The Jeep CJ Project

This project to rebuild a Jeep CJ-7 for off-road use was conceived by Demetri as a fun thing to do. Ourania and I recognized this project as a great learning experience for all.

We wanted to use the Jeep as a rock crawler and mudder. A rock crawler is a Jeep that climbs rock. For this you need a big torquey engine and low speed transmission. The CJ-7 we bought in February came with both of these components. A mudder travels over soft stuff like mud. For this you need large tires. The demands of rock crawler and mudding are to some extent at odds with our desire to keep the CJ street safe. Tires too large means the c.g. is too high and roll stability suffers. Tires that are good in the mud (mudders) are not so good on wet pavement. So we have made some compromises. We have installed BF Goodrich All Terrain T/A (32x11.5 R15 LT) tires.

The Jeep we bought was a 1983 CJ-7 with 120,000 miles on the frame but only 30,000 miles on the engine. Unfortunately, the body of this AMC Jeep is badly rusted. Our plan is to eliminate the rust by changing the tub (the rear 2/3 of the body), replacing it with a used tub we bought from Wabash Auto (in Wabash, Indiana), replacing the leaf springs to get a 2.5 inchs of suspension lift, replacing the front and rear shackles (the parts that hold the leaf springs to the frame) to get an additional 0.5 inch lift, and replacing the tires with larger ones (to give another 2 inches of lift). All together, the Jeep will stand 5 inches taller then it does in these pictures. The added suspension lift gives the wheels more travel so that the Jeep can go over larger rocks.