By: Rich Banfield
| My 1986 Jeep CJ7's body had seen
better New England days. The rust had eaten
my steel body petty bad and after a few repairs
it had it! This once daily driver and weekend
4wheeler needed a new body tub. Not wanting
to go with fiberglass I opted for Steel. I was looking for a late model tub, and what I found was a 1995 YJ tub in a local junkyard. It was lightly hit in the cowl section, but the price was right. Now I had a good steel tub with a late model roll bar. |
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Before any work could be started I need to find a temporary replacement Jeep, because I am the president of a 4 wheel drive club, and I lead most of the old roads we ran. Not wanting to miss a season or two I was looking for an answer. And a Jeep just fell into my lap. A guy from down the street had an 88 YJ for sale so I bought it and later I found out it had 3:55 gears (thatís a plus). I switched my winch over the from the CJ to the YJ, added tow hooks, a rear locker, 31" tires and a lift. It was now good to go! |
| Now it was time to take apart my old tub. I removed the seats and took out the battery, then the hood and front fenders. The hardtop was put outside on top of the YJ tub. What little carpet the Jeep had I pulled out, and heated the bolts of the full roll cage with a propane torch. That was then put outside too and later I carefully removed the front part of the cage from the 86 roll bar and it would be later welded back on to mate with the late model 95 roll bar. |  |
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Taking apart the old windshield frame was tough work I had to Drill out the bolts in order to remove it from the body. Everything had to come apart! The heater duct and tilt steering wheel was pulled out and set aside. Vise grips, the torch, a breaker bar and my sawzall were my tools of choice to remove the body by myself. The parts started filling up my back yard. |
| I marked the parts and put them into bags. I called up a few friends and we set the 95 body on the frame and I cleaned up the back yard. There the project would sit for the winter. But as luck would have it,my girlfriend ,now my wife's Dad was an Auto body shop teacher. This came in handy. I asked my buddy Ed if he could trailer the jeep over to the school. As we are unloading the Jeep off the trailer this school kid comes over and says "I want to work on the Jeep! Yeah that's got to be better the working on grams old car". |  |
| That winter the school worked on the body pulled out the dents Cut a new gas tank filler hole, filled in the old fill hole, and repaired the body. They fabricated new rear frame mounts (in front of the rear tires) and then bolted down the body. They cleaned up and welded my old front roll cage with the factory 95 roll cage. I found a YJ windshield frame and tailgate and gave them to the school to mount on the body. My Father in law,Buster, asked me what color I wanted to paint the Jeep, I hadn't even thought about? He told me they had some left over Blue I said that would be great! Late spring was here and the Jeep was painted and had to be out of the school I thanked Buster and the school and had the Jeep towed home. |  |
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Now that the Jeep was home I Ordered the YJ rubber and called the glass company, they came and installed the YJ glass for me. I then installed the YJ Linkages and YJ wiper blades.
There the Jeep sat for the summer, slowly working on it, putting the mirrors and little things back on the body. Fall came and I call my Buddy Lou from Elias 4wd Center, they know Jeeps. My Buddy Roger and I towed the Jeep up to Elias 4WD center In Townsend Mass. There they worked on the front end replacing all the worn parts and rebuilding the power lock L/S. |
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