Body

<Click on any image to enlarge>

The best thing about buying the Chief was that the body was rust free and in very good shape. The previous owner said that it had been repainted once in it's original color code, and had never been taken offroad.  In addition to the dead paint and faded tape stripes, there was a badly dented front bumper and fascia, and a dent at the passengerside rocker panel.  Otherwise it appeared to be every bit a "cherry"!

The owner was only able to produce one key - the ignition key, but claimed that it worked on all the locks. It did fit the front doors, but not the rear window.

After stripping out the engine and drivetrain, the original body mounts were inspected and all found to be in good shape. Sadly, the rubber isolators were all shot...a perfect opportunity to replace them with new polyurethane units and add a 2" Performance Accessories body lift. This proved to be a little tricky, because many of the body bolts had rusted to their nuts that were tack welded into the body mounts. It was all too easy with the impact wrench to break these welds instead of backing out the bolts. Some of the nuts were accessible from underneath the body, but many had to reached from inside the cab after a we used a 1 3/4"' hole saw to gain access through the floor. A well aimed shot with a wire welder allowed us to tack the nuts down before carefully backing them out by hand. Once all the bolts were removed, the body lift was installed without any difficulties. Note that the bumpers had to be removed before the body lift because the lower lip of the body fascia originally fits underneath the top edge of the bumper.  Here's some pictures of the body and frame following this.

A friend referred me to a body man who offered to fix the dents, grind off the tape stripes, and repaint it with polyurethane for $1000 plus supplies. To my surprise, he called me back after starting to tell me that the tailgate must have been in a severe collision, because there was almost 3 inches of Bondo body filler throughout most of the tailgate!! To his credit, he did a pretty good job of patching the tailgate, although it'll only be a matter of time before it will be replaced with a more intact one. I picked a modern silver tone from a 2001 Grand Cherokee that approximated the original color - Silverstone Metallic (code PS5). He repainted the upper cab flat black, and added black accents to the lower body and tailgate that approximated the original taped pattern.

Here's how it looked after I trailered it back from the paint shop. I was a little disappointed to see that the silver was quite a bit darker than I had remembered, and that the black accents were more like charcoal. But remembering that this Jeep will be a trail ready vehicle, I didn't focus too much on the importance of a very pretty paint job. It's actually beginning to wear well on me know, and folks have complemented me on just how good the paint looks for being  "original".