CJ7 restoration in progress- Advice please

bullseye · 12-03-2009, 01:09 AM

Hello. Brand new to the board but jumping right in. Started an interior restoration on my 84 CJ7 about 2 weeks ago.

I first pulled the seats which of course had 1 bolt frozen in each one, so that took me a while to drill those suckers out. (The easy stuff on a Jeep is never easy)

So it's hard to see but one of the seats has a large tear and the other 2 have some small holes which are about to get bigger.

I checked to today into getting them re-covered. Various places quoted me $700-1500.

I'm thinking some nice seat covers might be more in order... BUT I am also thinking about getting the Omix-ADA stainless steel tracks and brackets. Really nice looking but expensive.

bullseye · 12-03-2009, 01:14 AM

I decided to go with a paint stripper. I used a simple Citrus brand then moved up to ACE hardware stripper for the harder spots. Overall, a pain in the butt, but came out pretty good. Still need to hit some more spots and sand, but almost done. Here are some pics of how that turned out.

bullseye · 12-03-2009, 01:19 AM

So I have some rust, but no rot. I have 4 qts of POR-15 and plan on repainting the interior floor with that. The last pic is blurry, but you can see all the surface rust before I hit it with some naval jelly and wire brush.

bullseye · 12-03-2009, 01:27 AM

So here are some of my questions. First, could someone tell me what these 4 X-Men logo looking things are in the back of the Jeep and are they safe to pull? They have a greenish looking rubber gasket around them.

In addition, the last 3 pics show a metal looking plug with no rubber gaskets. Are these the drain plugs, and have they simply fallen out of the holes that have nothing there? Can I pull these as well? I have pulled on one pretty hard, but it won't come out, so I don't want to crow bar it until I know for sure.

IOPort51 · 12-03-2009, 01:31 AM

Welcome to jeepcj.com from the Republic of Texas.
I just had my two buckets done with marine vinyl for about $250 for the pair.
I think I would keep looking, I have never been that impressed with seat covers especially wet seat covers, but that’s just me.

You can never have too much stainless steel; I’m just not a big fan of Omix-ADA.
When was the last time you or anyone else bothered to look at the seat slides? A little Triflow keeps mine sliding nicely and I think they look great in gloss black.

bullseye · 12-03-2009, 01:36 AM

In the next 3 pics you will see the bolts holding down the roll bar and 1 bolt anchoring down the seat belt.

Are all these bolts welded in the frame stock from the manufacturer? I've tried loosening them using a good size breaker, but they won't budge! I think I am even bending the torx bit...

I would very much like to change out the seat belts as they are a bit frayed and worn.

I would also like to remove the roll bar to get into those tight spots to strip and paint. It would make life much easier, but as we all know with Jeeps, life is never easy.

But what I would LOVE to do is to send out that roll bar to be stripped then chromed. I've seen it once before on a Jeep and it looked amazing!

bullseye · 12-03-2009, 01:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by IOPort51

You can never have too much stainless steel; I’m just not a big fan of Omix-ADA. When was the last time you or anyone else bothered to look at the seat slides? A little Triflow keeps mine sliding nicely and I think they look great in gloss black.

Thanks for the reply. Very nice to hear from you. Def checking into more auto upholstery places. Might even send them out if nothing local that meets my needs ($$$).

Omix certainly is one of the larger manufacturers of stainless steel. I also like Kentrol. It seems like Quadratec and 4WD carry a good selection of both. It's actually Kentrol who makes the seat brackets. I put a pic of them below.

My slide on the driver's side works fine but there is no slider on the pass side. They both have some surface rust and I have painted over them before with some Rust-o-leum ? years ago.

I've tried to strip them but they just have to many creases and corners etc to get in there and do it right.

The ss slides are more of a Xmas wish than anything, but they do look good.

http://www.kentrolinc.com/prodimg/full/30552.gif

bullseye · 12-03-2009, 01:57 AM

Another question. In this pic you can see the plug I was talking about before but you can also see the filler/caulk that seems to be in every seam in my Jeep. This stuff is next to impossible to get out! Stripper did very little, but it is old and cracking.

What is this stuff and do I need to replace it?

bullseye · 12-03-2009, 02:07 AM

I want to pull my dash. I'm talking about the instrument panel here and not the padded dash. I want to replace a few burnt out indicators, and new stainless cover, new pull knobs, etc. and I would also like to clean up the wiring a bit back behind there. Again here are some pics.

Problem of course is the steering column goes through the dash, so I guess I need to remove the wheel and/or column to be able to flip the dash down? Does the bolt under the horn need to be pulled? (See very blurry pic)

Anyone have any experience with this?

bullseye · 12-03-2009, 02:14 AM

Here's a couple more pics. Gotta hit the sack but am looking forward to hearing anyone's thoughts. I'm certainly going to be adding to this post with more questions and keep everyone updated on my progress. Thanks again.