MeanBeanZZZ
New member
- City
- WEST BEND
- State
- WI
I finally got a hold of a good cj8 for a great price! (Thank again Tom if you are reading this.) My brother in law was kind enough to drive his SUV and trailer all the way up to Minneapolis and back to West bend with me to get this thing. We first picked it up on August 16th so I am a bit late to start a thread but I was too excited to photograph and dig through all that I got from this buy/trip. You see I have been scouring the marketplace for scramblers ever since the first few days of my first ever sandblast back in 2024. It just so happens that I came across this one while pricing and finding things within my realistic budget if I were to pull the trigger on a buy like this. For those that have tried often times the scrambler listing halfway decent sell like hotcakes on marketplace and often times getting responses is tough. I struggled with this or if I got responses they were not very good replies to asking for pictures of the frame or nearly answering my question in the first place. I had found a great starting option over in Ohio, but this guy responded a few times told me some was going to look at it over a weekend and let me know if they didn't buy it, but he didn't and he never took it off the market nor would he respond to my messages after reading them. I was very frustrated and disappointed but I moved on because I really didn't want to drive through Chicago twice. Honestly it was a huge blessing for me because I was able to buy basically a cj8 that had already been halfway through a rebuild/restoration. To my estimation I would say that at least 80-90% of all the parts are here. (More if you consider the ones I'm probably replacing) This ran and drove about 15-20 miles before it was torn apart 15 years ago then it sat in various forms of disassembly in a very nice shop garage that entire time. From my understanding Tom who I bought this from was the one to start this or the person he bought it from started the rebuild/restoration. Either way the frame is an original cj8 factory frame that has already been sandblasted then powder coated already along with a number of parts. New leaf springs bought and attached, but I'm replacing for something more comfortable.
I'm not really sure how this goes on here because it's my first time posting, but I figured I can spare y'all the details you can get from pictures. That being said I don't want to flood this feed with the hundred or more photos that I took of every part and condition that I have received. I will just add the main things that some may want to know about it's history and what my initial plans are for the build. The majority of it was a base model 1984 red cj8 with the exception of the original 1982 silver tub that had to be used as the original 84 tub had rotted out so Tom decided to use this tub for it instead. It was already bed lined on the top and bottom and has some sort of primer on the outside, so a good light sanding prep and it should be ready for painting to my knowledge. Hmmm already I find my mind jumping around trying to tell about every part. Perhaps I shall wait until each build process then add pictures and talk about it. I plan on LS swapping it as that will give me more power and better gas mileage I'm told. I was considering keeping it original as I had the original factory bucket half vinyl denim patterned black seats that are in pretty great shape, but I'm not sure the engine is all there as the starter is missing and I do have a spare that might work, but Tom made it sound like the engine ran but not very smooth 15 years ago when he picked it up to drive it down the road to his house. I'm likely running the Dana 30 in front with the amc20 in the rear and using an ax15 and I'm going to run 33s on it. That being said this is all new to me and I will rely heavily on my BIL, you guys and the Internet for advice and input into the build as I really don't know things like the gear ratio and some of the more technical stuff to build a cj8 but I'm learning and excited about the prospect of potentially finishing this in the next year or two, but this is heavily dictated by funds and time to do so. It would be cool to have it completed faster than Raymond built his but I want to take my time to do things right and I won't race to finish/beat him. It's not a race and even if it were I greatly had a 15 year head start as it is with the condition I got it in. Let me know what you want me to share pictures or content wise, but I will start with the process of bringing the jeep home to my BIL so I could clean out my garage from the cj7 rolling chassis that I initially bought to start collecting parts and selling off the rest to help fund this project.
I'm not really sure how this goes on here because it's my first time posting, but I figured I can spare y'all the details you can get from pictures. That being said I don't want to flood this feed with the hundred or more photos that I took of every part and condition that I have received. I will just add the main things that some may want to know about it's history and what my initial plans are for the build. The majority of it was a base model 1984 red cj8 with the exception of the original 1982 silver tub that had to be used as the original 84 tub had rotted out so Tom decided to use this tub for it instead. It was already bed lined on the top and bottom and has some sort of primer on the outside, so a good light sanding prep and it should be ready for painting to my knowledge. Hmmm already I find my mind jumping around trying to tell about every part. Perhaps I shall wait until each build process then add pictures and talk about it. I plan on LS swapping it as that will give me more power and better gas mileage I'm told. I was considering keeping it original as I had the original factory bucket half vinyl denim patterned black seats that are in pretty great shape, but I'm not sure the engine is all there as the starter is missing and I do have a spare that might work, but Tom made it sound like the engine ran but not very smooth 15 years ago when he picked it up to drive it down the road to his house. I'm likely running the Dana 30 in front with the amc20 in the rear and using an ax15 and I'm going to run 33s on it. That being said this is all new to me and I will rely heavily on my BIL, you guys and the Internet for advice and input into the build as I really don't know things like the gear ratio and some of the more technical stuff to build a cj8 but I'm learning and excited about the prospect of potentially finishing this in the next year or two, but this is heavily dictated by funds and time to do so. It would be cool to have it completed faster than Raymond built his but I want to take my time to do things right and I won't race to finish/beat him. It's not a race and even if it were I greatly had a 15 year head start as it is with the condition I got it in. Let me know what you want me to share pictures or content wise, but I will start with the process of bringing the jeep home to my BIL so I could clean out my garage from the cj7 rolling chassis that I initially bought to start collecting parts and selling off the rest to help fund this project.
