A little over a year ago I bought an 82 CJ7 from one of my friends. It already had a sbc 305 in it along with a t4 transmission, Dana 300 transfer case, M30 front axle and AMC20 in the rear. The jeep came with manual steering and manual brakes. it was also sitting on 31x10.50x15 mud kings. I can't get pictures to post but heres a link to it the day i bought it http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/k...0512321cc1.jpg
This is my first jeep i've owned but I've worked on a couple previously. My first big project was a lock right locker and Moser 1 piece axle shafts. when I was pressing off the backing plates off the axles I messed one up. I replaced my rear drums with the bigger 11" from a 77 CJ 5. I wheeled it all last summer and generally had a good time but felt it needed bigger tires.
Some would call me cheap but I prefer to make as much as I possibly can for my jeep instead of buying parts. I am kind of handy with a mig so I decided I was going to try to fit bigger tires with little to no lift. I picked up a set of TJ rear flairs to gain some more clearance and set off to build my own tube fenders. I had the local weld shop bend some 1.25" .120 wall DOM tube to an L shape for me and slowly but surely cut them down to make the outer lip of my fenders. The skins are all 11 gauge (just about 1/8") and all my mounting brackets are 1/8" plate. I came across a set of 35x14.50x15 Boggers on CL and decided to see if they would clear with no lift. At full stuff they were rubbing a little bit and my stock springs were trashed so I finally ponied up the cash for a 2.5" BDS lift. With the BDS lift I can clear the 35's.
Now that I'm on bigger tires I figured it'd be best to get some body armor so I made some sliders out of 10 gauge and 1.5" 3/16" wall square tube. Attached with 28 1/4" flush mount bolts per side.
This is how my jeep looks now
http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/k...4e3f196916.jpg
I picked up the most recent issue of JP and was reading about the no lift wrangler on 40" mtr's and fell in love. I've been throwing around the idea of a stretch and I want to do rear tube fenders and crusher corners. I'm researching this now for my winter project
I've been lookin around at Gen-right and poison spyder for corners and they both offer 4 or 5 inch stretch corners. BTF has the stretch kit with the rear bumper and frame plates for use with xj springs to get around 4" of stretch. I know I'm going to need a fuel cell (i want to get rid of the current 8 gallon tank anyways,) rear drive shaft and brake lines. Obviously it's going to be a lot of cutting and welding which is fine with me. Does anyone have any expierence with stretching a 7? I'm anticipating a lot of breakage with stock axles so what axles would be the best choice? What suprises should I look for? I also want to keep this street legalish so no comp cuts.