Some photos

Some shit that's caked on over the years

First post

This blog is just a record of me rebuilding a 1980 jeep cj7 renegade. I got it a year ago for 8 grand, which was a bit much for the condition it was in (more on this later). They're a pretty hard to get car in Perth though so I'm happy. It was originally a 6 but the last owner dumped in an AMC 5 litre, one of the shittiest motors ever made. It's got a 3 speed auto on the tree, quadratrac transfer case, 2 1/2 " lift, BFGoodrich tyres (will post specs later). Its a lot of fun.

That jetpilot sticker had to go.


These things are pretty simple old 4x4s which is why I wanted one. The plan is a complete rebuild, holden gen 3 ls1 replacing the AMC motor and a new coat of paint. Nothing too fancy or expensive for now. Just get it roadworthy and looking good.


Like I said it was in pretty bad nick mechanically.

• The motor was a gutless piece of shit, producing 130hp from the factory (!!)
• The steering was, and I can't stress this enough, all over the fucking place. Veering rapidly into oncoming traffic bad. Fucking scary man.
• One engine mount was broken.
• The sway bar bushings were missing.
• The transfer case mount was broken.
• The column shift was fucked and would force the gearbox out of gear. This was due to a shitty rhd conversion.
• The fuel tank was rusted through.
• All the instruments were fucked.
• It had bucket seats that were a real threat to your nuts when getting in or out of the car because they sat so high off the ground and had a nice nub to get knackered on.
•  The passenger seat was not bolted down(!!!!!)
  The throttle pedal was cracked and fell off(!!!!!!)
• The brakes were shot. 
• A rear damper fell off, clearly due to a decent thump.
• The distributor shaft broke, how in fucks name does that even happen? The fucking big metal shaft off a non load bearing component snapped. I'll put it down to American engineering which I'm sure will become a prevalent topic in this blog.
• The body had some cracked welds and a dent
• The bonnet was a bit worn.

Besides this it is a pretty straight vehicle.


I've pulled it apart down to the axles. Only after you do this can you see the deathtrap you were cruising in. The chassis welds were, according to my boilermaker cousin, 'done by a fucking retard. There is still slag on the weld. Whoever did this needs to eat a bowl of dicks.' Now the front suspension is where it gets interesting. The U-bolts were FUCKING LOOSE! Physically, able to move them with your hand, bolt able to be screwed off - loose. None of the mechanics that saw the vehicle seemed to pick up on it, even after having a look at the brakes. Just goes to show you should really get the RAC to inspect a vehicle before you buy it.
As I stated the steering was really loose, and the U-bolts may explain a bit of this. After some googling I found out you need caster shims to correct the caster angle after a lift. This would explain the steering in some other 4bees I've driven. They are pretty cheap so theres no excuses.