Aftermarket CJ body question

Mike R, a frequent poster here replaced his 86 CJ-7's original body with a 'glass one in (I think) 2000. AFAIK, he loves it, and AFAIK, it has seen some pretty serious action, surviving where a metal body would have been crumpled. He will probably chime in here with his reccomendation.

HTH

Carl

Mike lives in Canada too, which has a lot to do with the steel vs. fiberglass issue. Rust never sleeps.

Earle

As others have mentioned, I got tired of the rust so went 'glass nose to tail and love it!

A gent out near Kingston Ontario makes them in his back garage and I am really happy with mine after having it on for 7 years. I have an email contact and phone number for him still I think. I will check if you want.

'Everything' fits on. I have a hard top, hard doors, soft top and soft doors and it all fits just like it should. I am impressed. I do know that half the battle with fit is having the body mounts set at the proper heights because it's a given the stock frame is going to be tweaked.

I even got my stock 'Laredo' chrome grill to fit into the one piece front flip clip. It took very little 'tweaking'.

It is a 'very' solid body. The two 3/8" thick shells are cored with 1" marine plywood with diamond plate sandwiched in the firewall where the steering and pedals attach. The sides are filled with foam.

It makes for one insanely light Jeep when going top and doorless so it goes like a scalded cat.

I opted for no back door and made a frame under the rear fenders out of angle iron to tie my stock tire rack down to the body/frame mounts so it doesn't hang off the 'glass tub, it just bolts through it. I have a rack on it for gear and it is solid.

I checked into the aluminum ones made by the houseboat folks I think in BC, but there are far too many electrolysis issues between AL and steel for me to even think about it. 'Everything' has to be isolate or it burns through the aluminum. Not for this kid, I want to get away from the rust....

All the used steel ones I looked at, even YJ ones will fit, were already rusted to some extent. Same deal, I was 'not' starting out with rust.

Now if they only made a carbon fiber frame......

Here are some shots of my CJ build:

If you look at the bottom right of the page, it links to my other albums where you can see the Jeep and lots of others from this newsgroup in action.

Mike

86/00 CJ7 Laredo, 33x9.5 BFG Muds, 'glass nose to tail >

Mike,

The body is nearly 2" Thick?

Carl

Yes, pretty close to 2" thick for sure.

I had to go and buy all new bottom bolts when I figured out how thick it really was. I underestimated big time first time buying them.

For the tub walls, figure they are solid right down from the inside edge, there is no lip there for the hardtop bolts, I had to router spaces for the nuts when I drilled the hard top and soft top rail holes.

That made for a few issues with things like the heater box and the steering wheel brace which I had to shorten slightly. I got lucky and my roll bar 'just' fits under the hard top, but have heard of others cutting down the bar even with the US made tubs.

Mike

Carl wrote:

I bought a steel tub for my `79 CJ5 from these guys:

I'm happy with it.

-- "I defer to your plainly more vivid memories of topless women with whips....r" R. H. Draney recalls AFU in the Good Old Days.

About $2800, in 2002 dollars.

-- "I defer to your plainly more vivid memories of topless women with whips....r" R. H. Draney recalls AFU in the Good Old Days.