The Jeep Rod spare parts build

[Blaze]

So I have two things to blame for this build. One is that I have been watching a lot of Roadkill on YouTube, and the other is @BRUISER for PMing me talking about building something old and cool a while back.

I have, obviously, all these Jeep parts lying around and figured what the hell, why not see what I can build with what I have lying around. One of my best friends and I have been kicking this idea around for a while, so we decided to do it.

I'm going to try and only buy the absolute bare minimum on this thing. Some stuff I just need to buy because it isn't something we have in here, but trying to junkyard this thing if at all possible.

Basically, we are going to take this:

Which is a ragged out 1981 CJ7 body that the floor pans are rusted, damaged, tweaked, etc and go apeshit with it.

It will have:
T-bucket chassis, just the rails, coming Monday hopefully
D44a rear axle out of V8 WJ
2wd WJ front axle slung out in front.
Drivetrain will be a fuel injected 4.0L with a 2wd AW4 and an eBay/junkyard turbocharger
Going to do a body drop on it to get it down low. We are not going to airbag it because of cost, but we are going to get the ride height down to around 4" or so to keep it low. I have an old FJ windshield that we are going to modify to make it fit, cut it down a bit. Then the rollbar we are going to cut a bit so it has a flatter look.

Hopefully we'll get started as soon as the frame comes in, but it'll be a little slow as some of the parts are still on the Jeeps, and I also have a business to run while doing this, but we are trying to do this quick and dirty junkyard style.

 

[BRUISER]

sweet

 

[tripped38]

I like this plan!

 

[Blaze]

So slight change, we are going with a twin turbo Jeep 4.7L instead. The frame got here today, pics when I'm at the shop tomorrow. Probably going to start on this next week sometime, the donor Jeep is behind the shop and I need to finish stripping the jeep that is on the lift right now first.

 

[Blaze]

So the "frame" got here today. The pics I saw when I ordered looked like the side rails were welded, but of course I just got a pile of cut steel. No big deal, just a little extra work. I was planning on plating the joints anyway, so no huge deal. Just a little pissed that I could have saved money by just buying a couple of sticks of steel and doing it myself, but whatever.

 

[Blaze]

Man, this frame kit is pretty crappy. I'd like to meet the asshat who cut this thing. One rail is flush cut and nicely done. The other is cut at a slight angle and won't sit flush. Right now it is 1/4" shorter overall, and once I true it up it'll be sitting at about 1/2" shorter.

 

[BRUISER]

send it back

 

[Blaze]

Might do that. I'm going to take some measurements of the frame vs the body, we may need to lengthen that rear short section of rail anyway. If I end up having to modify it anyway, I'll just keep it and chalk it up to a "if you want it right, do it yourself" which I should have done to begin with.

 

[catfishblues]

Send it back and THEN do it yourself! Cutting steel isn't rocket science. I ain't saying anybody can do it, but it's obvious whoever was manning the saw that day couldn't!

 

[Blaze]

I left some feedback for the place I got it from, since I bought it on eBay and it was kind of late when I got into it. Probably should have waited to call but I was kind of pissed. I left them neutral feedback, not even negative. My feedback said "Kickups are NOT welded like pics look like, cuts kind of rough". They responded "It is a kit U WELDED IT not me, not my fault if you can't weld."

Seriously. Good business manners there.

Really just dumb on my part. I was trying to save some time and measuring. Very easily could have done it myself. Lesson learned.

 

[Blaze]

Damn, this one has been lingering way too long. Our plans on this one kind of got derailed by a few things, but mostly due to a space issue. Long story short, the source of our space issue has been removed from the shop and we now have a bunch of room. This project has literally been piled up on two pallets in the corner of the shop since I last posted anything here. Now that we have some space and the shop is mostly cleaned and organized, we are going to get started on it. Finally. Since we started this, I took the body to the house, had a guy stop buy wanting it to build a 4-door CJ out of so I let it go. Luckily @BRUISER is hooking me up with a body that we can use, so we're getting back in the game with this one.

We still have a lot of design work to do on this, but so far the parts pile consists of:
T-bucket frame kit
CJ body
D35 rear axle out of a ZJ
2wd front axle out of an XJ
4.0L HO built with spare parts lying around the shop, 93 ZJ shortblock, 97 XJ head, etc. Going to run an alternator and water pump and that is it.
2wd AW4 from 99 XJ, going to build a shifter with electronic switches to make a manual shift setup on it.
Whatever wheels we can scrounge up that look cool and have in the parts pile.
Whatever grille we have lying around here. Would like to dig up a CJ grille. I have a few YJ and TJ grilles but hopefully will get a CJ through here that I can use the grille from.

Plans are to leave it low, get the stance right with a coil suspension in the rear and probably a transverse leaf in the front like a t-bucket. Engine is going to be cleaned up and new rings, bearings, etc and running a cheapo eBay turbo on it. Going to buy the bare minimum with this thing, try and do it as a cool Jeep Rod that is a fun little show cruiser. The biggest hurdle we are going to have is figuring the steering but we'll get there when we get there.

Tonight I am going to tack up the frame and lay out the axles. Will post pics as we go.

 

[Blaze]

OK, so got a bunch of work done tonight on this thing. The frame is a total disaster. If anyone wants to buy a T-bucet frame, do nto buy it from Ron Pope Motorsports. Not only is the guy a complete dick, but his kit is crap. None of the cuts were square so it took me forever to get the rails straight and matching. Then the front and rear crossmembers are not the correct widths, the front is like an inch too short and the rear is about 2" too wide. This was a "ready to weld" kit. Seriously, if this is your business how hard is it to make a couple cuts straight?

Anyway, realized I am going to need to rework the rear of the frame anyway. Gound to need to kick it up a lot more to get the Jeep as low as we want to. We're going to order a stick of 2x3 this week and rework some things next week. I also think I figured out the steering, but we need to look at it a little more. Since we are running a 2wd front axle with all new brackets I rotated it around and am going to just swap calipers left to right. That puts the steering behind the axle instead of in front of it. We'll need to rework a few things but I think we can make this work.

Mockup pic.

 

[Blaze]

Got the body aid out on the frame. We are going to have to cut out the floor in the back and raise it way up to clear the frame once we kick it up. We also realized the ZJ axle is not going to work at all. Going to try and find a Ford truck axle with 5x5.5 and at least 64" WMS to get the fires outside and make it sit like we have it mocked up.