And so I enter yet another project...

Hey there.. well I finally got pictures of my new baby... She's a 1971 AMC CJ5 Renegade II. I bought her for $2500 a couple weeks ago after attempting to buy a CJ6, the owner sold that on my way over there so I bought the 5 on the way home.

Took about 30 seconds into the test drive to fall in love. I talked him down to a price I could afford and happily returned 3 days later to pick it up and pay for it. I immediately took the stock steering wheel (which hit my knees all the time) off and replaced it with a smaller grant wheel. Much easier to drive now. The only other complaint I have about controls is that the transfer case shifter lever is at the bottom of the passenger side footwell, which makes it difficult to get to less you're out to lock the hubs The previous owner did some modifications, one of which being a spring over axle conversion seen here. He welded new spring perches on and put on a dropped pitman arm, but it hasn't made much difference. The drop link is still at a radical angle and the caster is a bit off so there's lots of wander. I'm planning on replacing the front axle with an open knuckled Dana 44 from an SJ truck. Once I get that I will start the process of dialing in the steering, till then there's not much I can really mess with. I know I'm going to have to go with a bent drop link in addition to the dropped pitman,

that should get rid of most of my wander problems since I'll have to weld new spring perches on the axle tubes anyway I'm going to make sure it's done right the first time. There are plans in the future to go to YJ spring packs SOA'd with possibly a 3/4 elliptical setup, but we'll see.

This is another one of the modifications he did. He boxed the front of the frame and installed a Sagniaw steering box. This mod I love, and I was going to do it myself on whatever Jeep I was purchasing, this kept me from having to do a lot of welding and some time and expense setting it up. Unfortunately during all this he welded the shackle mounts and spring hangers to the frame, which will present a bit of difficulty later once the suspension project starts. The only problem this has caused is winch mounting. I'm sure I can work around it but it's going to take a little more doing than just slapping on a mounting plate. Once I started looking it over there's lots of minor things wrong with it, all can be fixed easily enough and I'm still really happy with my purchase. As you notice it's currently up on jackstands awaiting a new axle. The knuckle tore recently and the brakes are completely destroyed so it'll be cheaper to upgrade to a D44.

Well, that's pretty much all the story except a some tech stuff. It's currently sporting a Buick odd fire 231 with HEI and a T-15 transmission coupled to a 4th generation model 18 case and 4.88's with powerlock's front and rear. The rear D44 is a one piece flanged semi-floater. They started appearing in the 71 model year so this would be one of the first. The fenders have been flatfendered, I'm not sure if I like that yet or not, maybe it'll grow on me.