It has been a bit since I have posted, and I have fallen behind keeping this blog up to date on the progress I have made on the jeep. Over the X-mas holiday, I had 2 weeks off of work (thanks CBS) and in that time, I began the process of stripping down the jeep to prep for paint. I needed to replace a few body parts that had fallen victim to rust, and chose to take that opportunity to go from blue to the charcoal gray – A color I had long since chosen for my fantasy jeep.  I had knocked out a side project to drum up the funds needed to cover the price I had been bid at a local paint shop and gotten a LOT of help from my father in-law to get ready for the transformation of my toy!

To make for a better result I had chosen to remove all the non painted surfaces rather then to depend on the paint shop to mask these out. That said, I pulled off the front / rear lights, blinkers, headlight betzels, spare tire swing gate, fender flares, antenna, gas cap box and rocker rails. Also, I intended on restoring my full hard doors, so I removed the interior panels as well as the side mirrors that had originally been located on the exterior of the doors, but would be moved to the frame so that I could stay street legal without the doors installed – A classic look for the CJ7.

Here you can see the various parts that had been removed off the rear, as well the interior door panels once they were removed from the driver side.

A view from the side once the fender flares & rocker rails had been pulled – Also you can see the interior door panel that still remains on the passenger door. My CJ is a limited edition, which came with upper padding on the door interior. I search long and hard to locate new uppers, but could not find any – thus I am filling the holes and simply painting the uppers, and getting new black door panels – A more common look to the Laredo and Renegade editions.

The front as shown the way I delivered it to the paint shop… Yes – I drove it to the shop like this on a COLD December morning… which lead to a serious ice cream headache upon arrival! Notice the rust where the windshield hinges had been as well as the silver dollar sized holes in the side of the hood.

Side view at the paint shop – Notice the new wheels I had picked up a few weeks earlier on Craigslist.  I found this set of 5 Centerline Outlaws II, 15 x 8 wheels for $75! They have a minor bit of rock rash on them, but they are one of my favorite style wheel and a popular make seen on many 80’s off road vehicles. Not only to the give it a more custom look – but they also widen the stance by nearly 3 inches since my older white wagon style were 15 x 7 with less  offset / backspace. Remarkably, this new wider stance really helps the ride be less top heavy, thus more solid on the road.

As you can see, I did my best to be as close to street legal as I could with the licence plate strung up to the tail gate! I know… not even close, but a slow travel on the back roads from Pleasant Hill – through Lafayette and into Walnut Creek. Fortunately I made my way there without running into any of Contra Costa’s finest!

In the shop with the sanding in process – You can see where they have grind-ed down the tub where the windshield hinges were. Once sanded, they were treated and then primed.

From the side, you can see how removing all the non painted surfaces, makes easier work of the sanding – thus hopefully a better end result.

In addition to the outside of the jeep, they also prepped and intend to shoot all the interior jams and door well – plus the inside and outside of the doors themselves.

Stopped by to see the work in progress – The jeep was shot minus the hood so that they could paint the inside and outside of both the hood and windshield frame. Important given that I also plan on updating the interior to black & gray.

As it looked the day I picked it up – truthfully – they did not do a great job of installing either the hood or the windshield. Thus I will need to re-install the hood – and the hinges for the new windshield frame did not fit – I ordered them from Quadratec – and it was not even close as far as where the holes needed to line up to the body for mounting – rather then drill new holes, I had the paint shop quickly shoot my old hinges, and install them so that I could drive it home.

Once home, I began the process of putting the jeep back together – I am taking my time – but am super pleased with the color!

Still not totally done putting back together, but you can see that most stuff is back on. I had a windshield installer come to the house to try to remove the old windshield from the rusted frame. He was successful in pulling it, but it cracked during the install – a possibility I knew of with a 30 year old piece of glass. Thus, in addition to the new frame and rubber, I ended up with a fresh piece of clear glass. Lastly, I freshened up my seats by installing the Best-Top black seat covers that Lourdes had given me for my birthday back in October!