Behind the house, there are a few acres of open space, which makes for a quick spot to exercise the 4wheel drive. This is also where we go to watch the fireworks in the evening, so Brandon & I made a morning run to find a good spot to watch the show later in the evening.

As you can see – the Jeep is not fully put back together from the Paint shop – but also noted in previous posts – this does not stop me from enjoying it!

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!

One of the things that was most impressive is the lack of any heavy rust. The frame, floor pan, rocker etc are literally pristine – I mean not even any sign of surface rust. (Typical to many CA vehicles) However, there were 2 spots that not only had rust… but had totally rotted out – the windshield frame, and the driver side of the hood. In fact the interior carpet had been pulled since while sitting it had given way to leaking rain water sitting outside from the frame.

Passenger side windshield frame rust – You could poke a hole with yer finger!

Driver side hood rust – I did poke the hole with my finger!

I knew when I bought the jeep that I would need to swap out these 2 body parts. However, these are far and away the easiest pieces of the body to swap – they simply bolt on, so given the overall great shape of the vehicle… the these issues were quite tolerable! Though keep in mind… I am not a mechanic… nor have I ever been particularly good with cars. But hey – this is my project, which removes the urgency of any repair along with worry and fear of making mistakes.

Making Mistakes

One of my early mistakes was in getting parts. Since picking up the CJ, I check the auto parts web classifieds on a number of sites daily. I had ordered a new windshield frame from the folks at Quadratec, along with new cowl rubber (the seal and weather strip that separates the body part from the tub). However, I was hesitant to order a hood from them – since the hood was $260 and the shipping another $125.

So I found what I thought to be a great deal on a hood off of eBay…  Ironically, while I have made my living working with web technology for many years… I had never purchased anything off of eBay (something that my wife thought was pretty funny) Suffice to say… for $25 bucks… I could not go wrong. But then there is still the case of shipping, which given the large akward size… makes it expensive coming from Tennessee. Then a friend that had been modifying VW’s for years suggested that I have it put on a greyhound bus en route to California. To my pleasant surprise… this is pretty simple, and some quick arrangements later, my southern hood was taking a cross country drive via a Greyhound bus for the low price of $68. Not bad considering that both UPS and FedEx were upwards of$150.

Upon arrival… I found that my great find was actually from an older CJ5… and while in decent shape – this meant that it had a notch in the edge of the hood for some sort of vent – not what I wanted, and precisely where my rust was – so I would not even be able to cut out the section I needed to repair the rust on my existing hood. 1 step forward… 2 steps backwards.

Correcting Mistakes

Now, the beauty of the online classifieds, is that buyers can also be sellers! A quick free ad on Craigslist, and presto I have found a buyer who is looking for my exact hood and willing to pay $75 bones for it! That made the whole experience a $25 dollar lesson… However, I still need a hood. This took me back to eBay where I found Pershing Auto Body who sells the same brand new hoods identical to what Quadratec carry, but for $143 and only $95 shipping – a savings of nearly $150.

New hood as it arrived from Pershing Auto

Having gone through my first trial and error – I was nervous about my second attempt. However the folks at Pershing were great about answering all my questions, and shipped my purchase out quickly. The packaging kept the hood safe and secure in a LOT of bubble wrap that my 2 year old son continues to enjoy popping to this day! It is a steel hood, primered black with all the holes pre drilled for the mounting hinges as well as the windshield frame stops.

So apparently, all is well that ends well. I am stripping the jeep down to have it painted, so I will not mount until afterwards, as I intend to have the new parts painted off the jeep to shoot both the inside and outside.

At that moment, a love affair was born – I was not to become a sports car man… but one who’d grow up to love jeeps. Jeeps are like a Tonka toys for big kids. It is a vehicle that you can configure to your mood- set up with a Hard top, soft top, full doors, half doors, no doors, fold the windshield, bikini top… you name it. Not only that, but there is no end to the ways that you can customize them.

This last summer, I picked up a 1983 CJ7, that while old and well used, had been cared for and not abused. (A bit of a challenge for a near 30 year old off-road vehicle) Now, in truth, I have had 6 different jeeps over the years, but this is the first that is NOT my daily driver… but simply my toy. One that I will experiment and tinker with to make the way that I always wanted and have dreamed about for all these years. I am not in a hurry – though I have already made some great progress… I created this site to track of the progress of my build and ultimately my adventures with my toy!

As it sat (post wash) with the hard top, full doors when I brought it home…

A view from the side

With the top & doors removed~ The way this truck was meant to be!