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My Fathers 81

designerRob

CJ-8 Member
Silver Member
City
Allen Park
State
MI
An awesome foundation. Sorry you're having to deal with so much rust. Keep up the good work. (y)
 

jammer1

Scrambler Junkie
Lifetime Member
City
Maple Hts.
State
Oh
Your going to love that frame. I have one on the cj7 (that's being switched to a cj8) and you forget the difference till you start switching the parts from the tdk frame to a stock cj8 frame. What a difference in strength and design.
 

chrisf608

Member
City
Salem
State
WI
I think MD Juan put more effort into building the crate rather than the body. It’s not terrible, but I’m now regretting not spending a bit more for the aluminum one. 42A3A5E5-58CB-4828-B73D-452ADF4B18FB.jpeg
 

Belizeit

CJ-8 Member
Gold Member
City
River Ridge
State
La
I was talking to a body shop owner a couple of weeks ago and he said he swapped out an aluminum body on a CJ a couple of months back for someone, and said the quality was great
 

chrisf608

Member
City
Salem
State
WI
Finally found some time for jeep stuff!
Epoxy primer and three coats of Eastwood Extreme Chassis paint. Looks awesome ?
 

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chrisf608

Member
City
Salem
State
WI
Did some suspension mock up today. Had to clean up the welds on the rocky road YJ spring brackets so they would fit the TDK frame. Almost to a Rolling frame again. Forgot to order rear spring hanger bushings and additional spring eye bushing sleeves.
 

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Belizeit

CJ-8 Member
Gold Member
City
River Ridge
State
La
My rescue dog hates getting a bath and can't handle the noise from a cell phone camera
 

AdamH

Scrambler Junkie
BENEFACTOR
Gold Member
Lifetime Member
SOA Member
City
Mt Holly
State
NC
How bad was the original body?
 

chrisf608

Member
City
Salem
State
WI
Floors and bed would need attention along with a couple body mounts. It’s been repaired and patched on a few times. It’s salvageable but I’m not doing it. I’ve contemplated selling the original and the MD Juan for an aluminum body.
 

bigwalton

Alaskan Postal nutjob
FORUM MANAGER
SOA Member
City
Dexter
State
MI
This one will take a month of bodywork to to make right.
Suck. This is what people need to consider when figuring the “cost” of a tub swap. Too many look at just the purchase price and there’s so much info out there that shows that you really can’t just bolt the new tub on when you go with one of these. This exact thing is what has me so wary of digging into fixing-swapping the body on mine.

Sorry to hear it.
 

chrisf608

Member
City
Salem
State
WI
Suck. This is what people need to consider when figuring the “cost” of a tub swap. Too many look at just the purchase price and there’s so much info out there that shows that you really can’t just bolt the new tub on when you go with one of these. This exact thing is what has me so wary of digging into fixing-swapping the body on mine.

Sorry to hear it.
Overall it’s still less work then dealing with all the rust on the original. I hope.
 

bigwalton

Alaskan Postal nutjob
FORUM MANAGER
SOA Member
City
Dexter
State
MI
Overall it’s still less work then dealing with all the rust on the original. I hope.

Yes, but that would mainly be an investment of your time more so than money. When people buy one of these tubs, they're laying out a big chunk of cash AND then having to invest a lot of their time (and more money as well, particularly if they have a shop do the fixes) when just taking on the extra expense of the Aqualu tub removes almost all of that additional time investment.

It's the exchange of some more money for the Aqualu tub for all the time it will take (or finding a shop to do the fixes) that I am referring to.
 

ag4ever

Average Nut
BENEFACTOR
Gold Member
Silver Member
Lifetime Member
SOA Member
City
Richmond
State
TX
The aqualu tub is super sweet, but to a purist, does not appear anywhere near original. The MD Juan tubs at least resemble a factory tub. Still nothing better than an original tub.

If going for a trail rig, or a street rig where you don’t care about originality, I’d vote aqualu all day long.
 
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