CJ5: 1974 ground up resto

[brenno86]

G'day all,
im currently working on a 1974 cj5 and am going to be rebuilding it from the ground up. Its been stripped down to the chassis now and there are parts that can be saved and parts that are too damaged to use again. A friend suggested i purchase a complete wreck of a SWB jk or tj jeep and cannibilise it to save on things like brake lines, shock towers, engine mounts, wiring etc. Does anyone have any idea on which of these jeeps would be most compatible?

[brenno86]

Pics of the body being taken off. I have pics through all of the tear down stages which i will find and upload

[Wooders]

Originally Posted by brenno86

G'day all,
im currently working on a 1974 cj5 and am going to be rebuilding it from the ground up. Its been stripped down to the chassis now and there are parts that can be saved and parts that are too damaged to use again. A friend suggested i purchase a complete wreck of a SWB jk or tj jeep and cannibilise it to save on things like brake lines, shock towers, engine mounts, wiring etc. Does anyone have any idea on which of these jeeps would be most compatible?

IMHO neither JK nor TJ offers you that much.
If you were looking at doing a frame swamp then sure, but that can be engineering nightmare.
If you are looking at resto inc stockish motor replacement mounts etc aren't that hard to find. Brake and fuel lines can easily be made up. Stick with CJ.
If you are looking at modified, then I'd probably think custom rather than TJ/JK would be a better way to go.

[brenno86]

Originally Posted by Wooders

I'd probably think custom rather than TJ/JK would be a better way to go.

Thanks mate, will be going custom with a fair bit of it so makes sense that the rest gets made up or from another CJ.

[Wooders]

Built not bought.

[brenno86]

Here's what she looked like after we picked her up. Looks half decent but don't be fooled, between rusted floor pans and torn wheel arches there's a lot to do to her.

I'll do a more detailed post of the events so far shortly for anyone who's interested.

[JeepCJ]

OK, so what do you want to do to it........... is it a hard wheeler, a mall crawler or a restoration/ investment truck???

What I've seen from your pic's so far this could be the best clean CJ5 to start a restoration for a long time

In my case I'm halfway thru a ground up/ bare frame rebuilt of a CJ6 but I've had a plan for year's to build a very capable six as it has the perfect wheelbase(104") for a hardcore wheeler. Unfortunately mine was a total rust bucket so my options are as wide as my imagination takes me. I've wrecked a few XJ's over the years so it's getting a lot of XJ/ZJ/TJ DNA plus 4.0L stroker, auto, wide track, 4.88 ratio's, double lokka's and power steering and a bit of a lift + 35's etc.

I'm hanging to see where you go with this