Junky Jeep

About 9 years ago I purchased an old Jeep. 1975 CJ 5 to be exact. I bought it from a friend who is a Jeep nut like myself. He ended up with this old beast as a result of one of his friends moving away. It was basically stock with a few not so good modifications. My friend was going to restore the Jeep for his wife to drive and make it a matching pair with his own 1975 CJ 5. He had it for a year and throughout the year had to listen to me pester him about buying it from him. Throughout the year he was restoring his own. One day I recieved a phone call asking if I still wanted the Jeep. Hmmmm..... let me think....YES!!!! Of course I wanted the Jeep.

Here begins my new journey. I paid my friend and we did the BOS, transferred plates etc and fired up the old girl. I had my brother come with me to give me a ride down and also to make sure I made it home. I won't go into grave detail about what was wrong with the Jeep as it would take pages to write, but on the trip home I discoverred it burned and leaked more oil than fuel, dogtracked a good 4" (alot on a Jeep) and drove worse than a worn out lumber wagon. Since then I have spent numerous hours, days, weeks.... actually years building my toy. Everything mechanical is new or rebuilt. I have made every effort to keep it's origional look. That asside I have made some personal modifications that I consider tasteful and practical.

The summer of 2007 I finally completed my Jeep by constructing a new body from sheet stainless steel for the floor and fenders, and paintable galvanized sheet for the outer body panels. It took the whole summer to fabricate and paint but the end result is beyond my highest expectations. I'm even proud of the runs I painted into the paint. I put them there, not a paint shop or body man helped!!!

Projects like this one are unbelievably intense and require many hours of dedication. I respect those who put forth the time and effort to accomplish a goal such as this, but please remember if you have never done this before start small. The number of parts and pieces can be overwhelming and many people lose interest before their project is finished.

Hope to see all of your projects soon, hope you enjoyed this one.

D.