Here is my pet project for the past 3 years or so. It is a 1977 CJ5 with a 304 V8 and a T150 trans mated to a Dana20 x-fer case.



I rebuilt the engine using an Edelbrock cam and lifter set and their RPM Performer intake. 

It has Hedman headers out the fender wells and Purple Hornies header mufflers just under the side nerf bars.





The biggest change to the engine was the conversion to TBI fuel injection. Rather than placing a carb atop the Edelbrock intake, I have an aluminum adaptor and a Rochester 750 CFM throttle body. A standard GM ECM module is mounted inside the vehicle and uses the standard GM MAP and O2 sensors (plus a few others) to control fuel and air into the engine. You can also see in the pics an HEI distributor with Accel super coil producing 45KV of spark. How many 30 year old Jeeps can display that "Fuel Injection" logo on both sides of the hood? 
I wired in a dual battery setup with a regular battery to handle the normal starting, lights, etc; plus a deep cycle marine battery to handle the winch, fog lights, security system, inverter and stereo. Both batteries are charged from a GM alternator through a battery isolator.

I also upgraded the interior with Herculiner spray-in bed liner throughout, new high back black denim seats in front and a tilt seat in back, a locking center console and matching visors. 3-point front harnesses and new belts in back completed the inside.

It didn't always like this. Here is how it looked when I first brought it home in Sep 2005.
It had a new Bestop Supertop and soft doors. It had manual steering and brakes, 33" tires that were shot, and way too much play in the steering to be safe to drive. It had a 3" body lift.
The body was pretty solid, with only a few small areas of surface rust and two small places that were rusted through. The windshield frame was completely rusted out though. 
I welded new custom bumpers on the front and rear and added a home made swing-out tire and Hi-Lift jack carrier on the back and a winch and tow bar on the front.

I completely stripped it all down and prepped it for a new custom paint job. 

The flame job was done by painting most of the body a metallic cobalt blue, all except the very front of the hood and fenders and the grill.

The front was then painted with sunburst yellow. 

After putting the hood back on and re-assembling the fenders and grill, the entire front end was masked off with painters tape.
I then used a marker to outline the flame pattern and used an exacto knife to cut out the tape along the outline.
I painted the entire portion of the flames yellow and I then added some orange and red while the yellow was still wet so the colors could blend together to provide a smooth transition in the flames. 

Of course it also has new fender flares and stainless hood hardware, door and windshield hinges, and side diamond plate panels and door thresholds.
I've also added power breaks and power steering and built a controller for intermittent wipers using a control switch from an '86 Ford bronco.
I needed to improve the stereo speaker setup. Mounting speakers in an older Jeep can be a challenge. You have the two small stock openings in the dash only. Some people mount rear speakers on top of the wheel wells, but that is valuable space I wanted to keep. Others use after-market enclosures that mount on the tranny hump up front on the floor. I wanted some larger speakers in the rear, so I used some overhead units from Vertically Driven. These have 2 speakers each (4 in all) and include dome lights. The problem is they are designed to mount to roll bars with straight horizontal attachments. My Jeep only had the two angled rearward bars going down from the main center roll bar. I also wanted to add overhead grab handles. So I cut and welded in two straight horizontal bars going from the main roll bar down the center to the windshield. They have a plate welded at the front that then bolts to the windshield frame. This stabilizes the windshield better when driving, gave me a place to mount the grab strap handles, and now the overhead speaker pods are secured up and out of the way. In addition this allowed me to change the rear view mirror for one that has map lights in it and I ran the wiring for the speakers and power for the dome and map lights inside the bars from the floor on the passenger side up the main roll bar and through the new bars all the way to the mirror with the map lights. So no visible wires for all of this.


Finally got those new wheels I was waiting for. These are way cool. They are from Vision Wheels and are the "375 Warrior" wheels. I got all 5 so the spare is the same and can be included in the tire rotation as well. Check these out.
