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Nick's 83 CJ7 frame off build

6K views 30 replies 13 participants last post by  outdoorguy86 
#1 ·
Hey guys! As my CJ is currently torn apart, thought it would be an appropriate time to start my build thread.

So I bought my jeep back in Sept 2011, not really knowing anything about jeeps other than I wanted one. I had looked at several on craigslist and settled on this bad boy. It needed some work, but not too much....so I thought.

Wheel Tire Car Vehicle Hood


I started replacing and fixing miscellaneous parts that were easy to do. Found out I was running 2.73 gearing with the PO's 33x12.5 tires, which was why it was such a dog off the line. I traded a guy my BFG AT for some smaller KM2's with quite a bit of life left on them. When I got them mounted the guys at the shop told me that my wheels were pretty out of wack and they couldnt fully balance them. I also had 3 8" rims and one 7". I decided to get a new set of Craigar Soft 8's, which made it look much better.

Wheel Tire Car Vehicle Automotive tire


Next came the Team Rush upgrade. Having a glass body on it, I began to learn of the issues involved with improper grounding. Thats when I decided I would pull the body off, paint it and fix the wiring. We all know what happens next....

Wheel Tire Vehicle Car Automotive tire


PO used carriage bolts as some of the body mount bolts for some reason. There was no way those were coming off, so just took the grinder to the heads.
Steelworker Saw Automotive lighting Motor vehicle Welder


Think I can reuse the body bolts?
Wood Stonemason's hammer Office ruler Tool Font


This is how she sits at the moment
Tire Motor vehicle Automotive tire Wheel Tread


My plans are to coat the frame, replace brake and fuel hard lines, pull the engine to fix engine mount brackets, replace clutch, :monsta: both interior and exterior of the tub, dedicated grounds, redo exhaust, fix cancer on the back of the frame, new springs, fab both front and rear bumpers, swap out Dana 30 for one with 4.10 gearing, weld and truss the amc 20 and get it re-geared, front and rear lockers, and anything else that comes up while doing all that :D

Great group of people on here, I look forward to everyone's input as I move along. If you think I'm doing something stupid, just :fish: and let me know.
 
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#5 ·
So I got a lot of work done on the jeep today. I now have just a frame sitting on jacks....not quite what I envisioned when I bought the jeep, but it happens :p I've got some welding to do on the frame to fix a few minor cancer spots and to beef up some areas I feel could use a little more metal. Going to continue with the silver chassis saver with a coat of the black after it comes in next week.

I got my rear end regeared with 4.10's by FrankZ. He was super quick about it, dropped my axle off in the morning and a few hours later it was done. I highly recommend him to anyone in the Colorado Springs area.

Pictures will be up tomorrow
 
#9 ·
Great start! I am glad the yellow frame rails are going!! Did you ever enjoy the benefit of the TR upgrade? Or is it "waiting"? :D
 
#12 ·
I was able to run it with the TR, I did that when I was starting to have problems with it shutting off on me at stop lights and signs. I think the issue was grounding to the fuel injection, not sure. But I know it did start up and sound a lot better after the TR
 
#10 ·
The yellow frame rails were something I was going to do. I thought it would be easy to track leaks. Don't think I'm going to go that road though. Going with two coats of silver chassis saver and a cost of black. I'll get some pics from this weekend up when I get on the real computer.
 
#11 ·
Pictures as promised. I welded up my Blue Torch Fab diff covers for the Dana 30 and the AMC 20 today. The pieces could have fit together a little better, some corners ended up pretty close to the bolt holes, so I'll have to take a bit through the backside. I water tested them and have two small pinhole leaks, so have to go back and touch up those spots. Those things are BEEFY, bring on the rocks :club:









So this weekend I was able to get the frame completely stripped down. Took of the engine, tranny, all fuel and brake lines, ....everything. I touched up a couple of spots on the frame with the welder, and replaced the rear portion that was rotted out.

That rear end isnt going anywhere now. 1/4 inch box welded to the frame where I cut it, then lapped over with 3/16 plate on 3 sides. P put a piece of 1/4 angle spanning the back, to be the base for the bumper and to hold the body mounts in the rear. There is a second piece of 1/4 inch that goes between the frame rails that ill have bolts welded on to hold the skid plate for the fuel tank. So all in all, the rear end has 1/2 of steel between the frame rails. I feel sorry for the poor SOB that ever hits the rear end of that thing.....






 
#15 ·
I have not fit the gas tank, but I did test to make sure the skid plate for it fit, and there is plenty of room there, so I assume the gas tank will fit.


So here are a few pictures from my progress over the weekend. I started off by getting my Crabtree Die hangers welded on.




Then I moved on to getting my truss installed courtesy of BESRK. First I stitched a couple of welds around the axle tubes.



Then started trussing





I get to the end, and :Brickwall it comes up short. I must have screwed something up. so I just cut the rounded part and put that against the tube and insert a filler piece in there, problem solved.



Finished product




Took a few pages out of the good book of JeepHammer and installed some grease fittings to keep water and grime out. I have the green sealed bearings, so its more of a second line of defense.



Same thing on the front hubs


I installed my Lock-Rite up front. Since the axle has the 4.10 gearing, the carrier has to be removed from the axle, which means I got to learn how the dana 20 is all put together. I get the carrier out and find that the thrust washers in there are cracked. No one in the town of Colorado Springs carries that part, but luckily I have the axle that I am replacing off the jeep = spare parts!! So I pull that axle apart to get the carrier out and steal the thrust washers from there, which was successful. I am now a master at taking apart the dana 30.

Next problem I run into is that now the locker wont drop into the carrier. So I grind away at it until it fits with just a hair of persuasion. I got it all together though. Just waiting for my rotors to finished being machined, then I can throw it back together. Hopefully a rolling chassis by the end of next weekend.
 
#17 ·
I was concerned about the zerk on the front hub, but the wheel fits, you just have to put it on by starting up there by the zerk.

I used sticks to do the truss. i think i was using 1/8 7018 rods, maybe a little bigger 3/16. This allowed me to get good penetration. I didnt preheat, I just worked all the sides. I'd do one side, hit the other, flip the axle and go again. I tried to keep the heat down, the pumpkin was getting pretty warm and it has no oil in it, so I didnt want to melt my inner seals. After each weld was done though along the cast, I would hit the slag off with the sharp end of the hammer and bang on it, essentially pinging it to help relieve any stress concentrations. Had a couple of pops when I had first tacked it, but no problems when I was running beads. If the casting cracks, I've got cast iron rods for that, so I'm not too worried :D
 
#18 ·
So I've made quite a bit of progress over the last two weeks. So I'll break it up into two posts. I started out getting the diff covers etched and primed


My old man got a coat of black chassis saver on the frame over the week. Started by getting the skid plate back on (later I'll learn I used the wrong holes to mount it.....) Had to use some spreaders to push the frame apart a bit. Then got the springs on.



Got the rear axle in


Then the front on


I ended up spending about 3 hours putting the pass side of the front axle together. I got it all together and then couldnt get the part for the locking hub far enough onto the spline to get the c-clip on. I tried all sorts of things. I ended up having an extra plastic washer on the axle up against the spindle, so it was about 3/32ns too far out. It took a while to find that mistake :brickwall

Started running some brake lines and then called it good for the weekend.


Took the proportional valve back up to Boulder with me to clean up and break all the rusted fittings over the week
 
#20 ·
Picked up this guy for a good price on CL. Doesnt spool out, just clicks at the moment. I pulled open the solenoid box, and its a little dusty in there, so going to clean that up and see if it makes a difference. If not Then I'll replace the bad solenoid.


Started out by cleaning off all the gunk that had accumulated on the tranny and transfer case


I had gotten the front and rear covers painted up and put on the axles. The flash makes it a little hard to see, but I really like the way they turned out.



Got a bunch of the fuel and brake lines ran





Got the new clutch installed. This is one of those jobs that always sounded like a scary thing, but when the engine and tranny are out of the vehicle, it really isnt that bad :D


Got the tranny back on the engine and moved the whole thing onto the frame. It was a bit of a fight to get both the engine and the tranny to line up. May have been easier to do them separately. Turns out I had the skid plate mounted off a bolt, so the tranny mount wasnt quite lining up. Moved the skid and it finially lined up. Turns out the bracket that mounts to the tranny was also wrong, so the driveline was pushed way to the pass side. Got that fixed the next morning after looking at some pictures on here.







Got it straightened out, and the steering box and pump back in.



Got the exhaust and intake manifolds back on



started rebuilding the clutch components


Less and less parts on the floor is a good thing :)
 
#21 ·
So I need to go through and add a bunch of pictures, but I figured I'd give an update. I've made a LOT of progress; the jeep is probably 90% put back together. I got the tub monstalined inside and out (my original intent before this turned into a full on frame up.... :D). I'm very happy with how it turned out, and the stuff is pretty durable. I've been doing lots of work in the interior and dropping tools and whatnot, and it hasnt scratched it or affected it in the slightest. So a big :thumbsup: for the :monsta:

The electrical has taken me much longer than I would have liked. I spent a whole day working the dash, running new grounds for all the gauges, installing a tach, and cleaning up old wiring. Spent a good portion of saturday redoing the headlight wiring. I have some HID 55/100 W lights to run, so had to follow JH upgrade instructions to run them off relays. I got everything wired up and tested them. Only one low beam on, but both highs would come on. Naturally I should have assumed that maybe a bulb was bad, but I assumed my wiring was wrong. So I spent probably 1.5 hours messing with it before I figured out that it was just a bad bulb. Luckily I had bought extras, so got that fixed. Put the radiator back in and decided to test the turn signals, which were not working correctly. I had wired the running and turn lights to be on, but had failed to incorporate the turn signal :DOH: So pulled the radiator and got that working again.

Finished up the wiring under the hood, I only have 2 wires that I dont know where they go. A white with tracer and a red that are on the same harness as the 4wd switch wire. I have no idea where they go, but they have bolt eye electrical connections. Somehow I burnt out the starter solenoid, so when I went to crank nothing. Holding the starter cable to the battery cranked her over and she ran to life :) !!! When I pulled it into the garage months ago, it was only running on one fuel injector and running really rough. Now she purrs like a kitten. The combination of dedicated grounds and new engine mounts made a world of a difference. Still have a bit of an exhaust leak at the manifold to downpipe coupling, so have to go back and try and tighten that up a bit.

I've got an electrical gremlin in the rear end. I ran dedicated ground to the rear lights thinking that would help the issues I was having before with dim lights. Well it certanily helped. Issue I'm having now is that the tail lights are on when nothing is running, key off. If I pull the switch for the lights and headlights, they go off.... I havent changed anything to the rear lights except the dedicated ground. They are on as if you were stepping on the brakes (brighter) and the rear backup lamps are also on. Anyone have any input on that? I currently just have them unplugged in the rear. Turn signals work back there, but they are just always on.
 
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