For the last few years I have wanted to get another Jeep CJ7. I had one growing up and actually drove it in college. My middle son is 14 and is very interested in cars and I thought this would give us an opportunity to hang out and I can teach him a few things. I am no where near a mechanic. I am a financial Advisor actually. But I can turn a wrench and Youtube has been a big help. I found a 1980 CJ7 in Longview and went to look at it. It was raining and I should have come back on a better day to get a closer look at it. But I didn't. I made a hasty decision to buy it for $2200. It wasn't in great shape at all, but it was ours now. Once I got it home and started looking at it, I realized that I likely bit off more than I can chew. I will include a few pictures and talk about the build up to this point.
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I got home and unleaded it and went in to change. I came out and he was driving it around. He watched a YouTube video on how to drive a manual transmission and taught himself
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He got to work tearing out the old seats and cleaning it out. The carpet was trash but it showed what the original color was.
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what are you planning on upgrading/fixing/working on?Comment
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I rebuilt a 77' cj5 that had been rolled when I was 19. Those cj's are simple to work on. You can buy every part from quadratec or facebook marketplace has lots of parts. Is this the 4 or 6 cylinder? I have a 76' cj7 with the 304 v8.Comment
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The jeep has sat in a barn for 10+ years. I couldn't tell because of the rain, but it was leaking water from the radiator and and oil. The wiring was a rats nest. The battery wouldn't stay charged because of all of the shorts in it. The people that had it before me spray painted over the rust. I was able to find that this jeep was a 1980 CJ7 renegade Levis edition. It had the denim top with denim seats.Comment
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Right away we knew that there were several things that needed to to replaced before we could get much use out of it at all. The fuel tank had a hole in it, the seats and seat brackets were trash. the radiator had to be replaced and it needed a windshield. We also got a surprise the the reverse would pop out of gear. I thought it was the shift fork, but it turns out the that gear itself is shot.Comment
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There was a lot of dent in the front and back. It looked like someone ran into a stump or a tree. The back had a lot going on. The previous owner welded pieces of metal to it for unknown reasons. I thought about buying new fenders and body parts for it but what would that teach him. So we started the taking fenders and the grill off to see if we could straighten them out. It was a lot of hammering and beating. There were tears in both front fenders. He had never welded before so I spent the morning letting him run practice beads on scrap metal and then he started welding up the cracks in the fenders. After that he learned the value of a grinder when you mess up.Comment
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After a long weekend of hammering and beating the metal we decided to try a little body filler to try to smooth out the rest. This was my first time using it and we made a mess but it came out better than it was when we started. He also started filling in rust spots in the floor board with his welder. I told him to wear pants but he didn't and it was a hard lesson learned.Comment
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We let it sit for a week to think about what we wanted to take on next. He kept saying that he wanted to paint it himself. I was very much against it because I knew what the outcome would be. I had in my mind that to do this we would need a paint gun, a DIY paint booth and lots of body work to get there. He had other ideas. He watched several videos of rattle can pain jobs. I told him that he can do it but if it comes out bad then he would need to sand it all down and we would do it my way. I got him a palm sander and wire wheel to work on getting the rust and the old paint off. Then he taped up the windows and gauges and we were ready for paint. He decided to go with a metalic blue. Lowes had about 10 cans in stock so we bought all of them plus 8 cans of clear coat. Over the weekend he painted and sanded until it had three coats of paint and two coats of clear. I have to admit it came out much better than I thought it would. He did it all on his own. It certainly not perfect but he is proud.Comment
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