Converting a 5 to a 6, an abbreviated story.

In December of 2011 I decided to purchase an intermediate CJ-5 with the idea of making a very capable off road jeep. I very quickly realized that the jeep I purchased was in really poor shape and was going to need a lot of work. I also realized that the 5 was just too short for the plans that I had for it. I talked to a buddy about possible solutions and he says, "Ever heard of a 6?" So I immediately started my research and came to the conclusion that I could make one. So here's a few pictures:

Day of purchase:


Dismantling:



Body stretch (Done with 16 ga sheet metal panels formed by hand.)







Frame; My initial stretch of the frame involved cutting off the front and back of the frame and replacing the center section with 3/16" 2X4 rectangular tubing. I later completely reconfigured the frame after using the jeep for 6 months.



Outboarding the springs for full-width axles:



Body going back on:


Wheels and Tires on:


Backend re-done:


New wiring harness:


New Dash setup:


First version of the rebuild:


Skip ahead 6 more months for second re-build:


Re-worked the frame from the engine back. Widened it for more stability and to lower the jeep 3".



Re-did the front shackle hangers to reduce the height of the jeep.


I dropped the body 1.5" lower in addition to lowering the suspension. This required modification to the transmission tunnel:



New tube work for fenders and armor:


New cage:



New tire carrier:




The whole story can be read here:

http://www.colorado4x4.org/vbb/showthread.php?192340-Tim-s-CJ-5-Version-6-0-Thread

I hope this encourages others.... I did all of the work solo and used great resources like this forum and others for information... so this is my contribution.

 

One word,

Awesome!!

 

That's not a Jeep. That's a tank. chainsawguy

 

very ,very nice. welcome to the world of the homemade jeep.
love the cage and the low is better approach.

 

very cool!! I have always wanted to build up an intermediate scrambler but have not been able to locate one. I now think I might copy your idea and build one out of a 5.

 

i also like the lower is better but won't it affect articulation, wheel travel as it looks like it's going to hit your fenders. i would love to build something like what you did and make it lower for more stability as a jeep is like a tippy canoe when it's on bigger boots.

 

Because there are no intermediate Scramblers. At least from the factory.

To the OP, very nice!


Sent from my iPhone

 

Maybe he means an intermediate Scrambler, like this one:



:AMC:

And to the OP, nice work - very impressive.

 

I do not know why I said scrambler When I meant to say CJ6. DOH! I do know the difference I swear. I know I have corrected people enough about the differences. That is what you get when you drink and play on the internet

 

For low center of gravity jeeps, articulation is switched from up travel to down.... though at the moment I haven't gotten the down travel thing figured out so much. Right now I have 6" of up travel under each fender.

As for feeling tippy... That's not an issue at all for this jeep. I swapped both the axles to chevy fully width one tons. Went from 54" wms to 69" wms. In addition to the frame stretch of 20" I also moved the front axle forward 1.5" and the rear axle back 4" bringing the wheelbase from 83.5" to 109".


Thank you everyone for the comments.

 

Very nice. I was wondering what WMS you set up, until the last post. My scratch build 5 is still under construction, I ended up cutting down a D44 & D60 to get to a 60" WMS. I scratched my head over a rotten frame for months, I decided to scratch build mine based on the "Ground up" build series of articles that JP magazine ran. Came out nice.
You did a great job, I'm jealous of the craftsmanship!

I am wondering how you came up with the jeep being in bad condition originally? Looked great considering the rust bucket I started with!! I didn't have near enough steel left to use any of it lol.

Enjoy.

 

Visually, when I bought my CJ it looked pretty good. The reality was the opposite. Three of the body mounts had rusted away and crushed through the floor. The previous owner put diamond plate over these holes. When you hit a bump, the body would hop off the frame. I patched just shy of 100 holes in the tub where various accessories had been mounted and removed over the years. The driver and passenger floor pans had to be replaced. The outside of the tub had anywhere from an 1/8" to 1/2" of bondo on it covering at least three quarters of the tub. Once I removed the bondo I found the corners were completely trashed, hence why they are cut off in the pictures.

The frame was cracked in three places and completely split just behind driver side leaf spring perch. This had been repaired with a thin fish plate that was in the process of failing. The cross member over the rear axle had broken loose at some point and when I removed the body all I had to do was twist it a little and it fell out.

As for the drive train: The engine ran really bad and had most of the vacuum lines rotted and or missing. The last time the clutch was changed out, someone had neglected to install a pilot bearing causing the input bearing on the transmission to blow out. Transfer case was in pretty bad shape. The axles that were on it were not stock, but still were in bad shape. I ended up replacing the transmission, transfer case, and as noted, the axles. I rebuilt the engine (as it was an AMC 401) and added a howell TBI kit for reliability.

Ultimately, from what I have been able to find out about this jeep from previous owners and my work, the only remaining original parts to the vin are the front 2 feet of frame, the grill, the windshield frame, and the vin tag that came loose with the jeep. At some point in the jeep's history, even the tub had been swapped out.

 

I see the bracket for a Lokar trans mount shifter. How do you like it and what length did you use?

 

I like it a lot. I went with a 16" stick which brings the shift knob right up to dash height. I went this route because the transmission (TH400) has been converted to a manual valve body.

 

So this photo shows the 16" lokar shifter in place, correct?

 

Yes, that is correct. In that photo there is about a 1.5" body lift.

 

Cool. Thanks

 

Got any close up picts of how you mounted the tilt column? I'm working on that right now. Great project. What axle ratio do you have and what size tires for the 401?.

 

My tilt column is mounted using the brackets from a '76 and newer CJ retro-fitted to my tub. Sorry, no close up shots.

I'm running 5.13 gearing in a dana 60 front axle and corp. 14 bolt rear axle on 40X13.50R17 Maxxis Trepador tires. :-D Front and rear spring mounts have been out boarded from stock location and I needed to switch to spring over axle due to the dana 60 cast spring pad location. To reduce axle wrap I fabbed up a traction bar for the rear.

 

nice work, are you keeping it with leaf or you are planning for a future coil sping set-up?