Figured I might as well post a build thread on my CJ, as I've been systematically tearing apart what was a good running Jeep earlier this year. AKA my LaREDO project.
Bought it off of craigslist 2 years ago for a pretty good price, in fairly good shape, original paint (mostly), fairly rust free, mostly straight, relatively un-messed with, etc. And I got the guy to throw in a decent M416 trailer for his asking price!
Here it is as I got it:
Specs:
1981 CJ-7 Laredo Edition (LE -> Ellie)
Stock D30/AMC20 narrow track axles, with awful 2.73 gearing
258 engine, supposedly rebuilt
T-176/D300, leaky
4" lift of some sort, Rusted old Rancho RS5000s
Chinese 31x10.50s
Sweet sweet homemade bumpers with umpteen Cat tractor lights
My intentions were, and are to use this as just a mild wheeler/backcountry rig for hunting/fishing/etc. So nothing super crazy, stock axles with upgrades, new gears, either 33s or 35s, probably eventually do the 4.0 Head and MPFI swap on the 4.2 to bring it into this century for reliability. But, I really wanted to tear through it and fix/repair everything wrong with it to give me the best base to work with. So, this may be a fairly boring build thread for those of you who don't get off on pictures of POR15'd clutch pedal brackets.