CJ7: Classic 1979 Jeep Renegade Rebuild

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This is a pic of the idler pulley mount which also doubles as the belt tensioner. This is also stock TJ and also XJ 96+ I think.




These last two pics are of the stock 95 XJ power steering pump mounted up. It does not line up with the rest of the drive system. Although the pics may not show it, the XJ pulley is about 5mm out of alignment with the rest of the systems (5mm towards rear of vehicle).

I have since purchased a TJ power steering pump which corrects this problem.

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This is the dash board on it's was back to completion. Grab handle is powder coated.

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Here you can see details of the front spring plate. When you put the YJ springs on, you cannot use the original CJ spring plate (YJ springs are wider and the U bolt holes do not line up).

For the rear you can re-use the CJ spring plates since CJ rear springs are the same width as YJ rear springs. You cannot use rear CJ spring plates on the front either since the U bolt holes do not line up (mostly due to the extra-wide U bolt on the drivers side).



All of this means that you need to fabricate some springs plates from scratch. I went and got some 4mm plate cut to the correct size. I drilled the holes and used my shop press to hold the plate with about 12ton of pressure (press was acting like a big vice). I then used a sledge hammer to put the fold on the edge. This was another big job.





I then cut the shock and stabiliser mounts off of the original CJ spring plates and re-welded them onto my new spring plates.



Here is the XJ power steering box mounted on the CJ brackets. I only had to make one minor modification to the manual steering box brackets to allow the power steering box to mount up. I had to cut a small rib off of the stock brackets to clear the power steering box. This cut makes the brackets look exactly like the stock power steering brackets. I used a mix of XJ and TJ power steer hose pipes to route the hoses up to the pump.

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Here you can see the details of the front shackle hanger problem.





These two pictures try to show how the slick rock shackle hanger moves the eye forward about 2-3 inches. The hanger is very well made and fit like a treat. The problem now is that the stock front bumper mounting hole cannot be used. A work-around will be required.



Here is another overall pic of the Jeep.



One of the best buys I made was to purchase a complete "Totally Stainless" kit for the Jeep. Here you can see one of the packets in this kit. Most of the fasteners for the Jeep come with the kit. All individually packaged and labelled. A great fastener kit and very recommended.

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Here you can see the rear shackle hanger. The only problem with this hanger is that you cannot use the original Jeep CJ rear draw bar. This is because the re-inforcing rib (not on the OEM version) no interferes with the mounting for the draw bar. I guess I could grind the rib down so that the draw bar would fit but I'll try to find a more elegant solution.



This is the box that the greasable shackles came in. Very good quality kit. Bushes came seperate, but are matched for the YJ springs and these greasable shackles.



These are the Bank stainless headers installed. Good quality component that sound great.



This is the totally stainless body mount bolts and also the new body mounts.

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Here you can see the stock 95 XJ accelerator cable fitted in the CJ. It is a little too long, but I think it will work. It plugs perfectly into the existing firewall mount. I did have to bend the accelerator pedal a couple of inches so that that it worked correctly. (I think the XJ cable has a longer tail).



This pic tries to show the mounting arrangement to connect the column shift to the original XJ AW4 cable shifter. These components have not yet been powder-coated. A lot of measuring was required to try to get movement of the column shift to correlate with the movement of the AW4. Eg. PRND21 on the column equal to PRND31-2 on the AW4. In the end it works pretty good. I will probably have to relabel the indicator on the column at some stage but full column movement equals full AW4 shifter movement.



Here is the mounting for the dual diapraghm brake booster from the XJ. This actually has a TJ master cylinder which has a flat reservoir. I had to make a bracket that would move the brake booster over so that it would clear the battery bracket. The booster push rod actually comes through the clutch hole (which was never fitted on this jeep).




Here is a sample of those stainless bolts.

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These first two pics show the stock CJ engine mounts bolted up to the 4.0. Everything is stock CJ here. You can see the one odd bolt (which requires the engine mount bracket to be drilled oversize) - for some reason Jeep fitted a metric bolt in this one location.



Here is the OEM Jeep storage box being trial fitted. This came in from the US.



Here is the OEM Jeep centre console being trial fitted.