At first galnce it looked like it was in perty good shape.  The breaks were shot but the engine ran great.

The first thing I did was take out the seats and rip out all the carpet to get a closer look at was underneath.  I wasn't happy. When I bought it there wasn't a top on it and from the looks of the interior it hadn't had one for a while.  There was nothing but rust.  There was also evidence that more than one effort had been made to repair rust damage over the years. I know right then that the restoration of this 1978 jeep cj5 wasn't going to be easy. The list of parts i would need was growing.

After taking a closer look the body, mostly the tub, I realized that it was held together with bondo and rust.  The hood and fenders were ok but the rest of the body was a rust bucket.  It was at this point where I had to decide weather or not this ulgy jeep was truly going to be something to go knocking around in the woods with or something else entirely.  I decided to keep tearing it down to find out what else might need to be fixed or replaced before making that decision.

I pulled off the fenders hood and windshield.  Things were looking perry good.  I pulled it out side and used an engine hoist to remove the tub.  It was really much easer than I though it would be.  These old jeeps are really easy to work on.

 Now that the body is off I got a closer look at the 35 years of rust and abuse this ugly jeep had endured. I decided to take it all the way down to a bear frame.

I removed the engine, axels, brake lines, fuel lines, fuel tank, and finely I had a bear frame.  With everything out of the way the poor condition of the frame was obvious. It was 4 inches out of alinement, bent, twisted and filled with hair line cracks.  This jeep's frame was trashed. I searched online and slavage yards for a used one but there aren't many 35 year old jeep cj5 frames just laying around.  I found a company called Throttle Down Kustoms that makes new ones for just about any of the older jeeps.  It wasn't cheap but they make a great frame.  The frame I bought is much stronger than the original frame. The welds looked so great that Its a shame that no one will seem them once its all put together.  When it arrived it was bare metal.  I had it powder coated by a local shop for $250.00 dollars.