I am gonna start with this. I have four young kids. They are best and I wouldn't change anything about them. Except perhaps for them to not always be fighting with their brothers and sisters, and maybe actually listening to us when we are talking to them, but I digress. They all love everything about camping, exploring, and offroading. I am a truly blessed man.
Having a largish family is a lot of fun but it does come with its downsides. Largely finding an offroad capable vehicles that can hold all of us is a real challenge. We didn’t wanna anything too large, i.e. a suburban or an excursion, because then we would be limited on where we could go. So we got ourselves a 1st gen Toyota Sequoia. There are several reasons why we bought it over some of the other few options we had available to us, but I won’t get into that here. While it’s a great vehicle, it’s also my wife’s daily driver. There are plans on building it up somewhat, but that will be another build thread. I wanted a toy that could hold could all of us, but also one that I did not have worry about keeping nice and clean nor worry about getting body damage if it came to that.
Thus started my long search for a CJ-8. It’s amazing how stupid expensive they can be. After about 10 months of searching I found one relatively local and for a reasonable price no less.
I count myself lucky that the search was that short. While it was not in excellent condition, it drove. It will make a great base for the awesome build I had envisioned.
The first things I did to it were to install a CB and a cheap Harbor Freight winch. As well as a cheap 20” light bar. I immediately started wheeling it. It did surprisingly well despite being open diffs.
Very quickly I found that it had some gremlins that needed sortin. The electrical on this Jeep is a nightmare. The previous owner(s) methodology of wiring was poetic license. There are splices and red electrical tape everywhere. Under the dash is literally a rat’s nest, minus the twigs and turds. A couple of issues that needed fixing is the brake lights being intermittent and there were no running lights. Apparently the brake light switch broke at some point so there is now a pressure switch plumbed into the brake line. This is spliced into the brake light wiring. The wires for the brakes goes through the turn signal switch on the steering column. The turn signal switch is showing its age and the internals are getting loose, so by wiggling it around you can get the brake lights to work. I installed a little red light on the dash that will turn on when I hit the brakes, but if no power is going to brake lights it won’t turn on. I know then to wiggle the stalk until I see the light on the dash go on.
As for the running lights, I have no idea what’s happening, I am only getting 6v going to the running lights in the rear. Instead of trying to trace down the problem, which would be near impossible to do without removing the dash and ripping all the wiring out, I took a page of the of the previous owners book and did some poetic license of my own. I wired a switch from the aux power to the running lights. So when it’s dark and the lights need to go on, I hit the switch and BAM running lights! Now I won’t get people flashing their lights at me trying to get me to turn on my lights on, and now I don’t have to yell at them saying “They are on!! It’s a 35 year old pile of rust! What more do you want?!?” At some point I am going to just burn the entire wire harness in place and replace it with one from painless or something.
I have found a bunch of other little things that need fixing or tightening, but I won’t get into all those. One last thing that I have not done yet is pass smog, pesky smog. The first time it didn’t pass only because the timing was out of factory spec, it was too advanced. After retarding the timing to factory specs, it didn’t pass again because now it’s running too lean. I have yet to walk down the road trying to that out.
Fortunately in between the gremlin fighting, I have been wheeling and subsequently breaking things. The first thing to go was the front locking hubs. After some research I found that this is a rather common issue, and if you were to have anything fail on you, that’s what you want to fail. Some people call it a torque fuse, and it’s super easy to replace. Of course I didn’t have a spare one on me so that ended my wheeling for the day. I replaced them with Makers Mark locking hubs, and those things are way beefier. I guess my axles shafts will now be the torque fuse! Also I now carry a spare locking hub, although I prob won’t ever need it.
The next thing that broke on me was my driver’s side shock and shock mount. Somehow at some point the head of my shock sheared off and the whole shock mount basically tore off the frame.
Clearly this was an old break as there is mud covering the edges of the break. I hadn’t noticed that anything was wrong as the ride so rough anyways. I discovered the destruction after I had dug myself into a hole out by the blow sands in Ocotillo Wells.
(my dad just so happen to call while I was trying to extract the broken shock)
Walking around the vehicle to inspect how bad of a predicament I was in, I noticed that the driver’s side front shock dust boot looked remarkably like a limp noodle. Thus I found carnage, and more concerning a completely taught brake line. Also I noticed that the frame was actually cracked as well. This is great, just great. I gently recovered myself, and proceeded to drive the 2hr drive home. Ignorance is truly bliss. I have no idea how long I have been running around with a broken shock, cracked frame and a brake line doubling as a limiting strap, all the while truly happy as a clam. Now I couldn’t drive home more carefully. I was sure that any pot hole would do the frame in.
So that’s where we are now. Parked and waiting for some rather invasive surgery. I have no idea when I will get to the repairs, but I will keep you updated. And hopefully I can then start making this thing into the truly awesome machine my dreams say it could be.
Having a largish family is a lot of fun but it does come with its downsides. Largely finding an offroad capable vehicles that can hold all of us is a real challenge. We didn’t wanna anything too large, i.e. a suburban or an excursion, because then we would be limited on where we could go. So we got ourselves a 1st gen Toyota Sequoia. There are several reasons why we bought it over some of the other few options we had available to us, but I won’t get into that here. While it’s a great vehicle, it’s also my wife’s daily driver. There are plans on building it up somewhat, but that will be another build thread. I wanted a toy that could hold could all of us, but also one that I did not have worry about keeping nice and clean nor worry about getting body damage if it came to that.
Thus started my long search for a CJ-8. It’s amazing how stupid expensive they can be. After about 10 months of searching I found one relatively local and for a reasonable price no less.
I count myself lucky that the search was that short. While it was not in excellent condition, it drove. It will make a great base for the awesome build I had envisioned.
The first things I did to it were to install a CB and a cheap Harbor Freight winch. As well as a cheap 20” light bar. I immediately started wheeling it. It did surprisingly well despite being open diffs.
Very quickly I found that it had some gremlins that needed sortin. The electrical on this Jeep is a nightmare. The previous owner(s) methodology of wiring was poetic license. There are splices and red electrical tape everywhere. Under the dash is literally a rat’s nest, minus the twigs and turds. A couple of issues that needed fixing is the brake lights being intermittent and there were no running lights. Apparently the brake light switch broke at some point so there is now a pressure switch plumbed into the brake line. This is spliced into the brake light wiring. The wires for the brakes goes through the turn signal switch on the steering column. The turn signal switch is showing its age and the internals are getting loose, so by wiggling it around you can get the brake lights to work. I installed a little red light on the dash that will turn on when I hit the brakes, but if no power is going to brake lights it won’t turn on. I know then to wiggle the stalk until I see the light on the dash go on.
As for the running lights, I have no idea what’s happening, I am only getting 6v going to the running lights in the rear. Instead of trying to trace down the problem, which would be near impossible to do without removing the dash and ripping all the wiring out, I took a page of the of the previous owners book and did some poetic license of my own. I wired a switch from the aux power to the running lights. So when it’s dark and the lights need to go on, I hit the switch and BAM running lights! Now I won’t get people flashing their lights at me trying to get me to turn on my lights on, and now I don’t have to yell at them saying “They are on!! It’s a 35 year old pile of rust! What more do you want?!?” At some point I am going to just burn the entire wire harness in place and replace it with one from painless or something.
I have found a bunch of other little things that need fixing or tightening, but I won’t get into all those. One last thing that I have not done yet is pass smog, pesky smog. The first time it didn’t pass only because the timing was out of factory spec, it was too advanced. After retarding the timing to factory specs, it didn’t pass again because now it’s running too lean. I have yet to walk down the road trying to that out.
Fortunately in between the gremlin fighting, I have been wheeling and subsequently breaking things. The first thing to go was the front locking hubs. After some research I found that this is a rather common issue, and if you were to have anything fail on you, that’s what you want to fail. Some people call it a torque fuse, and it’s super easy to replace. Of course I didn’t have a spare one on me so that ended my wheeling for the day. I replaced them with Makers Mark locking hubs, and those things are way beefier. I guess my axles shafts will now be the torque fuse! Also I now carry a spare locking hub, although I prob won’t ever need it.
The next thing that broke on me was my driver’s side shock and shock mount. Somehow at some point the head of my shock sheared off and the whole shock mount basically tore off the frame.
Clearly this was an old break as there is mud covering the edges of the break. I hadn’t noticed that anything was wrong as the ride so rough anyways. I discovered the destruction after I had dug myself into a hole out by the blow sands in Ocotillo Wells.
(my dad just so happen to call while I was trying to extract the broken shock)
Walking around the vehicle to inspect how bad of a predicament I was in, I noticed that the driver’s side front shock dust boot looked remarkably like a limp noodle. Thus I found carnage, and more concerning a completely taught brake line. Also I noticed that the frame was actually cracked as well. This is great, just great. I gently recovered myself, and proceeded to drive the 2hr drive home. Ignorance is truly bliss. I have no idea how long I have been running around with a broken shock, cracked frame and a brake line doubling as a limiting strap, all the while truly happy as a clam. Now I couldn’t drive home more carefully. I was sure that any pot hole would do the frame in.
So that’s where we are now. Parked and waiting for some rather invasive surgery. I have no idea when I will get to the repairs, but I will keep you updated. And hopefully I can then start making this thing into the truly awesome machine my dreams say it could be.
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