Barbie Jeep For My Uncle......

What are the finishing plans? Painting the front clip or the whole body?

 

That is still up in the air.
I have some other projects that I want to get done before spring. Mac intends to continue running this jeep on the Rubicon with us, so a full spiffy paint job doesn't make sense to me.

 

Pushing hard to get this thing road worthy before Uncle Mac arrives on Christmas Eve.

ARB Compressor mounted to the fender. The grill support rod needed a lil Z bent into it, just to make life easier.




Uncle Mac wanted a set of H4 lights with halo's..... Not my thing.... but whatever.
These were a real PITA to get to fit in the CJ buckets.





With everything together I fired up the lights.
When I tested everything I used the drivers side assembly.
Well it turns out that this brand new OMIX marker light assembly on the passenger side is wired backwards...... straight out of the box.
At this point last night I walked away.....

 

that is frustrating!

 

Dude, nice CJ!

 

I probed the YJ wiring connection and verified that I had indeed wired the marker/turn lights correctly.
Swapped the pins inside the plug for the passenger side marker/turn signal.
Sure enough, the Omix light was wired backwards when it was manufactured.
Now things are looking much better.

 

Nice work Kyle! Your uncle should be happy.

 

1991 cj7
Good job!

 

With the rear square fender flare removed to expose the round fender cut in the tub...... its basically an improved CJ7!!!



Into the container it goes.
Mac is going to come back in the spring and do all of the prep work for paint. There is a spot on the drivers side where a poorly made patch panel was welded in.
Removal of the YJ rear flares left exposed holes in the tub that will need welded up.
Mac wants to put a set of black steel corner guards on the rear of the jeep. At that point we might as well just repaint the whole shebang.

Tucked in for some hibernation.

 

While the front clip is at the paint shop I am adding a little storage space to the YJ-7.
This shelf is made to bolt into a TJ, I ditched the supplied brackets as they did not put she shelf where it should be.

First mocking up the approximate height for the shelf. Not sketchy whatsoever......




Slightly less sketchy, matching the shelf to the natural rake of the tub.






Mocking up the brackets.
1/8" x 1-1/4" flat bar on the tub and the shelf.
3/4"x 1-1/2" box tube for the vertical structure.









Tacked together.
26-1/2" of clearance from the bed to the shelf. Enough to allow easy access to the cooler.









The angle of the brackets in conjunction with the lip on the edge of the shelf allows easy one person installation and removal of the shelf.
Just remove the shelf bolts and the basket slides across the brackets and out the back.
With the shelf removed......





All welded up.
The corners need to be rounded and a couple sharp edges removed, then its off to paint.
I am very happy with how this came out. I plan to convert the shelf in my CJ5 to mount in this manner at some point.

 

Buttoned up the shelf project over the weekend.
I added a couple tie down points along the lower shelf bracket.








Added some corner protection/ damage covers to the rear.

 

No diamond plate? No hidden rust? What kinda CJ is this?!?

On the serious side, nice work with the shelf. Pretty slick.

 

We are starting to get somewhere now!
The fresh paint is actually a really close match to the body side paint. The top of the cowl however is a bit more sunfaded and is lighter in color.
Oh well..... it will look great with a coat of Rubicon dust all over it!
I suspect a total repaint will happen at some point. That job will be much easier with everything under hood already painted.

 

Moving along with the project.
I wrestled the passenger rear corner into place last night. I am not sure what the deal was, but much swearing was required to get the corner armor to fit properly.
The rivets will get a little TLC from a black paint pen.





The front clip assembly is going well so far.

 

Now it looks like a real JEEP!….. looking good

 

From the start it was my plan to make this conversion as factory in appearance as possible.
That included retaining the factory YJ fender bracing that is often lost or deleted by shade tree mechanics.




Coolant overflow bottle and windshield washer bottle tucked nicely into the factory location.
Riv-nuts were installed to allow easy one hand installation.





The jack is attached with Riv-nuts through the fender.
I cleaned the corrosion off of the battery tray and gave it a good rust treatment. Going forward this jeep will have an Optima battery.







I gotta say..... this is really starting to look good!

 

Great job Kyle!

 

“Just swap the grill” they said. “It’s really easy” they said.

 

Well..... Here it is!
Drove it to the store for a lil celebratory beer run.
Fender flares should be here next week.
Mac is going to need to rub out the rest of the body to make it shine like the front clip. The paint on the tub is really faded, but a little rubbing compound produces a blue rag and a decent shine.
I have a feeling that Mac will get the entire jeep painted when he takes it back to Oregon.
All the good parts of a YJ and the Looks of a CJ... First stoplight guy next to me rolls his window down and says "Nice CJ7 dude."