[CACooper]

Hey there fellow Jeep Lovers!

Since I have recently joined the forum (1st forum that I have ever felt the desire to pay for access to), I thought I would start a thread tracking the progress of my "barn find".

I purchased her off of Craigslist around a month back. She is a 1985 CJ7, 5Spd, 4.2L, Hard Top with Full Doors. She has 40-odd K original miles. She was all stock with the exception that the air pump system had been cut out and the pipes had been semi-welded closed and the cat had been ripped out. 2 Previous owners. The first was a ranch in San Angelo, TX, where she spent her first 15 years. The second was a very nice man in New Braunfels who kept her in a garage and drove her VERY rarely.

He decided it was time to downsize his toys. He was asking $5,500 for her and after a thorough inspection, I decided to hit him low at $4,500. We haggled and settled in the middle for $5K. Although I knew she would need a lot of work to make her perfect, I couldn't pass her up.

Here are a few of pics that the seller sent me during the transaction.

Although I have already done quite a bit to her since the purchase, I will try to account for the initial upgrades / fixes in the next couple of posts. Once I get current, I will try to keep fairly thorough photo and text records of ongoing stuff.

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoy!

Chris Cooper
San Antonio, TX

 

[CACooper]

A few more pics... Yes, the carpets and seats are original and they are IMMACULATE! :drool:

 

[CACooper]

During the negotiation, I climbed underneath her and noticed the bell housing was cracked and was coated in oil (pictures below)... I wasn't all that nervous about the bell housing, but the oil scared me a bit. I thought that the rear main was gone and got a little nervous about the purchase. Throwing caution to the wind, I pulled the trigger anyway. Later that week, after a good pressure washing of the engine compartment and under carriage, I discovered that the culprit was the valve cover gasket (old cork) which allowed oil to blow all over the firewall and beyond. Since replacing the gasket, I haven't seen a drop of oil back there.

I forgot to mention that she would not stay in 4Lo when I got her. The previous owner said that she never had for him, the 10 years he had her. I went ahead and figured a transfer case rebuild in the mix. Since I am in the car business, I can get that done pretty cheaply (around $300-$500 depending). Upon further inspection, a few days after I bought her, it turned out that there was a huge rock lodged in the linkage and about 10 minute of chiseling fixed the transfer case good as new. Yippee!

 

[CACooper]

Whoops - Previous pics were huge... Here is one of the bell housing on the night I bought her. Sorry as it is a little fuzzy.

 

[CACooper]

My personalized plates... Should be here later this week!!! :banana:

 

[CACooper]

Pics of the rat's nest that was my engine compartment...

 

[boomvader]

Congrats and welcome! What a great find! Looks pretty solid. I am sure you will have it looking even better in no time. Good luck with your new project and keep the posts and pictures coming!

 

[CACooper]

Since the purchase, I have done the following:

• Fixed the sag in the spare tire arm by drilling new holes and fitting with larger bolts and nylon washers... It now opens and closes PERFECTLY!
• Replaced the steering box and pump.
• Replaced the tie rods (including fabricating a custom tie rod from the steering arm to pitman so I can use a standard left thread end on the RHF instead of the 20" one that came standard.
• Replaced the steering shaft.
• Replaced the master cylinder, booster, front calipers and pads.
• Full tune up (plugs, wires, coil, belts, pcv, oil change, etc.)
• Replaced the water pump.
• Removed all of the left over air pump pipes which had been cut off and welded shut.
• Replaced intake and manifold gaskets.
• Brand new pipes, cat and muffler.
• Fixed the shifter and replaced the boot. (It was really loose as it had lost the inner bushing that held it tight to the transmission... Fabricated a new bushing our of an old serpentine belt.
• Fixed the transfer case by removing huge rock from linkage. (See post a few above about that.)
• Replaced the valve cover gasket.
• Nutter bypass.

In progress... WEBER 38 conversion! More details on that to follow.

 

[CACooper]

Congrats and welcome! What a great find! Looks pretty solid. I am sure you will have it looking even better in no time. Good luck with your new project and keep the posts and pictures coming!

Thanks! I actually got the idea for this thread after browsing yours. Great story about your dad pushing you. My father-in-law and I are doing all of the work together on this. We run a car lot together so we have a lot of time on our hands to work on it there.

Cheers! :cheers2:

 

[boomvader]

Thanks! I actually got the idea for this thread after browsing yours. Great story about your dad pushing you. My father-in-law and I are doing all of the work together on this. We run a car lot together so we have a lot of time on our hands to work on it there.

Cheers! :cheers2:

Wow! That is way cool! Thanks! Looking forward to watching the progress on your project.

:cheers2:

 

[BigOrange90YJ]

Fantastic find! I think I saw that one on craigslist. Like you said the interior is immaculate. If you havn't done it already you should rip out the rest of the emissions junk.

 

[motiv8ya]

40k miles? By todays driving standards that equates to 2 years of "average" driving so that makes her nearly brand new...Congrats on your 7, that's a great find! :2thumbsup:

 

[Jim1611]

Not many left that are in that good a shape. Welcome to the forum. There's allot of nice folks on here and a great deal of information. Looks like you're wasting no time in getting your CJ in top shape. :thumbsup:

 

[4lowherewego]

I love the color of the CJ... great steal

 

[CACooper]

Thanks for all of the comments and the warm welcome!!! We are having a blast tearing her down and building her up. As I posted above, we are knee deep in a Weber 38 conversion. I have already experienced the hospitality of the family here in spades, especially from Shawn Watson. He has been a Godsend when it comes to setting up the Outlaw.

I wasn't planning on switching out the carb as of yet, but when we went to clean out the Carter BBD, it literally disintegrated on me. Apparently the crap that had built up on it all these years was also holding it together.

When we sprayed carb cleaner and pumped B12 through it. It started to hemmorage fuel out the throttle stem. So after scouring the forum, I decided there was no other choice but to go with the 38.

I ordered it through Weber Carbs Direct (I think... I shopped around a bunch onliand and ended up going with a referral from Redline.) Whoever it was, they matched prices with another site so i got a decent deal on it. Unfortunately it shipped with the 45 jets, so we ordered the 55's which should be here tomorrow. I went ahead and opted for the Viton tip as well instead of adding a fuel regulator. Here's hoping that they perform as advertised.

When the carb arrived a couple of days back, the plates were abysmal. We polished them up with fine grit sandpaper and, following Shawn's guidance closely, we set it up and installed it. Once installed we could not get the jet adjustments to have any effect on the idle at all, so we pulled out the carb cleaner and sure enough found two massive vacuum leaks around the plates.

Today was spent replacing the studs with 5/8-20 SAE carb studs (we retapped the threads as it was shipped with really poorly drilled M18 holes) and literally 3 hours of sanding to all of the plates. I will post pictures of the plates later as my Mac is dead and I am writing this on the wife's iPad. It baffles my mind that Weber does such a brilliant job manufacturing the carb yet sends out such crappy mounting hardware with it. I bet the there is a market for some enterprising entrepreneur who has the time and energy to purchase plates and resell them finished correctly.

Unfortunately, when we went to remount the carb, we stripped out one of the studs (driver's side / front). Luckily, my father-in-law used to be GM for a huge auto group and has a factory Chrysler motor rebuilding kit which includes bad-*** steel thread repair sleeves. After drilling out retapping the stripped threads and inserting the sleeve (which screws in and spreads to cinch into the newly cut, up-sized ones), we screwed in one of the original M18 studs. It worked perfectly! We are letting the loc-tite setup overnight and will get back on the mounting and tuning tomorrow morning. I also have a picture of the repair which I will also post tomorrow.

That's all for now. Have a great night!

 

[CACooper]

Not many left that are in that good a shape. Welcome to the forum. There's allot of nice folks on here and a great deal of information. Looks like you're wasting no time in getting your CJ in top shape. :thumbsup:

Jim,

I have just spent the last hour and a half reading through the first half of your thread. You, Sir, are a Master Craftsman. Truly amazing! I can't wait to show my father-in-law your fab work. More importantly, when the time is right, I can't wait to get my hands on some of your artwork. :congrats:

 

[Eaglekeeper]

Nice CL score. You've done a lot of work in a month:thumbsup:. I love the xfer case fix....rock in the linkage

 

[Jim1611]

Jim,

I have just spent the last hour and a half reading through the first half of your thread. You, Sir, are a Master Craftsman. Truly amazing! I can't wait to show my father-in-law your fab work. More importantly, when the time is right, I can't wait to get my hands on some of your artwork. :congrats:

You're too kind. Thank you. I really enjoy doing this. That's what makes it easier to do too. Just give me a shout when you need anything.

You've got a great start on you CJ. I'll be following along. :thumbsup:

 

[CACooper]

Nice CL score. You've done a lot of work in a month:thumbsup:. I love the xfer case fix....rock in the linkage

Thanks, EK! Yeah, I dodged a bullet on that one!

 

[CACooper]

You're too kind. Thank you. I really enjoy doing this. That's what makes it easier to do too. Just give me a shout when you need anything.

You've got a great start on you CJ. I'll be following along. :thumbsup:

Just showed your thread to the father-in-law... It's official, we are now saving up for a fully outfitted fab shop! :drool: