The BIG question

I am trying to make a decision. Right now the CJunk5 has a 4.5" lift and 33" tires. I really think that with some light triming it could fit 35" tires with ease. I have had the 4" lift and 33" combo before and it works great, but I really want to go bigger and badder with this one. So, I have been thinking about doing a spring-over-axle conversion with 0" lift springs. This gives enough lift to run 36" tires with some trimming. This setup gives more than enough performance offroad but the on-road performance is awful and slightly dangerous. So here is a list of pros and cons for both:

Leaving the lift the same and just trimming to fit 35's.
Pro's:
Cheap
less work (I am lazy)
Better onroad charactoristics
more stable offroad

Con's
Fairly poor performance offroad
Poor ride quality onroad


Spring over conversion
Pro's
Awsome offroad performance
Upgradable
Good ride quality

Con's
Poor onroad performance
more expensive

Making the CJunk5 fat-boy friendly

Well as anyone with any knowledge about Jeeps knows the CJ-5 is the smallest Jeep ever made. It has an extremely short wheel-base leaving a small amount of interior room to work with. They are so short infact that anyone over 200lbs has a problem getting behind the wheel. Being a current fat-boy I had to do something about this, because I would cram my fat ass in the driver seat and the stearing wheel would rub on the old gut while I was driving. I noticed that this was not safe because if I got the hiccup's who knows where the Jeep is going to go. So here was my solution. I actually cut the inner fenders out on the back and placed a support there so I could move the seats back 5.5 inches. Then I welded sheetmetal back in to close it back up. Here are some pictures of the project:

Here is a picture of the left fender. Notice the box that is protruding into the wheel well area. This is the adjustment I made, and it gave me a ton more room to work with.

Harness install

I am still trying to catch up by blogging what I have already done to the CJunk5. Here are some pics of the 4 point harness' that I installed to keep myself and one other passenger from becoming a projectile in the event of a roll over or crash.

Here is a side view for the of the modification that I made to the roll bar. This is to safely hold the 4 point harness without causing back problems if you do get into a wreck or roll over.


Here you can see really well how I attached the back of the harness to the new portion of the roll bar. Remember all of this was fabricated by me. It all came as a straight pipe or a flat piece of metal, and I made it into this.


Here is a picture of a weld that I made. I am a really awsome welder if you haven't figured that out yet, but to explain I at one time was a profesional code welder. So, don't feel bad if you can't make it look like this, because I had plenty of practice and went to school to learn how to make them look like this.

New Plans for the CJunk5

Well, I have some new plans for the CJunk5. I am naturally going to do some bodywork to it; has to many drain holes in the body for my taste. The intent for this Jeep is to make it cool but different from everyone elses Jeep. So, I have decided to put the front fenders on hinges. This will allow for the front fenders to be swung out to allow for easy access to the engine. I am also planning to cut the fenders during this project to gain more of a flattie Willys styling, which isn't original but there is a reason everyone does it (it is damn cool). If you can't imagine what it is going to look like when the fenders are on hinges don't worry, because I am going to upload in-progress and before and after pictures.

I am also going to tackle the wiring problems that the CJunk5 has. I am going to completely rewire the whole thing, and hopefully add some pretty cool features. I am also going to take away a bunch of crap that is not needed, like interior lights that might or might not work depending on how they are dangling. Yeah the wiring is a mess and it is going to take a while to fix, but intent is to make it as simple as possible to only include lights front and rear, and ignition. I would however allow for enough expansion that I could include a radio and a few little things like that. I am going to add pictures of this also mainly because it is going to be extremely funny.

There is going to be more to come on the plans for the CJunk5.

New bumper and winch

I have built a bumper for the CJunk5. I made the bumper out of "C" channel and a scrap piece of pipe along with the winch plate that came with the winch I bought. It actually turned out pretty cool. Here are some pics of the build in progress. I will put some finished pics on later.

Old bumper note that it is bent and looks overall like pooooop:













New bumper in progress:


New bumper being painted:


The winch that will be mounted on it:

Pictures of the Blazer that got traded

Here are a few pictures of the Blazer. Can you imagine driving it like this in December for 75 miles?

The Trade

Well, back in early December I traded my 74 Blazer for a Jeep. I am not saying that my Blazer was great, but this Jeep is in ROUGH shape. This is how it all went down: I placed an ad on craigslist to trade the Blazer and this guy contacted me saying he wanted to trade his CJ5 for my Blazer. I drove to the thriving metropolis of Tahlequah, Oklahoma to check it out. It was a piece of crap. But then again my Blazer was no gem either. I deciced to proceed with the trade, which ended up being a complete fiasco. Niether of us wanted to make the journey in these "gems" to actually make the trade, and niether of us had a trailer to haul them. We eventually found a trailer but it was not big enough to haul the Blazer. So I drove it for 75 miles with the top off in December. It was COOOOOOLD!!! It was all completely worth it though, because in the end I had a new piece of crap to work on. My new 1957 Willys CJ5!!!