Kane's Project CJ8-SS

Project Jeep CJ8SS (Scrambler Sleeper) Part I.
This will be the documentation for my Jeep Scrambler restoration project. The goal is to build a clean family wheeler that looks almost stock to a glance but will be very built underneath the skin. I made a spreadsheet that I constantly update and allows me to keep track of the estimated cost against money spent. My long loved CJ5 that has been with me for over 20 years will be getting cannibalized of its aftermarket parts for this build. The CJ5 will be getting a proper stock restoration after this CJ8 is built. I just really want a stock clean CJ5 for putting around and just having.
My build plan summary.
1.) Factory stock frame but stiffened up and rust free.
2.) My small block 350 out of the CJ5. 300+ HP to the wheels. 8k miles built by me a few years ago.
3.) 4 speed auto mated to the twin stick Dana 300 and full lock up converter. 700R4 is the candidate right now. My CJ5 has a T-18 but I really want the overdrive. NV3550 isn’t strong enough and the NV4500 is just too bulky.
4.) Dana 44’s out of a Scout 2. Both locked and rebuilt. Possible rear disk brakes.
5.) Spring under lift from my CJ5 and Tom Woods shafts, out boarded front springs and homebuilt shackles. 33inch tires and rims from my CJ5.
6.) Kentrol Glass body, lined tub, hard top, full homebuilt cage, all new interior seats from my CJ5. Modified stock dash. Ammo can storage.
7.) Copper or Silver paint done by my and the wife.
8.) Underbody protection all homebuilt. Bumpers all homebuilt with receivers front and rear. Mile Marker winch.
9.) Hella H4 light conversion with HID set up. 68 Charger side markers, back up light, LED parking lamp. Driving light built into bumpers.
Anyway, I picked up this not so clean 1984 Scrambler from a guy 5 miles from my house for $2000.00 including delivery last September. I spent about a year looking for a restorable basket case. I only really cared about the frame, VIN and random hard to find Jeep parts. The drive line and body didn’t matter to me since my plans are to go fiberglass and replace everything. He gave me another motor because he didn’t know if this one ran.
Here are some shots when it came home.

Project CJ8-SS Part II

So the Jeep sat for awhile and I finally got to tearing her down in November before the crazy winter hit. I broke allot of bolts and had to cut most of the roll bar bolts off. What a pain. I have at least 9 nuts to replace in the frame. After getting the Jeep torn down I got to cutting the frame to remove the bad rust. The more I cut the more I found. I got to s certain point and decided to just cut the back section of the frame right off and build it from scratch. Basically everything rear of the front gas tank cross member will be new metal. One section by the rear stationary spring hanger is bad. I plan on plating that and then going over a good portion of the frame with additional plating where ever I think there could be interior rust. The front of the frame is very nice but need new nut inserts for the spring hangers and one sway bar mount. Luckily I just bought this handy Hobart Stickmate AC/DC welder to give me a hand. I love ARC welding and Tractor Supply had this for a sweet low price of $475. No other store could come close to that deal. Tractor Supply even has Hobart rods for half the price of the welding store like Air Gas and they don’t charge the ridiculous hazard material fee.
Hobart Stickmate. The frames lifeline.

What’s left of the rear frame portion.


Frame getting degreased.

The rusty tank skid. I am going to refab the mount for this.


So that is where I sit right now. For the next few weeks it will be cutting welding, and more cutting and welding. Once this is done then the axles will get torn apart and I will use the housings for mock up on the outboard spring hangers and relocated perches for the rear. The front axle needs all the cutting and caster corrections made before I can rebuild it. I plan on using my Dana 30 outer knuckle assemblies as well. I have more pictures of the tear down but they are not in Photobucket yet.

Cool start you have so far and looking forward to it. That is a great price I think for your welder. How long of leads did it come with?

I'm a novice but still a fan of the AC/DC stick. Did it in high school and has pretty much been my go to for almost everything. A mig would be sweet but I can't justify the $$ and since the stick has worked for me I'm sticking with it (no pun intended).

Keep the pics coming!

The Hobart is a nice welder and it is really just a Miller Thunderbolt XL rebadged with a lower price point. The power plug is 6ft, the electrode I believe is 15 ft. I can get half way accross my garage with it. I may need to make that a bit longer but the welder is not too heavy to move and I have access to alot of heavy guage wire at work to make longer leads. The negative lead is a little too short.

Body Removal.
Here are some shots when I pulled the body off the frame. The tub is heavily rotted on the bottom and both sides are entirely covered in bondo and cheap sheet metal. It was far too gone for restoration and in New England I prefer glass for longevity. My CJ5 body is going on 17 years old and still looks great.




Here is a shot of the Kentrol body I bought from a guy on Craigslist. This tub was brand new and he never got to do his project. I got the tub, fenders, hood and new metal grill all for $1700. Serious deal.

That is a smoking deal. Sounds like a great plan...keep the updates and pics coming.

Thats a killer deal on the body. Sounds like sweet rebuild

On the old body, how are the corners of the cowl, below the windshield hinges? I need to replace that area on mine....

The whole body is bondo and hacked together sheetmetal on the inside. I would have to check the specific spot but that body might become a dirtbike trailer to tug behind the scrambler. I am doing some frame work this weekend so I should have an update on monday.

4-3-2011
This weekend was very successful in the Jeep project world. I did allot of welding and design for the repairs. Last week I ordered and received all my steel. I bought 24 ft of 2x3x.120 and I had my local sheet metal company cut me 2 3/4” x 8’ strips and bend 2 3/4”x 2 3/4" x 8’ angled steel out of .120 thick sheet steel. This should cover everything I need for rail replacement and reinforcement along the frame. My plans are to replace the back 32 inches, add some cross members, cap the lower edges along the whole frame, replace all body mount tabs and replace all the interior welded nuts.

During the week I fabbed all the top body mount tabs at work. I got the initial welding done to them and decided to attack the rear frame rail that was completely rotted. I cut back about 25 inches and realized I had to go farther. The inside rail was too far gone. I thought for a bit I would end up cutting off everything another 2 or 3 feet. I cut back another 6 inches and found solid metal throughout. Whew. Sunday I made the rail and got it 50% welded in place. I put the frame on the floor and leveled the good rail. Then I measured from the rail bottom to the floor and cut some angle for the other side to make sure it is equal. The 3x3 tubing is just a tad smaller than the frame at the top of the curve so I was able to tuck the 2x3 into the stock frame for more meat to weld. It should help with strength and reduce any chance of burn through. I am happy with the results so far and it is perfectly level with the other side. I haven’t decided if I need to cut the other side off. I am going to cut out the welded nuts and get a feel for how much rust is in there first.

Anyway here are the pictures.

I did a few more hours on the frame this weekend. Unfortunately I will only get about 4-8 hours a week to do work. Anyway I don’t have much to say this time around but here are some progress pics. This weekend, I plan on finishing the welding of the plate in the last picture and then cutting out all the bad frame bolts to install new ones. Hopefully I should get that all done.

It has been quite a while since I posted in my build thread mainly because build is taking much longer than expected. The family takes up most of my time and I also have another hobby which is riding sportbikes on race tracks. This frame required so much work that I never anticipated. Some of it I chose to do since I was already there and some of it was needed so it will last for many years to come. I laid on the 3 coats of POR15 chassis coating and 2 coat of POR15 black top coat paint. The amount of work that I did to this frame was huge. If I realized how much was needed I may not have started this project. All said a done I ended up doing several things two times over. This being my first frame that I basically had to rebuild from rust I think it came out very nice.

List of what I fabbed and fixed.
1.) cut off the back 36 inches of frame and replaced with new tube and new cross member for the gas tank mount. Fish plated both sides. Very big learning curve here. I almost ended up starting over until I realized the fiberglass body had some misalignment issues on its own that made me think I crazy.
2.) Replaced all body mount tabs and custom fit them to the aftermarket glass body. I fixed my stock pieces and then scrapped them for the Throttle Down Kustom new units. I lined them up with the new tube so they would look factory. The glass tubs mounts do not line up with the original metal tub mounts.
3.) Cut out all internal captured nuts and welded in new grade 8 nuts.
4.) Added new reinforcement metal to the entire inside of both frame rails.
5.) Added an extra cross member.
6.) Replaced several sections of bad metal.
7.) Mounted the front spring hanger’s outboard of the frame with home built mounts for the extra wide Dana 44 Scout axle.

Here are some pictures after the fab work and before paint.

Here are picture during paint. These are after the 2nd POR15 coat. The final chassis coating looks much better but I did not get any pictures yet.

My next step will be to install the new brake lines and get the body drill for the mounts. Then I plan on cleaning up all the shackle hangers, gas tank skid and brackets that need painting so I can get the axles hung on the frame. The axles rebuilds will be later but I at least want a rolling chassis by winter. Plus I need the full weight of the vehicle so when I go to set my caster angle on the front axle it will be accurate plus the pinion angle for the back axle.

Looks like you did a great job...nice crossmember!

kane nice job on the scrambler .. There was a ton of potential there when jeff pulled that jeep out of that old mans garage in hartford .. I am stoked to see this coming along and will be following this post .
What became of that 6cyl. it ran great when i pulled it from my 84 scrambler. i recently moved from berlin ct to durham ct with the cj8 in tow .
I just posted up to say good work , you got a fellow jeep nut near by and maybe someday we can load the kidders in our scramblers and have some times..

That's your motor he sold me as the spare huh. Pretty cool. I still have it and plan on making one of then run. I have built several 258s and know my way around them really well. One thing I have an issue with is the title though. There was not the proper paperwork filled out between the last couple owners and the DMV will not accept a bill of sale so they will not give me a title. I need to work this out or I may end up registering it in Vermont where they do not need a title. I have time to figure that part out but it is a pain to deal with though. At least I am bringing an old dead jeep back to life again.

That 4.2 is good but i was after a family freindly fourwheeler .I popped in a 94 yj 4.ol auto drivetrain ,xj tank.swapped the cowl ,dash ,windsheild and firewall onto cj8 body.its a scrambler that thinks its a yj.as far as the title goes , jeff is good people and a jeep nut . im sure he would help you track down some signitures from the guy he got it from.if that route doesnt work i have a family member that works in dmv . there are ways

Jeff is cool, we stay in touch and share parts occasionally. The last legal owner was actually from 1991 and the last name in the title. From there it goes to another person and then to me but only with bills of sales. So unless I find the guy from two owners ago I will have an issue. Jeff actually never had any paperwork showing that he owned it so the chain of custody basically goes from straight to me. It's a pretty messed up situation. If I register in VT they will accept the current paperwork and then I can get a new title issued in my name then just register back here in CT after a year. All legal and happy like.

This past month I have made some progress. I have the body back on the frame. I just purchased a new to me hard top and I am now tackling the Scout dana 44 rebuilds. I will have some pictures up this weekend on the process to rotate the knuckles for proper caster and also rotating the differential to match the angles of the Dana 30. Last night I cut and removed both knuckles. Reason why I removed them is because one was damaged and I found a used set on E-bay for $40. I plan to reinstall these at the correct angle after I set the differential angle. There is more to it on the front end for the dif rotating because the right pad is integrated into the housing. This will require some more grinding. I also inspected the inside of the housing last night and the carrier bearings are rusted from water damage so I will need a full bearing rebuild. The gears look good and they are 3.73-1 so I will be keeping those. I will also be using the entire outer knuckle and brake assembly from my old Dana 30. The only part I still need is the drag link but I am not worried until I get the steering box installed. After the front angles are all set and welded back up then the dif rebuild will commence and then onto the rear end. The rear is in good shape but I am missing one drum housing. These seem to be pretty expensive online so it may be worth it for me to just do a disk brake conversion. Between the drum cost and everything else it would run over $300 for the brake job. That is too much for me so might as well upgrade. Pictures to follow later this week.

Here is a shot of my new to me top though to keep it in the thread build.

Looks good, the top looks like it lines up very well on the fiberglass body... you just never know until you get it on there.
Keep up the good work... I am looking forward to the weekend to finally get back to mine after quite a hiatus.
Family and other things have kept me from it like you have said, but it all works out in the end.

cb