My 67 CJ5A

I bought this in 2005 from a friend, it is a 1967 CJ5A 225 V6, T86, D18, etc. The Jeep was a driver when I got it and in overall decent condition.

There was some rust here and there, but it was mild for a northeastern vehicle. It does have some bondo and about ten coats of paint. Someone also cut out the JEEP area in the tub and added these nifty fold out vent things (still trying to decide if I'll keep them or weld the JEEP panels back in, any suggestions?) I've got a lot of the Tuxedo park chrome bits, but they were pitted and re-chroming was very expensive, so I sandblasted and "chrome" powder coated them.

The engine ran decent, but leaked and was very ugly, I also hated the non 1st gear syncro'd T86. Fortunately I got a mostly complete late 67 or early 68 parts Jeep with a T14 and nice rebuildable V6.

I started tearing the jeep down about two months after buying it. I sanded it down to bare metal and shot a quick cote of primer, I had lots of parts blasted and powder coated and brought it to a friend’s house to have him start the body work and paint. He painted the tailgate, grill, windshield frame and started body work on the hood and fenders, then all progress stopped... for the last 3.5 years! While I was waiting on him to become motivated again I started buying engine parts, offy intake, HEI, etc. and brought the little V6 to horsepower engineering in Ellington, CT (these guys rock!). They worked the engine over, cam, bored, cleaned up the heads a bit, and assembled everything. I also resealed the donor T14 and D18, then I waited...

I finally got fed up when I had to renew my registration for the second time and still haven't driven the Jeep since I first bought it. I brought it to a friend’s shop and started to disassemble the drive train, then decided I should pull the tub (after I removed the engine and tranny). The frame looked good, just greasy and surface rust. I removed wires and lines, steam cleaned it, knocked off the loose rust and the painted with POR-15 and chassis black. I installed the new brake lines, drive train, and had a custom 2.5” exhaust complete with flowmaster 40 series. Yesterday I stood the tub on end outside and used one of those pressure washer sandblaster things to remove the half inch of roofing tar from the bottom of the tub. It cleaned up nice, but I still had to clean up the spots I missed with a heat gun, putty knife, and a hamburger on a die grinder (I’ve got another hour or two left before I can prime the areas that don’t need repair. I ordered new hat channels and bought a sheet of 18 gauge steel to replace the crappy repairs made years ago (two of my hat channels were made out of sign posts).

My goal is to get the floor done, and paint the bottom of the tub over the next week. Then I go on vacation for two weeks, and will come back to continue the body work. I’d like to have the body back on the frame by the end of July and get the engine running the first week of August. With any luck at all the remainder of the body work will be done by the end of August and I can enjoy the remainder of Summer/ beginning of Fall, then tuck it away for Winter.

I don’t know how some of you guys get your projects done so quickly, I’m so envious!!! Here are some pics of my journey thus far…


Shortly after buying it, you like the kick out vent? 03/05


The frame stripped 06/09


Frame painted, drivetrain installed 06/09


like that big tail pipe? 06/09


06/09


the complete exhaust was $290 06/09


Mostly clean firewall 06/09


How do you like those hat channels? 06/09


Gunky! 06/09
Who can guess the year, make, and model of the car in the background through the door?


notice the vent hole where the JEEP should be? 06/09

 

Nice progress man! I can't wait to get moved in and pull the body off the jeep.

 

Could you tell me what your wheels are off of?
Thanks

 

that is going to be a gorgeous ride.
mine has taken 4 months so far but i didnt do it like that!

 

Some old Ford truck wheels I believe, I get a lot of questions about them

Thanks, it should be decent when it's done, I've got a TJ for any wheeling, so this will just be a garage queen driven on nice days.

 

yep
mines for going for ice cream on sunday afternoons.

 

I think it will be very close, but we'll see. The exhaust guy ran the pipe above the crossmember because I couldn't remember where it went. After looking at my old pic, I guess it goes below, oh well...

good guess, it's a 70 GTX.

 

I am very interested in the sound of this exhaust. Is itpossible to make a soundsample of it??

 

As am I R) As soon as it's running I'll do just that, I'm hoping for a deep grunty idle at least.

More progress, I got the body stripped of the tar pasted on there, got the firewall primed, and rear underside of the floor seam sealed and herculined. I'm leaving for two weeks, so my buddy will be fixing up the front floor and hat channels while I'm gone. When I get back we should set the tub on the frame and get the engine running.

 

Well, my friend didn't get the hat channels in, but he did cut out the rotten floor parts and make new panels. Yesterday I installed the AA chain clutch control, which just cleared my exhaust, I was tired of messing with the factory setup and the AA system is so easy. Today I finished welding all my floor patches in today, tomorrow I'll seam seal and spray everything with weldthrough primer, then I'll be ready to weld on the new hat channels. I'm going to bolt the hat channels to the frame body mounts, tack them together, then weld them to the floors. Once I have the channels welded on, I'll herculine the remainder of the botttom of the floor and bolt the tub on the frame. I do have a bit of bodywork to do, the biggest thing is to weld the JEEP panels onto the sides where the PO had the flip out air vents. Once I get all the body welding done, I'll herculine the inside of the tub and prep the outside for paint. I'll take some pictures tomorrow.

 

Those wheels look like ford spare tires. I think iv seen them like that at the junk yard

 

Here's the latest progress. I finished the floors and herculined the rest of the underside of the tub. I also filled the tranny/transfer case with gear oil only to find I was leaking at the front splines. I drained everything, cleaned it up, and used a lot of black RTV to seal it. I'll refill again on monday and hope for the best. I'm going to mount the tub on monday also and begin the bodywork, then once the welding is done, I'll herculine the inside of the tub.