The "Once in a while" 1983 Scrambler Laredo Build

Well, I am calling this build the "once in a while" build because that is about as often as I get to work on it. My job with the Marines keeps me very busy but I have been plugging away every free moment that I get. Here is what I started with:
1983 Scrambler Laredo
Sherwood Green Metallic/Nutmeg



I got the Jeep for FREE from my Dad in the summer of 2010. It came with both the half hard top and a full safari soft top. It had been "restored" by a shop in the late 90's which kept much of the problems at bay for the next 10-15 years, had 2.5" superlift, American Racing wheels, bed-lined interior, and came with the stock swing-out tire carrier, stock spare wheel and tire, stock side steps, stock 15x7 chrome wagons. However after a year and a half of driving it and putting up with leaks everywhere and rust creeping out I decided I had to do a complete restoration while I had plenty of time at my current duty station and before the problems progressed beyond repair. I know the body looks pretty good but only from 10' or more back, there were issues popping out everywhere.

My intentions are to make it as "rust poof" and durable as possible while retaining as much of the stock character and looks that I can. I plan to have it on a moderate lift (4") and 33's while keeping it the stock color, re-apply original style decals, and re-use as many of the stock items as I can.

I have each picture date-stamped, and as you can see I began the end of January 2012. I have progressed quite far up to this point and wanted to wait to start the thread until I had reached this point because I didn't want the thread to drag on with little to no updates for months on end. I will be updating it regularly to show the progress as well as posting some questions as I continue to piece it back together. I also have over 700 photos of the entire process so if anyone is in need of one please let me know.

Luke

I'm on board. Looking forward to the build. Great looking 8 to begin with, wonderful color and stripe combo. The 700 pics should be here...we thrive on them.

And thanks for your service.

Thanks! I will keep the pics coming regularly. Oh and if anyone is wondering, yes that Pomeranian in the picture is mine. Bought her for my wife, she is a killer though...don't let the looks deceive you.

Awesome! Now maybe I won't be the only one that hears "that is the best starting point for rebuild I've ever seen"! I know my build thread has been dragging on for the past 6 months now! Can't wait to see the pics!

Polarfire said:

Awesome! Now maybe I won't be the only one that hears "that is the best starting point for rebuild I've ever seen"! I know my build thread has been dragging on for the past 6 months now! Can't wait to see the pics!

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Well I figure I will make one more picture post before I head out for the holidays. Here are some of the tear-down process. I LOVE MY GARAGE. I bought the house because it has a 4 car garage( 2 doors x 2 car lengths deep) plenty of room for tear down. Some problem areas were behind the windshield hinges. The drivers side was rusted through completely, the passengers side was rusted as well. I don't think they did anything to repair/prevent rust when they "restored" it previously.





This was one of the other reasons for the restoration. The Jeep has a 258, but has previously(to my Dad) had a Holley fuel injection kit that wasn't running right at all when my Dad got it. He had the shop install a Howell EFI which runs great. However they wiring has been hacked into multiple times to run these kits and it was a complete mystery/mess behind the Dash. I will be ordering a new Painless full wiring kit and a new Howell EFI harness in the future.

Very cool thread. Im on board.

Semper Fi

I like it !!

jims chop shop said:

I like it !!

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Jim,

I don't know if you are still looking for a body shop but I used American Stripping Company in Manassas for blasting/priming and Skibo's Auto Body in Stafford for the body work. Both shops were top notch.

Luke

My fenders, hinges, and crusher corners are painted and ready to be picked up, !!!!!

I will be taking the tub ( jeep) to him next week to start on that !

Call me if you need a hand !!!

It is going to be nice when it is finshed the paint job came out very nice.

One ton said:

It is going to be nice when it is finshed the paint job came out very nice.

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Thanks to you Curtis. Couldn't have gotten it done without it.

This was a fun day

Oh how I remember this day, the day the body was taken off the frame. This is my first restoration and needless to say the first time I was separating a body from a chassis, it was touch and go for a while. One Ton gets a good laugh when I tell the story so I will share it with everyone on here(at great risk of embarrassment). First I will say, God Bless my Wife...she was there through every second/minute/hour of it.

First I constructed the wooden dolly's out of 4x4's and caster wheels from trusty-ol-Lowes. My idea was to put the body on jack stands(for a car not a truck, more on that later) and just roll the chassis out the front. Voila, should take about 30 minutes including cleanup. No problem.

Problem, the jack stands weren't high enough to lift the body clear of the fuel tank cross members.
Problem, the body also wouldn't clear the rear tires at the fender wells(who'da thought)
Problem, only had 4(too short) jack stands when I needed 6.
Problem, just me and the wife present.

Solution, put jack stands on dolley's for extra height
Solution, remove rear wheels/tires and set the rear drum brakes on 2 low-pro jack's which are now acting as my rear wheels

Now the only thing left to do was to lower the body off the jack stand/dolley combo and get it completely on the dolley's only. This was a delicate process(much like diffusing a bomb I imagine) of balancing the body on 2-3 jack stands at a time and using my 2 floor jacks + 2x4's to lower the body ever so slightly. After about 4 hours it was done and this was the result.



In retrospect, I'm an idiot and cannot condone anyone repeating this process. It was unsafe and slow to boot.

Since the Jeep has been off the road for a while at the time of this picture I have been stuck driving the old 4 door grocery getter every day



I'm glad I get this forum to recount my escapades, it is much like attending an AA meeting I would imagine.

all looks great so far... I do have to say you have the cleanest garage Ive seen, did you clean it out be for starting the build or could you eat off the floor then as well LOL

skiptown said:

all looks great so far... I do have to say you have the cleanest garage Ive seen, did you clean it out be for starting the build or could you eat off the floor then as well LOL

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LOL. It's a newer house and we got the floor Epoxy coated about 6 months before the build. After almost 10 months of working on the Scrambler it isn't as clean any more

The Frame

Like I said in the original post, the Scrambler was "restored" by a shop in the late 90's. When I got the body off I was able to discover their repair to the original frame which was a 36" portion of C-channel bent and patched over the rust holes(yes they just left the cancer).


Here's some more pictures of trouble spots that weren't of too much concern.




This last picture is of the inside drivers side framerail. Opposite to where the C-channel patch was placed. It must have kept rusting inside here after the "repair work." I could almost push through this area with my finger. The whole area would need to be cut out and patched.


I searched around for shops in the area to sandblast and repair the frame correctly. I looked for a few weeks and got prices anywhere from $1500-1800 to have it blasted, patched, and epoxy primed or powder coated. I never got a good feeling that the job would be done to the level I wanted it to....maybe I was expecting too much but I decided to go another route and purchase a new frame from Throttle Down Kustoms.



The new frame itself was around $1800, I decided to spring for the hot-dipped galvanizing and an integrated rear-bumper tire carrier. In the end I realize I took away some originality from the jeep but feel this was just the better option for my purposes of a very long and reliable ownership.

Since it would never stop nagging you knowing you sank tons of money and effort into everything else but started with a questionable frame, I think you did the wise thing! New frame looks good too... Just don't try and weld onto the galvanizing. Big No-No.

jeepdreamer said:

Since it would never stop nagging you knowing you sank tons of money and effort into everything else but started with a questionable frame, I think you did the wise thing! New frame looks good too... Just don't try and weld onto the galvanizing. Big No-No.

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make sure you grind it off. galvanizing does not spark when being gound, steel does. You know you got all of it off when you see sparks.
If there is white smoke when welding, dont breath that sh!t in... you'll have a bad night, dont ask how i know...

here was my TDK frame. I had it galvanized after I did some work to it after buying it.

Bad Karma said:

make sure you grind it off. galvanizing does not spark when being gound, steel does. You know you got all of it off when you see sparks.
If there is white smoke when welding, dont breath that sh!t in... you'll have a bad night, dont ask how i know...

here was my TDK frame. I had it galvanized after I did some work to it after buying it.

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Thanks for the advice! I don't plan on having to weld anything during this build but I wasn't aware of that info anyway, good to know. My plan is to keep the Jeep as stock as possible, with a mild lift, original axles & suspension configuration etc. The great thing about this Jeep is my Dad took great care of the drivetrain. 4.2l with Howell EFI ran like a top, engine had 50,000 since rebuild, trans and transfer case were smooth.

From looking at the frame it has everything I should need already incorporated. One unique thing is the rear leaf spring main-eye mounts are welded into the frame, not bolted on like the stockers. It also has an integrated receiver in the rear bumper. I didn't spring for the shackle reversal or anything else, TDK does have a ton of optional customizing available though. And it shipped out 2 weeks after ordering from the galvanizers. I do love the galvanizing inside though, it is all the way down into the rear bumper. So far everything has lined up perfectly too. More pictures to come once I get done with 3 straight days/nights at work this Wed.

I have no regrets about my TDK frame. Good choice! The only issue seems to be the body mounts at the front crossmember for the fuel tank: several of us have found them to be about 1/4" too low.