'll be cutting the section off of the donor TJ and starting the graft.
 
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