[720]

Hi everyone, My project is coming along excellent, I'll be posting more pics of my white CJ shortly. My daughters been helping me out quite a bit and has now decided she wants to build a Jeep of her own (she's 21). We came across a 1980 CJ-5, 60,000 original miles, 4 cylinder, 4 speed, rusted to heck, frame looks to be ok. The owner bought a 4wd Hardware glass body and fenders for it 3 years ago, and started taking the Jeep apart. I can't here it run, the wiring harness, etc. is labled well. He told me to make an offer, I'm thinking $1,500.. The Jeep, probably a hair less than a grand due to condition, glass body, maybe half of the new price? I'm looking for thoughts, also if anyone knows of something restorable not to terribly far from Wisconsin, please let me know. Thanks Rick

 

[general420]

I'd check the frame well by poking it with a screw driver. Otherwise, sounds like a reasonable purchase to me. That's going to have an SR-4 tranny, which is renouned for its weekness, but will be OK behind the 4 banger, which is a good motor for wheeling, but not so much on the highway. The 80 has the short shaft D300, which is a slight improvement on an already good unit.

 

[webjeep]

chek the frame to body mounts too. if the frame is in good shape that doesn't sound too bad for a rolling chassis/engine/tranny and a glass body.

you may also want to consider a new harness unless the old one is in really good shape. seems almost a waste to rewire and entire jeep with old wires.

-web

 

[Jim_Lou]

The other guys have a good point. It's hard to imagine a Jeep with the body "rusted to heck" but a good frame. Go over it extremely carefully. Look at all the welded places. Most welds are lap - one piece of steel laid over another, and then welded at the edge. Rust takes over between the two pieces, and shows itself as a bulge, because rust is bigger than the steel it came from. Unfortunately in some places the thinner piece of steel is inside the frame tube, so the bulge is inside where you can't see it. But look anyway.

A rusted frame is not ruined, but repairing it can be a fair amount of work. The attached picture is from the back of my '78 frame. The outer tube is a temporary patch. At the bottom of the original frame tube there is severe damage. The inner piece of steel is thinner than the outer. The rust between them bent the inner piece up severely. The damage was almost invisible from the outside, and yet the joint was completely destroyed, and there was very little strength left.