Well I finally found the pics of the 83 Renegade a friend and I built.
This was a complete rebuild from the frame up. We started in October and it was done the first of May the next year. We put it together in a 2 car garage with hand tools. I've been working on cars since I was a kid but this was my first attempt at something this big.
Here is the before Jeep. The body fell apart when we pulled it off the frame. We managed to save the windshield frame, dashboard and firewall.
Here is the fiberglass body we used. Very well made but not one reference hole in it...
All the metal parts were sandblasted, primered and base coat clear coated. That was the most time consuming part...
You should have been there when his girlfriend came home and saw this in the spare room..
Here is the frame after our body / paint guy sprayed it with filler primer and sanded it.
The finished frame.
The front axle done.
Some more small parts.
Final assembly starts. We used polyurathane bushings and body mounts. That is a custom made stainless steel tub for the gas tank to sit in. The original one was toast.
Yours truly putting the front hubs together.
Ahh..this was party night..even the camera was drunk!!!
The rolling chassis. The engine,tranny and transfer case were sprayed the same color as the body.
Measuring the firewall for the fender mounting holes. We measured,studied,measured,studied and measured some more for 2 days before we drilled the first hole. Like I mentioned..the only part of the original body we had to go by was the firewall as far as mounting holes were concerned.
The body with the last coat of primer, sealer. We killed my 3/8 drill on this project. You can see the line in the back where the actual tailgate would be. Our body man put those lines as well as the lines up front where the cowl and firewall meet the side panel of the body on a steel one.
Here are the lines being painted the same color as the frame. All the factory decals were reproduced in the same color as the frame too.
The body finally bolted down to the chassis.
I took a picture of this because I didn't think anyone would believe me. We drilled and tapped the holes for the soft top channels in the fiberglass and put the bolts in with some loctite. They never let go.
The poor but proud owner.
The first time it had been out of the garage since we dropped the frame off the fall before. The jeep is level, it's sitting in a low spot in the driveway.
We did all we could do and were waiting for the fenders, hood, YJ half doors and grill.
Here she is in my yard just before I put it in a local car show.
Here she is. We entered it in a big car show the summer we finished it and took first place in the 4x4 division. Not bad for a couple of guys who never attempted something like this before.
The only thing we didn't do was the paint and body work and rebuild the engine. Everything else us and a few friends did.
He eventually sold it to help finance a house. The kid who bought it is driving it in the winter...