Full Size Jeep Network

Good Evening Everyone,

I have been working away on the Wagoneer for the last month or so. Progress has been slow, but steady. Quarantine allowed me to work on it quite a bit, getting back to the daily grind (and the fact its been 90+ degrees daily) has definitely slowed me down. But I'm pretty determined to get this thing to my liking.

A bit of a back story on myself and the project first. My previous profession was at a performance motorsports shop, we specialized in direct injection turbo charged applications. Until this purchase, I have never had a vehicle that wasn't fuel injected. I am pretty handy and seem to be gifted with an ability to jump into pretty much anything and figure it out and at least from my point of view things turn out pretty good the majority of the time. For years I have wanted to get an old car for my Son and I to work on together as a project, I used to help my Dad do tons of things and still remember how awesome it felt to be a part of that, I wanted to be able to share the same thing with my kiddo's. So far this $800 Jeep that everyone thinks is a hunk of junk has already given my son and I more smiles and laughs than any vehicle I have owned and has very quickly found a place in my heart.

The plans I have for it, I am sure wont be everyone's cup of tea, but it will mean the world to my son and I.

I look forward to sharing all of the progress and hopefully the finished product with everyone here. I will begin posting my progress thus far shortly.

* I will mention that my career now is real estate, so this type of thing is definitely a far cry from what I have been doing for the last 3 years!

First thing is first. The condition of it when I first bought it. It appears all interior parts and pieces are there. 3 of the interior windows are off the tracks or need to be reassembled. Rear window thankfully is fully operational.

Engine compartment was complete disaster the plow master cylinder had a crack in it and had been spraying brake/hydraulic fluid around for who knows how long.

Clutch and brakes were both non functioning.

Wiring was and for the most part still is a complete mess.

Seats were all but destroyed.

Floor pans were pretty beat up and rusted.

There was probably 500 or so wasps and a ton of nests above the headliner and under the dash.

But the engine started right up and ran like a champ.

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The first steps needed was to tear everything out and see what i really had to deal with. It had sat for quite a while in a field so there were tons of mice droppings. Additionally I found quite the stash of old beer cans and under the front seat was a very hardcore nudie mag from 1996. Quite the trophy. Haha.

The rear seat folding assembly was basically love at first sight when I found out what it did. I found most of the parts to the original jack and tons of other parts that I didn't know were there.

Once it was torn apart my first order of business was to make it be able to move and stop under its own power.

The original Lockheed clutch master was shot. Whoever was working on this thing before devised some kind of sprint system to disengage the clutch master (also shot) it was fairly impressive in a wtf kind of way.

I searched for quite some time to figure out a clutch master and slave that I could use. Installed those adjusted the clutch linkage problem 1 was solved. The brake problem was easily solved by bleeding the brakes. Now that it could move and stop we were on to repairing the floor pans

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After cleaning everything out I realized the floor was in significantly worse shape than I had originally thought. With no plasma cutter available (and me not wanting to buy one) I spent several days cutting away with a grinder to get the heavily rusted areas removed and prep the surrounding areas for welding.





I have a pretty significant amount of welding experience, however, I have never used a flux core welder before. And my first half of the welds are about the most embarrassing thing I could have done. By the time I got done with the driver side, I'd figured out which settings to use and familiarized myself with it to have acceptable welds.





I decided to go with 18g steel for the new floor pans. Thin enough to be able to get the shape i needed and thick enough to stand up to whatever (hopefully) i throw at it.

The passenger side turned out significantly better, though all the welds were ground down so as long as they had good penetration I suppose it doesnt really matter

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Good start for a nice project! What’s the plan for the off-road build? Lift, bigger tires, lockers? I guess you’re keeping the engine?

sWagon wrote:Whoever was working on this thing before devised some kind of sprint system to disengage the clutch master (also shot) it was fairly impressive in a wtf kind of way.

Is that the lever thingy that sticks out from where ashtray used to be?


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sirrus wrote:Good start for a nice project! What’s the plan for the off-road build? Lift, bigger tires, lockers? I guess you’re keeping the engine?

sWagon wrote:Whoever was working on this thing before devised some kind of sprint system to disengage the clutch master (also shot) it was fairly impressive in a wtf kind of way.

Is that the lever thingy that sticks out from where ashtray used to be?


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That was the plow control handle.

I have been reading and trying to figure out potential lifts for it. New tires just showed up today. Went with 31x10.5 after looking a bit further I could have definitely gotten 33's to fit so now I'm a bit bummed out but these will do the job.

Im fairly new to offloading so I probably won't be doing too much until I break something. It has a 5 lug which I'm not sure but I thought that it was supposed to be a 6 lug. So axles may have been swapped out already.

Half of my time in this thing is spent just trying to figure out what all the people before me have done to in in the last 50 years. I dont know much about these but it doesn't seem like anything is what it is supposed to be lol.

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Yeah, figuring out POs questionable repairs is always an adventure. Luckily I didn't have any of that on my waggy, but on 97 benz I owned it was crazy. Especially with wiring modifications/repairs Sometimes it's just easier to yank it out and redo it properly

sirrus wrote:Yeah, figuring out POs questionable repairs is always an adventure. Luckily I didn't have any of that on my waggy, but on 97 benz I owned it was crazy. Especially with wiring modifications/repairs Sometimes it's just easier to yank it out and redo it properly

I think that is about where I am at with the wiring on it. There are only so many ways to bolt something up wrong. A million different ways to wire lol.

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Unfortunately at one point there was a slip up with the grinder and a cutting wheel that ended up requiring more attention than I could give it. I won't post the pictures of that part. It wasn't too bad but the first and hopefully last time that happens.

Little man finally got to be front and center and was super excited to help out.



Surfaces where prepped on the passenger side. Seat rails being wide required some modification of the transmission tunnel.


Using lots of time, patience, and an anvil I was able to bend the metal as needed for a better fit than the driver side (live and learn.) Thankfully my step Dad has a significant amount of metal work tools so that was helpful for this portion.


Avery (my son) after patiently waiting all day and helping like a champ finally got to go for his first ride in it.

Floors weren't fully welded in yet so we didn't get far before the exhaust fumes were too much.

The smile says it all

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That photo of your kiddo is exactly why these crazy projects keep me inspired. There have been few greater feelings for me than seeing my children's excitement at jumping in our old Jeep. That Avery gets to help out and be part of this project with you must be an incredible boost. Keep it up!

Super Awesome that you have your son helping. You are building more than a Jeep with him.

Also, really cool project!

Cool project.

The only company making lifts (outside of custom) is Hell Creek. 73 and older waggies use different springs than 74-75, or 76+.