[GroundUpCJ7]

Hey everyone. Well, it looks like we've got 4 right now, unless someone else expresses interest. It seems like Jeff and James are onboard, but I haven't heard from the mysterious amswor (don't even know your name). The way I see it, we have three options: move forward with four and have more parts to sell, wait and try to find some other people, or forget the idea for now. I'm looking for some feedback here. The Jeeps will keep flowing across ebay, so I don't see any great pressure there. I'm still a couple of weeks from really needing any serious parts for my ground up project, so I can be patient. What do you guys think? I could probably swing a $500 commitment so we'd have $2000 to work with, but that's not a whole lotta Jeep. If we could get one or two more people involved, that would help us out a lot.
Jeff suggested a special pick for me since I'm going through the headache of putting all this together. Thanks Jeff, I would have suggested the same thing for someone else, but I'll be happy if this idea works. I don't need anything special.

In the interest of full disclosure, I think it would be best if we let each other know what we're looking for out of a Jeep. This will help to guide us is selecting a Jeep to part. For example, if someone is looking for a 4-inch lift, a V8, a winch, or D300, we can limit the search to just those things. As for me, the only major thing that I want is the tub. My ground up project is lacking a tub. There are also a lot of "little things" that I could use, but don't necessarily need to get rollin again. I know someone else was looking for a tub too, so perhaps they'll want to back out now, or maybe they'd be willing to leave it up to chance in the drawing of lots. It's best if we know up front. Also, I'm still not sure what model we're looking for. Are you guys looking strictly for CJ parts, or would you be interested in a YJ? I think it's pretty important that we decide that before we continue.

Finally, I was thinking we could use Paypal to consolidate our money. Someone mentioned that they didn't know what Paypal was. In short, it's an online account that allows you to transfer money between users using your bank account or credit card. You have your own secure account that you use to set up funding. We can use our personal Paypal accounts to contribute money to the joint Paypal or escrow account. There are built in safeguards to protect us from fraud, and it adds a level of comfort to the transactions.

Let me know what you guys think.

-John

[hollywood]

John, Just lettin' ya know I'm still with ya. I personally would be hesitant to put up $500 for a $2000 Jeep - only because the overall quality of the parts would be lower. For $500 I can go out and buy a whole jeep, granted the parts will be of a lower quality still, but I would have all of them. I'm looking for pretty much the same thing you are, good quality parts like a tub or a built motor or even custom axles and suspension components. Unless you're in a hurry, I think we should stick it out for a bit and see if this new thread will generate any interest.

[NC74CJ]

I am definately interested. Before we go any further with this we may need to review a couple things such as the location (a major factor for me), how the money will be handled, as well as how the parts will be divyed up.

Bill

[GroundUpCJ7]

Hello Bill. Well, counting you, our number is unofficially 5. I haven't heard from amswor or James recently (James did let me know that he was going to be busy for a while though), but I am assuming they are still with us until they ask not to be. We have already had a few discussions regarding the divying up of parts. The front running ideas are as follows:

1) Have people contribute there money and choose their major parts at the time of their pledge.

2) Have a type of "draft" where everyone is either randomly assigned an order, or the order is determined by the order of contribution, and then everyone gets to pick one part a round until either everything is gone, or no one wants anything else.

3) Full disclosure and discussions up front to allow people to make an educated decision as to whether they would like to "buy-in" or not.

As far as money handling is concerned, we haven't really decided how to do that yet. I was thinking of having a single paypal account for the group and have everyone contribute to it. I view this as a detail because I know we'll get our money together when necessary. Obviously, once you commit, we're counting on your money, so it will be up to each individual to commit only after having their finances in order.

Location is important. During our earlier posts (you can probalby look them up pretty easily), we discussed the importance of having a majority of the participants on the east coast. I figured that since this was my brainchild that parting out the Jeep and making sure everyone got their parts would fall on my shoulders. I'm in Northern Virginia, outside of DC, so hopefully people would be able to come by and pick their parts up themselves. I also figured while everyone was stopping by, they could help me with my Jeep .

The parts that we don't use would be sold/auctioned, and the proceeds would be evenly returned to the members of the group.

So, if anyone else has any thoughts or suggestions, or feels the need to correct something I said, let everyone know. I don't intend to lay out all the rules, I'm just synopsizing from my perception of our previous conversations.

-John

[West]

GroundUp, I like your idea in theory but I'm skeptical about it actually working as planned. the biggest problem to me seems to be the parts you could get from the Jeep you end up buying. Tubs seem to be in high demand. Theoretically you'd also get engine, tranny,transfer case, fornt and rear axles, interior, tops and doors, maybe wheels/tires. Off the top of my head these seem like items that people would want first. The rest you're gonna end up sitting on while you sell them on Ebay. What would a jeep cost that has all of these in good condition? That of course assumes that you can find the jeep that has all the parts wanted in the right color/size/style. And not all these parts are of equal value. May I suggest that you work out a value system for given parts. and if someone ends up with less than their fair share they have the difference refunded from the proceeds of the sold/auctioned parts

[Tats232Jeepster]

i think you have a great idea for jeep parts.i have a cj5 for parts,an i am looking for cj7 parts.i have a 1972 cj5 for parts,body is junk,motor is to. the rest is ok