Build Thread Mike's 1986 CJ7 (Mid Year) Rebuild

[mdeluca]

I've been posting pics over on the "What did you do to your CJ today" thread, but maybe its time to start a build thread.

I've got lots of photos that have chronicled the process.

Description:

• 1986 CJ7 (Mid Year)
• Engine: 258 cu in (4.2 L) AMC I6 99.4 PS (73 kW; 98 hp), 261 N·m (193 lb·ft)
• Transmission: Borg-Warner T-5 (5-speed with a Dana 300)
• Transfer Case: Dana 300
• Rear Axle: Dana 44 Wide Track (mid-year 1986)
• Front Axle: Dana 30 Wide Track
• Miles: 144,000

This is the before shot of the jeep coming "home" on the trailer.

 

[mdeluca]

Some more before pics…

Sold the doors and top to help finance the project.

After showing Adam Brown over at Adam Brown Customs several Jeeps and having him go look at others (none of which he liked for various reasons) he steered me to a friend of his who is a bit of a Jeep hoarder. Adam told me that his friend had an 86 CJ7 in great shape.

Originally, I wanted a CJ5; going for the old Willys look. Adam told me to get a late CJ for drivability. After driving a few CJ5s I decided to go for a CJ7. Then after reading about the history of the CJ7 and the multiple variations, I decided that the holy grail was a 1986 (mid-year) with the Dana 44, longer wheel base, wide track, and 5 speed transmission. These are few and far between.

My idea of great shape was apparently different from his. I was less than enthused, but he was all agog as he climbed in and under it. This CJ7 had been owned by a woman who lived in CA for most of the thirty years this thing has been in existence and now is the only Jeep that is stored in a building… next to an old Corvette and Camaro.

Adam explained that the important thing is the lack of rust and this Jeep, in his determination, was near mint and that I'd save a lot in restoration work… not to mention it was bone stock so no one had mucked with it. I trusted him and bought it. I became the second owner of record since his friend never recorded his purchase. He had it for a couple of years in that building; saving it for a personal project that he had recently changed his mind on.

We trailered it back to Adam's shop and I began to wait my turn. So it sat like this for months.

 

[Peanut Butter]

:rock: Keep 'em coming!

 

[mdeluca]

Adam and I have talked for hours discussing the direction of the restoration. There was no way that I could afford a full frame off restore along with replacing all of the parts from the ground up. This was one of the reasons he recommended that I pay a bit more for a Jeep in good condition.

I'm also going to be helping him in the shop doing what I can; cleaning, sand blasting, wire wheeling, sanding, painting misc. parts, taking stuff home to clean and paint, bolting stuff back on, etc...

The Game Plan

Body and Frame:

• Leave the body on the frame and strip everything else down completely.
• Paint the tub and fenders (sand out the small amount of surface rust and repair a ding on the passenger fender and one on the grille).
• Raptor the interior
• Undercoat the roll bar, rockers, and bumpers (when I decide to get them)
• Black out all of the hinges and hardware.
• Pressure wash, seal, and spray the frame and undercarriage with Rustoleum anti-rust paint.
• Sand blast and black paint the original wheels and get new 31x10.5 tires.

Engine Compartment and Nether Stuff:

• Drop the motor and transmission
• Replace rear main seal, valve cover gasket, timing chain
• Check brakes, bearings, u-joints, ball joints, etc.
• New water pump, fuel pump, alternator, coil, distributor, starter solenoid, master cylinder, starter, shocks, stabilizer
• Nutter bypass… get rid of all the extraneous wiring and vacuum lines and other … basically get the engine compartment cleaned up
• No lift at this time.

Color Scheme

Man, this was hard…
Originally wanted a burnt orange pearl similar to the Viper orange.
Adam talked me out of it. He had done a bronze silver metallic the previous year that I really liked and he said it was more of a traditional Jeep color even though it wasn't actually a Jeep color we chose.

This is the project inspiration photo:



Body and Dash:

• Honda Carbon Bronze
• Brand Code: 913624
• DEM Code: YR562P-A, YR562P-G
• Mixing Scheme: OMNI AU (MBC)

Tub and Engine Compartment

• Black Raptor Bedliner

Trim (hinges, roll bar, wipers, bezels, brackets, mirrors, etc.)

• Duplicolor Low Gloss Black Engine Enamel #1634

Bumper/Running Board/Roll Bar

• Duplicolor Black Truck Bed Coating #TR50

 

[mdeluca]

Work Begins… first of October 2016

Fenders, hood, tailgate, windshield separated for sandblasting and a little body work.

Parts all boxed and staged for blasting.

Took the seats, dash, seat belts, etc. home for cleaning and painting.

Odd that only the fenders were galvanized…

Adam finally found some rust that needed to be cut out. Under the roll bar behind the seats on both sides was pretty much gone. He cut that out and welded in new steel. That was it with regard to the sheet metal… nothing behind the hinges or anywhere else other than a little surface rust here and there.

 

[daddyusmaximus]

Good winter project.

 

[mdeluca]

Here are the 4.2 L6 and the Borg Warner T5 removed from the CJ.

We decided to leave the tranny alone, just clean it up a bit.

The motor got a new rear main seal, valve cover gasket, and timing chain. Glad we did the timing chain… it was time.

Look at that lovely plastic valve cover… ugh.. not in the budget… not in the budget… not in the budget…

Adam keeps telling me this thing is just mint… I don't see it.

 

[mdeluca]

Seats

Took the seats home to clean up, paint, and lubricate.

The risers looked like , but no rot. The driver side slider was frozen.

Removed the seats from the risers and separated the slider components.

Everthing got sanded, some parts got dunked in Evap-O-Rust (incredible stuff).

Painted the risers… a real pain in the ***, but got it done, then lubed all of the pivot points with dry chain lube so as not to attract dust. Used the Duplicolor low gloss engine enamel. We are now referring to it as the "Magic Paint". Love this stuff… goes on smooth as glass and looks great.

The sliders got completely disassembled, soaked in kerosene, then soaked in gas…. yeah, I know… I then used white lithium spray and lithium grease on all of the moving parts and bearings…. slides like butta'

The seats got turned upside down… a literal forest of twigs, dirt, and sand came out of the sub-uranium area.

There were two small tears that I was able to back with fabric and glue with Permatex vinyl glue… worked great. One was about the size of a pencil eraser and the other the size of a nickel. Came out nice. All the piping is perfect and the seats look near perfect after cleaning with Dawn and then treating several times with Protect-All.

These seats have the CJ embossed into the head rest area…. never seen that before. I may sell these seats to buy some tan Corbeau's… if I can get enough for them on ebay.

 

[mdeluca]

Primer

And all of the sudden, Adam Brown Customs sends me these…!!!

 

[mdeluca]

Lift - Tires - Wheels - Shocks

Decided to go with no lift so that my wife and I won't have to hike ourselves up too far to go on our little pleasure excursions… We won't be doing any rock climbing… at least I don't think we will…

Decided to go with Kumho Road Venture AT51 31x10.50 R 109R tires due to their semi aggressive tread pattern and good road wear characteristics and they won't sing.

Our first inclination was to simply blast and paint the 15 x 7 wheels, but after some research decided to go with the lighter alloy wheels, and the fact that they won't rust, and increase the size to 15 x 8.

Decided on the American Racing AR1725885B 15 x 8 with 3.75" backspacing, -19mm offset, 4.25" bore, 5 on 5.5, satin black, Soft Eights.

Picked up a set of chrome DP Associates LCS3A2HC2CH04024, conical, 6/Tuner, 1/2"-20, 1.35" height lug nuts with a combo 3/4" (OEM) and 13/16" key. Got 24 in the set; enough for the spare. The chrome lug nuts should add just the right amount of pop to the wheel.

Made the further decision not to go with center caps. The Dana 44 looks nice and flat in the rear and the front locking hub fills the wheel bore well enough to look good. I'll just clean them up and black them out. Another thing not to have to deal with and it keeps with the "simple" theme I'm going for.

Here are the wheels and tires mounted.



Shocks

Just trying to keep the OEM ride quality. No bone jarring here.

Front: KYB GR-2/ Excel-G #344087
Rear: KYB GR-2/ Excel-G #344085
Stabilizer: Monroe Monro-Magnum #SC2940

 

[Peanut Butter]

Your engine looks really nice. Mine was an oily nasty mess. I had to replace my timing chain too. Don't want to let that go on an I6. I'm told the piston heads are flat and can not tolerate a valve dropping into the chamber due to a loose chain. Bad, very bad things happen then.

 

[mdeluca]

Your engine looks really nice. Mine was an oily nasty mess. I had to replace my timing chain too. Don't want to let that go on an I6. I'm told the piston heads are flat and can not tolerate a valve dropping into the chamber due to a loose chain. Bad, very bad things happen then.

We decided not to rebuild it yet… hoping to get another 20k to 30k out of it and for funds to accumulate in the meantime.

The motor seemed in good shape and runs well… better to allocate the funds to other things now. I do realize that it is coming, but I want to feel her out first and create a phase II list for hopefully a year from now.

 

[mdeluca]

So I get a text from Adam Brown Customs one day which simply stated, "You're gonna love me!"

I texted him back that I already did, but that now he's got my curiosity piqued.

Adam waits another couple of hours and sends me these:





He was originally just going to pressure wash, seal, and paint what he could get to underneath. Once he got down to 10 body mounts, he decided it would be easier to just remove the tub. Well, then he decided to go ahead and spend some time sanding the frame before painting.

I love this guy…!!!

Can't tell you how much better I feel about this project now that the frame has been sprayed top and bottom!!!

 

[Peanut Butter]

 

[Lumpy Grits]

With the T5 out. I would strongly suggest you replace the input shaft seal and check the wobble/play of the input shaft. You want to just remove the wobble/play with shims that go behind the nose cap with about a .005" shim preload. May also want to R&R the pilot bushing. Don't forget to soak it in oil overnight before install.
Thanks for all of the pictures and details!
LG

 

[mdeluca]

With the T5 out. I would strongly suggest you replace the input shaft seal and check the wobble/play of the input shaft. You want to just remove the wobble/play with shims that go behind the nose cap with about a .005" shim preload. May also want to R&R the pilot bushing. Don't forget to soak it in oil overnight before install.
Thanks for all of the pictures and details!
LG

Thanks LG… we are past that now. However, he was checking things as he went. I'm going to have to hope for the best at this point.

 

[Peanut Butter]

This guy, Adam Brown's Custom Jeep, is doing a great job, and letting you help too!

 

[Lumpy Grits]

Bet he's charging more because of the 'help'.........LOL
LG

 

[mdeluca]

Bet he's charging more because of the 'help'.........LOL
LG

Hey… I have skills…lol

 

[mdeluca]

Here are some more pics of the sandblast and prep that I missed… must have been tired.






This is a shot of only two places that had rust that needed to be cut out and new steel welded in.