The 25+ Year Prolonged Build Of A "cj-2a"

Don't expect much progress here any time soon. This build started in the mid '90s so been in process for 25+ years already.

I'm ramping up to start working on it again this year once I finish up some other stuff and I'm starting this thread now so I can get my ideas down in one place for my own reference.

Here's the long boring back story. This 1946 CJ-2a was my first car back in the early '80s. My dad got it for a couple hundred bucks from a friend at a car dealer. it was taken in on trade but far too janky for them to sell so out the back door it went. This was when I was about 12.

It was a wreck. The body was completely covered in 3/8" of Bondo, the floors were badly patched with rusted out hat channels, the frame had mutiple poorly repaired cracks, it had a worn out Ford 260 V8 with top loader 3 spd, and it had a Chrysler power steering gear that turned the wrong direction so it still used the bell crank to steer the wheels the right way. It turned pretty sharp to the right and not so sharp to the left.

Over the next 3 years, my dad helped me put in Saginaw steering, weld up the frame a little better, rebuild the brakes, install suspended pedals with a power booster, refresh the engine with rings/bearings/valve job, rebuild the transmission, brace the hat channels, add a used Husky overdrive, make spring packs from a pile of 8 springs, and rewire the thing.

After all that it was still kind of a piece of junk but it was my piece of junk and great for hi-jinks with high school friends. With 5.38s, it was really fast to about 30mph (or until it spat the driveshaft out). Even with the booster and constant adjusting the 9" brakes would barely slow the thing down. I would mostly leave lots of room and downshift through all the gears only using the brakes for the last 10 feet. Occasionally it would crack the frame and drive funny so my dad would help me weld another patch.

Contemporary picture with a proud coat of mud to impress the other kids at school:


Then life happened. I went to College and it sat. Then I moved to Ohio for my first post-college job and it continued to sit at my parents house in Washington for several more years.

In the mid nineties a friend of mine expressed interest in it as project so I sold it and an M38 body my dad had laying around for $400. As my friend always seems to do with his projects, he tore the thing completely apart, bought a bunch of parts, and then lost interest. He picked up 34x10.50-15 Super Swampers, 4" Rancho springs, Rancho shocks, and He picked up a front D44. The D44 seems to be a tapered axle center section with D30 narrow track tubes stuck in it (the tube sizes are the same). It has 27 spline spiders in a 44 case to use the stock D30 shafts (this axle with some mods may end up in the '71). The Jeep then sat in his garage as a pile of parts for a few more years.

At this point I was living in southern California and the Jeep owner was in a financial bind so I bought it back from him. My Dad picked up all the parts and hauled it to another friends garage where I paid a storage fee for the next several years. In 2001, I finally bought a house with a shop in the Seattle area and reunited with the Jeep.

I actually started to work on it. I found a DJ frame and tossed the junk one. I found a rear D44 to replace the D41. I started to put it together using the Rancho 4" springs my friend bought for it. Here's the axles in the chassis:


Here's a mock-up of the M38 body sitting on it:




With the help of some younger cousins who stayed at our place when taking classes, I started replacing the floors in the body:


....and then life got in the way again. Money was tight, I got married, we traveled, we both got higher pressure jobs, we got sick of the City and moved to rural Oregon, we moved again to rural Washington, then we restored an abandoned farm house, built a shop, restored a barn, built thousands of feet of fencing, I bought other Jeeps that actually ran so I could use a Jeep in the meanwhile, those other Jeeps needed their own work, ....and on and on and on.

This is the Jeep coming to its current home:


And more or less what it looks like right now:


I've realized that I'm not getting any younger and the Jeep has been apart for over 25 years already. if this thing is ever going to run I need to get my rear in gear this year or it's never going to happen. So the blue Jeep goes, the '71 gets a couple already in progress things done and I start working on the CJ-2a in earnest.

I love flatfenders, and I would love to have a capable flatfender wheeling rig.

The next installment will cover where it's currently at and what the planned build is. Of course, lots of the work I've already done will be getting tossed.

 

I live this project already. A flat fender is in my future. They look great!

 

Flat fenders are the best, not that I'm biased or anything...

I think it needs a TDI.

 

......

 

I'll put my money it gets a ford v8.

 

One of us needs to buy more popcorn.

Looking forward to updates and a good introduction.

 

All I heard was you are getting rid of the blue jeep?

 

Yeah, it's not really needed. I've got a couple more things to fix and I'll probably keep the overdrive. Then it hits the road. I may sell the hard top with it or separately. It was a fun distraction for a bit but it doesn't do anything for us the '69 doesn't and the '69 is in better shape.

For a hot minute after I scratched up the shiny original paint wheeling the '71 I considered throwing the the T98, the front D44, and some lockers in the blue Jeep for wheeling. But then I realized I'd rather be working on the flatfender.

 

Me to.

 

Not going to repaint in day glow green???? Yep, may run out of popcorn.

 

Still have a late 70's / early 80's Novak catalogue around here somewhere [/QUOTE]
I do as well. Turner, ConFerr, Advance Adapters, Warn, etc. Remembering when that was the only way to find parts.

 

Don't expect to be too amazed all you popcorn eaters. It's going to be a basic, simple build to get the thing running. I can do fancy stuff like EFI, linked suspension, selectable lockers, ...etc. down the road if I use the thing and it needs them. I also don't want to spend a lot of money up front in case I burn out and it takes me another 20 years to get it running.

The reason "cj-2a" is in quotes in the title is because from the pile parts I have I think the only things belonging to the title are the hood, tailgate, the speedometer, and the transfer case (that I won't be using). The rest is a mix of Postal Jeep, M38, cj3, other CJ-2s, and lots of just plain "other".

Here's the basic plan layout. Discussion of the parts I alrady have will follow:

• 225 V6 with carburetor
  
• T98 4 speed with 6.32 granny gear
  
• Dual lever large hole D18 with Teralow gears and no parking brake
  
• Warn OD (stolen from the blue Jeep)
• 58" wide D60 flanged rear axle with lunchbox locker and 11x2 Ford drums with parking brakes
  
• 58" wide D44 high-steer front with lunchbox locker and Chevy 1/2 ton disks
• CV joints at the top of both driveshafts
  
• 5.38 gearing
• 35x12.50/15 tires on 5x5.5 wheels
  
• Stock 4 cylinder YJ springs in spring over configuration with a torque arm on at least the rear
  
• Rear axle moved back 2-3 inches and front axle moved forward 3-4 inches
• Saginaw steering with ram assist
• Full cage tied to the frame, rock sliders, skid plates
• Ideally a top and a heater for winter use
• Also ideally 25 gallons of onboard gas
• Onboard air and some space for tools
• A removable spare tire rack
• Warn 8472 winch
• Intentionally substandard body work so I don't care about scraping it up and bashing it into things

I have a lot of the stuff already. In no particular order...

Rear Axle:

I picked up this 1/2 ton Ford camper special rear axle:


It's a Dana 60 with 5x5.5 flanged axles. It's about 64" wide, so I'll lop 6 inches off the passenger side to make it an offset 58" axle. It's only 30 spline, but hopefully the axle shaft isn't necked so I can cut it down for now. If I can't cut it down and need custom axles out of the gate, I'll switch to 35 spline. It currently has a 3.73 PowrLok that isn't much use to me.

A 4.56 and up open carrier just showed up so I can run 5.38s and a lunchbox locker in the near term. D44 carrier for the front in comparison to the 60. That's a big difference in size!:


If I do end up using the Jeep a lot, a 35 spline selectable locker and custom shafts are in the future. Easy upgrade later.
​

Front Axle:

I picked this up last year:


It's a cut down Chevy 3/4 ton D44 with a 58" WMS that was in a CJ-7. It came with short Chevy spindles, Ford 5x5.5 internal spline hubs, Chevy caliper brackets, high steer knuckles, and 1 ton tie rod/drag link.

It came with factory 19 spline outers, a factory Ford 30 spline short inner and a custom 30 spline long inner..

I have the open carrier shown above for a lunchbox locker and an extra set of 5.38 gears kicking around. I need to get 19 spline internal locking hubs, wheel bearings, 30 spline lunchbox locker, bearings, ball joints, calipers, and high steer arms to get it into shape.

Future upgrades for this would be a selectable locker and full 30 spline RCV axles with 30 spline hubs.

It's already built for a front CV driveshaft and decent caster. Hopefully the drivline angle and caster work for this Jeep as is. Look how thick the 3/4 ton tubes are:

​

The rest of the drivetrain:

I picked up this 225 V6, T98, large hole D18, and Warn overdrive from a fellow forum member with the intent of putting it all in the '71:


In the end, I fell in love with the 350 V8 and I decided on a T18 for the '71 so I only used the transfer case and overdrive for that project.

I'll give the 225 a quicky rebuild with rings/bearings/valve job and run it. I've got a rebuilt carb on the shelf to get it going. EFI would be a nice future update that I'll keep in mind when plumbing the fuel tanks/lines.

The T98 has rusty gears which is why I went with the T18 in the '71 but I'm just going to run them in this. I've already got a rebuild kit on the shelf to replace the bearings and synchros. The gears will still last several years:


The T-98 came with a long input shaft and a 3" fabbed adapter:


I'm going to ditch the long adapter and use a short T18 input (with special roller bearings from Advance Adapters to work with the T-98 mainshaft) so I can bolt the bellhosing directly to the transmission. This will help with rear driveline length.

I plan yanking the actual Warn overdrive (with the better bronze shift fork) from the Blue Jeep before selling it and rebuilding as needed with a Teralow bowl gear.

I'll rebuild the large hole transfercase that came out of the '71 with matching Teralow gears.

The gearing with that setup will be:

• 1st/low: 107.11
• 1st/low/OD: 80.33
• 2nd/low: 52.37
• 2nd low/OD: 39.27
• 1st/high: 34
• 3rd/low: 28.64
• 1st/high/OD: 25.5
• 3rd/low/OD: 21.48
• 4th/low: 16.95
• 2nd/high: 16.62
  
• 4th/low/OD: 12.71
• 2nd/high/OD: 12.47
• 3rd/high: 9.09
• 3rd/high/OD: 6.82
  
• 4th/high: 5.38
• 4th/high/OD: 4.04

With 35" tires high gear is almost an identical road speed vs RPM as 3.73s and 31" tires so it should cruise down the highway when needed.
​

Winch:

I rebuilt this 8274 with the intention of putting it on the '69 but I think it will find it's home on the CJ-2:

​

Other items/plans:

• I already have a 4 hole Sagnaw box that I need to drill and tap for hydro assist.
• I have a high-mount steering pump setup sitting around
• I have a drivers side rear dump exhaust manifold
  
• I'll buy a hot rod steering column with turn signals and horn
  
• I'll probably go hydraulic clutch along with the hanging pedals
• I'll try non-power brakes to start and see how that goes.
• I'll move the inner fenderwells back when I move the axle back for more leg room
• It looks llke I can fit the same Griffin 21"x19" core crossflow radiator I have in the '71.
• I'll use the existing 34" Swampers (which really measure 33") for the build leaving room for 35s. I'm not spending money on 35s until it looks like I'm actually going to complete this thing.

The short term plan is to finish the floors, get the left rear quarter panel back on, keep gathering parts for the axles, get springs/hangers, and adapt the engine to the transmission so I can mock up the basic layout of the thing. Everything else follows from that.

 

Nope, not the dayglow green as lovely as it was. The M38 body was on a race Jeep so I guess that explains the color.

It had almost as much bond as the previous body. It was over 1/2" thick in spots. Used a propane torch to soften it up and scrape it off with a putty knife.

It'll probably go desert tan or dark blue.

 

The only thing I would do is POWER BRAKES. The rest of this project is kind of insane and awesome.

 

You are in good company with the 25 year build. I’m on a 25 year also but it was sold, stored and repurchased (no real money changed hands during that) at some point during the build. This winter The pledge is to finally finish the rolling chassis. Mostly stock with a column shift T-90. I can only dream of building a superjeep like your plan. The popcorn is ready.

 

And another 350 Buick---------

 

I’ll just leave this here.

https://www.motortrend.com/how-to/blueprint-engines-four-cylinder-crate-engine-ls-head/