1980 CJ7 has 4 cyl. no trans or t-case no top or doors, i
think diffs are 4.10s being its a stock 4 cyl. i'm
selling my house so need to move some stuff. 600.00

Not exactly poetry and not exactly a picture that even a Mother could love but what the hell, it's only $600 right? Right. OK, so I got another Jeep. Not just 'another' Jeep mind you but yes....... another 4 banger Jeep. I swore on a stack of bibles, all that was Holy, my Mothers good name, my fathers grave, my childrens eyes, my heterosexuality that I would never ever in a million years get another Jeep ..........but if I did, it wouldn't be a 4 banger! Here's a tip, never take me at my word, apparantly I can't even trust myself!

Lets back up just a hair shall we? You see this CJ would not be my first Jeep, in fact I had previously purchased a 91 YJ and decided to 'build it up' so to speak. It was a 4 banger 5 speed and gutless as all hell, especially after I put the 33 inch tires on it! Lets face it though, what's the point in having one of these Jeeps if you aren't going to lift it and put some big tires on it? It's pretty useless in stock form, at least that's my opinion on them. Anyway after adding 4 1/2 inches of lift and putting the new 33X12.5X15 tires on it the pig wouldn't move in fifth, lose speed & RPM yes, was a complete slug climbing through the gears and needed some serious help. I rebuilt the engine, I figured maybe this old girl was just tired, nope she wasn't. The rebuilt engine was better but was far from good, I threw on the 4.0L throttle body, tossed the mechanical fan for an electric, no good. Finally I had a guy swap out the 4.10's for 4.88's, better.......... but still not fantastic. Rebuilt motor, transmission, new clutch, five tops, three sets of doors, three sets of tires, two sets of mags, two lift kits, warn M8000 winch, brakes all around, front end including tie rods, ball joints, steering box, axle seals, windshield frame, windshield, front clip, TJ Flares, complete new exhaust system, new seats, sound bar, cd player, CB, neoprene seat covers, fancy console, add a trunk, Hi Lift Jack, mirrors, antenna, roll bar, you might think I was done but no. In the world of Jeeps I hadn't even begun. I'm ashamed to say how much I was into this thing for but needless to say it was way more than it was worth. I sold the bitch and lost my shirt on the deal....... NEVER AGAIN I promised myself. Enough about that money trap, lets get back to this one shall we?

I bought the CJ7 based soley on these pictures. No, I'm not blind and I wasn't drunk at the time. I had my brother-in-law pick it up for me as he's local to Calgary and I'm not and it sat at his house for a month before I even laid eyes on it, yes............ he claimed it was much rougher than even the pics let on. Fred Flintstone must have owned this Jeep at one time because with the help of rust the floors were gone on both the driver and passenger side foot wells. Rust had also eaten some holes in the front of the tub and every panel on the thing was dented, caved, bent or twisted. Add to that the front clip was toast beyond repair, the windshield frame was rusted, interior completely trashed from being parked so long without a top or doors, column smashed, no keys............. in short this was more than just a project, this thing hardly passed as parts! Damn near nothing was salvagable!!

I planned on dropping in a drivetrain out of a YJ, smart eh?......... too bad the YJ front diff input is on the opposite side of the CJ huh? OK smartie a little research goes a long way.........So after deciding a 4.0 engine, an AX15 and a transfer case from a YJ along with diffs, driveshafts, wiring harness, fuel tank, fuel pump, etc, etc wasn't a very cost effective way of doing things I started looking at my options. The first was to drop a small block Chevy into the beast. I mean 305 or 350 can be had dirt cheap from just about any wrecker and if I swapped in a Blazer tranny & T-case things would be sweet right? Well not exactly, there are things to consider like driveshaft lengths, angles, cooling system, wiring, blah, blah, blah. I hadn't written the idea off just yet though. I located some Small Block Chev motor mounts to put in my CJ along with a rad. The cool thing about the Iron Duke is the bellhousing is Jeep on the tranny side and SBC on the motor side plus a hydralic clutch keeps things fairly simple and it was already attached to my seized Iron Duke. I managed to buy a T4 transmission and started to think I was on to something, I'm much smarter than I look it seems.

OK, maybe I'm exactly as smart as I seem. Damn that research...... As usual I researched the T4 tranny after I already bought it, turned out this tranny doesn't make for such a good mate to a 350, too weak. So I changed gears and started looking Jeep again. I located a guy selling off a 304/T18/Dana 20 combo, no prices but accepting offers. I sent him off an email asking what he would take for it but he never got back to me, probably sold it off pretty quick I imagine...... Too bad, luckily for me my brain took over and found an alternative solution.

I located a 4.2 L with minimal mileage on a rebuild, talked to the owner at length about it and hashed out a deal for $500, only problem was it was about 8 hours away. I wheeled and dealed a trucker friend of mine and had him pay the guy and pick up the motor for me, things were starting to look up for me. In fact things were starting to look way too far up for me as within an hour of purchasing the 4.2L I recieved a reply via email from mister 304............ he said gimme $100 and you can have all of it. Yeah right pal, what's the catch? I was sure it was a typo but not trusting my brain any more at this point I called him up at the number he left for me to confirm my smart deductions, nope. No typo, just wanted it gone. Swears it actually runs and drives pretty good but he purchased the Jeep for the front clip & diffs only, I was welcome to the remains for $100 if I removed it myself. Good deal eh? goes to prove you should never trust your brain.

OK, so now I've got a 4.2L engine in storage, 350 motor mounts collecting dust, a T4 transmission I don't need and I'm off to remove this engine, tranny & t case as a complete unit from buddies house. Somehow I made this all make sense to my wife, actually she probably got tired of my nonsense, felt bad for me having to live with this brain of mine and simply turned a blind eye. That or I told her I was going to the store, can't remember which. I get there and he's already taken it out. Seems he has exhaust, motor mounts, rad, hoses, alt, starter, belts, absolutely everything and a few other goodies for me too, all for $100, what a great guy!

I still needed a ton of parts, the interior was completely trashed, mice had eaten the seats and carpet, the dash was dented to hell with holes cut into it for speakers, the steering column had no key, not that it mattered as the column was in pieces, the dash had no dashpad, the knobs had no....... well knobs, no console, no visors. It looked like hobos had been living out of this thing and didn't pay a damage deposit, by the way I think the rear seat was used a washroom at some point, fold it down for number one, up for number two.......ew. There was no getting around this, I needed a miracle!

The miracle came in form of a fella parting out an 86 CJ7. He had just about every part I needed, only problem was he wanted a decent buck for every last part. He knew what he had and he wasn't about to let it go for nothing, by the way nothing is right next to what I had in my pockets for purchasing parts. I went down to go look at his heep and see what I could put together.

The Jeep was still complete, he had a set of doors that he was going to sell me for something like $100 because they were in such poor shape along with some interior parts that were priced right too. I asked if I could purchase a few items but he said he would prefer to wait until the Jeep was dissassembled and then it would be first come, first served. OK, easy enough I thought, "When are you pulling it apart?" I asked."This Saturday" he replied, "a couple of guys are coming over to give me a hand, I can give you a call when we're finished" ...................... yeah right.

I was born at night, but not last night. I figured if I could be there when the parts actually came off the Jeep there would be little to no chance of someone sniping my parts from me. "Say, I'm free all day Saturday, what do you say I come down and give you a hand say around ten o'clock?" I asked. The stranger looked me over and replied, "Sure the more help the merrier". I got him right where I want him.........stick with me brain and we'll go places!

Well as it turned out he had me right where he wanted me. Lets just say if this was a jail movie instead of stripping a Jeep he would have been Butch to my Bitch. Turns out the 'other guys' never made it Saturday, just Robert and I stripping this old CJ down to the frame, not exactly what I had in mind. You see my brain had convinced me it would be four guys drinking beers, looking at the Jeep and waiting for it to strip itself. Maybe one guy working away at it (not me) while the other three critisized and told him what he was doing wrong, I'm good at that stuff. As it turned out it was just two guys, heads down until the tub lay in the ally discarded like one of those empty beer cans that never did find their way into my hands that day. It was a lot of work to be sure but in the end it was worth it. He gave me a tilt steering column, a dash pad, a complete dash including tach & other guages, front black vinyl seats, carpet, doors, door panels, door strikers, seat risers, keys for doors & column and a few other doo dads here and there all for a sweet deal. On top of that he presented me with a complete front end rebuild kit for a CJ, ball joints, upper & lowers, tie rods, idler the whole shootin match! A killer deal and a day of work that paid off big time in the end......... no, that's not jail talk again.

The Jeep part collection was starting to come together, I scoured the forums daily looking for deals, I found many. Cheap console & electronic distributor from one guy, a $200 hard top from another, a set of 33 inch mud terrains, a radiator, a V8 tach, fenders, a grill, drive shafts, a rear seat, headers, visors, yes things were finally going my way. I think it's time I try and do something with this jigsaw puzzle, don't you?

SO IT BEGINS

Thirty days pass while I scrounge parts, OK I hadn't seen this thing yet so I set off to see my prized CJ7 parked 3 1/2 hours away from home. I arrived at my brother-in-laws house and without so much as a "Hello, how are you guys doing?" I headed straight for the Jeep! I was pleased to hear the previous owner had included a hard top for free but was forwarned it wasn't in the greatest of shape, the following pictures show you what I encountered on the flat deck trailer.

While the condition was worse than I had hoped it really wasn't too bad. Every panel on the Jeep was tweaked in some way or another, most of the damage I was concerned with was in the tub itself in the form of dents which with some work can be hammered and dollied out. There were two spots that did concern me rust wise however but these were dealt with easily. I simply cut out the rusted areas and welded in new metal, not rocket science. The floor would have to wait for another time as they would require new floor panels, no patch was going to cut the mustard here. The front fenders were ugly but thanks to a fellow Jeeper in Edmonton I scooped both fenders and a front grill rust free for $60. I installed them and things started looking pretty good.

I spent about 12 hours hammering out the dents and trying to straighten everything out, some of it went great, other spots proved much more difficult and would require me to go back and rework the metal at a later date but for now I wanted to get the heep in some sort of paint so I doused the old girl in Black TremClad and called it a day. This is what it looked like after about 18 hours of total time.

The passenger side came out best, while not perfect it was pretty close to looking half ways decent and unless you closely inspected it you wouldn't suspect that it ever seen the business end of a hammer or dolly to the extent that it had. The drivers side would require more work at a later time. I chose to leave the rest of the damage for the time being more out of frustration than anything else. No sense in bondo-ing the hell out of it, I plan on using this Jeep offroad at some point and don't want chunks of bondo falling out, besides, most of it can be massaged back to its original form with patience. I haven't installed the strikers at this point so the doors won't close properly, they're just sorta bungee corded shut. I installed a plywood back window in the CJ hardtop but have since purchased a YJ hard top that will replace this one complete with rear glass, scratch that have since sold the YJ hardtop and found a black CJ hardtop with tinted windows for the same price, (not shown). The $100 doors I purchased look half decent considering the shape they were in when I bought them and they keep the elements out so what more can I ask? I'm into the Jeep for less than $1300 at this point not including the 4.2L which I'm pretty sure I can unload but I think I'll wait until I can drive it with the 304 and assure myself that this is the engine I'll keep.

This represents one weekend's work. Since then I have made another trip south and have installed the 304/T18/Dana 20 combo which actually ended up being a 3 speed tranny instead of the coveted T18 4 speed but what the hell, it runs very well for a $100 and pulls great. The installation went off almost without a hitch with the exception of a bad starter and bad gas tank. The 304 installed easily with the mounts included with the 304, only had to drill out one hole. The driveshafts didn't match so I had to make one out of muffler tubing and no, I won't be driving down the street like this so don't bother turning down a side road if you spot me, I won't be spitting driveshafts down the road.

Since getting it running I've also picked up some 304 Headers that exit through the fenders along with sidepipes, new mags, a set of tires, electronic ignition, plastic gas tank, new back seat, 2" lift springs and more. The Jeeping community has been incredible up here in Edmonton and I want to give a special shout out to everyone who helped me out thus far (Robert, Gerald, John, Chris, Ken, Dave, Steve, Pete and more I'm bad with names) and those who will help me out with more in the future whether they know it or not. So two full weekends and about $1,600 total investment to date has me a running CJ7 complete with 304/T15/Dana 20, 4.10 gears, 31.5 tires, hardtop, doors and complete interior. There's still plenty more that needs to be replaced or upgraded to better parts. I need to get driveshafts custom built, longer shocks, address a rear axle seal leak and go through the usual suspects, front end, brakes, electrical etc.