Project CJ7 - Prepping the parts - Cleaning & Painting

Offroaders Guide
to Gearing up
for Offroad
From Basic Equipment to Well Equipped. An extensive list guide to help you prepare your vehicle for the offroad.

Onboard Air
Converting a York
AC Compressor
to Pump Air

Trailering Safety and Trailer Hitch Information

Off-Road Truck Driving Techniques and Safety

Off-Road Lights by LightForce Product Review / Installation.
from Off-Road Lights

Jeep Dana 300 TeraLow - 4:1 Gearset for the Dana 300 Transfer Case

AMC V8 Engines
From GEN-1 Nash/Hudson/Rambler V-8s (1956-1966) through to the GEN-3 AMC Tall-deck (1970-1991)

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Chevy Small-Block V8 Engines Manufactured by General Motors - Production: 1955?2002

Hemi Engine - All about the Hemi Engine

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Ford V8 Engines
8 Cylinder Engines manufactured by Ford

Ford 351 Cleveland V8 Engines
351 cubic inch V8 Engines manufactured by Ford

Chrysler Hemi Engine

AMC V8 hp/Torque, Compression & Bore/Stroke by year

Engine Size Conversion Table
Converting engine displacement from CID, Liters, C.C.

Engine Overheating Basics - 16 Common Causes of an Overheated Engine

Fan Clutch Diagnosis
How to tell if the Fan Clutch in your Cooling System is failing or has failed.

Automotive Gauges & Instrument Functions
Information they display & their importance.

From the
Department of Cheap Tricks and Useful Tips

Ultra-Cool Hand Throttle for Free!

Jeep V8 Swap Tips

The Exploding Clutch

Radiator Protection using 6 bucks worth of material

Cracked Under Pressure - Fixing a smashed fingernail

A Cheap, effective alternative to undercoating

Home-built Saginaw Gearbox Brace for the cost of lunch!

Ammo Box Storage - Mounting Them for Quick Disconnect

Home-built Serious Skid-Plate protection for the Oil Pan for under 20 bucks!

RTI / Ramp Travel Index What it is and how to calculate it, with and without the ramp.

Project CJ-7 ~
Cleaning & Painting Parts

No restoration would be complete without getting down to the individual parts of the vehicle and clean, inspect, fix and re-paint each part. While it's a tedious, time consuming task, in the end it's worth the effort. This vehicle will eventually see action and plenty of dirty, mud and whatever elements it might be subjected to. But if there's one thing I hate, it's rust. Rust is like cancer that slowly takes your toy away from you. For that reason, I like to clean and paint things. So the following pictures document a few of the many, many parts that were disassembled, cleaned and painted.

As with much of this project, a lot of little tips and ideas that helped make the job easier were learned along the way. One such idea was this little bench/stool that I fabricated a few years ago. It's been used for everything from a seat to a portable workbench to a welding platform for small parts to a painting bench for painting small parts. Having a bench such as this is very useful. In this particular case it was being used as a platform to mount the parts to as they were being cleaned of rust. With a few drywall screws, parts were held down as a wire-wheel was used to strip each part. Later it served as a bench for painting parts.

This old bench was made from some familiar parts. The legs were made from my dad's old wooden ladder that was replaced by a newer one. The top of the bench was the seat from a desk I had when I was 5 yrs old. Amazing this stuff is still being used.

Below are the clutch/brake assembly s well as the e-brake assembly. They were cleaned, painted and re-assembled. The greasable part of the assembly was also cleaned and pumped up with new grease.

One set of parts that cleaned up well was the seat mounting brackets. I find it amazing how expensive these are if bought new. The mechanics of these is simple enough that they didn't wear out and could be cleaned up and painted. The process of the cleaning went like this. Wire-wheel the whole thing. Different wheels for different parts and areas on the parts. Tight corners would get wheeled over with smaller wire-wheels of different shapes. Then it gets cleaned with a degreaser like Simple Green or Paint thinner. Then it's dried and wiped down again. When ready, it got a coat of primer and left to dry for about 24 hours. Then came a few coats of Black Rustoleum paint. Anything that needed grease was greased after the paint dried.

I took special care with the grill since this is a rust prone area, especially at the base. Lots of rust removal, cleaning and sealing with Corroless, primer and paint. This grill didn't seem too bad with only minor surface rust.


Everything got a fresh coat of primer and paint. Even though a lot of this stuff is going to get dirty and scuffed up, I'd rather see dirt over paint then dirt over rust.
Stock wheels for inspection reasons

Project CJ-7
Cleaning & Painting Parts

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Dunlop Mud Rover

Yokohama Geolandar

Latest trips Offroad
... trail reports with the Project CJ-7 click here.

Sounds System, Raised the Rear Seat
Storage below and a great place to mount 6x9 Speakers for Great Bass ... In a Jeep!

York AC Compressor Conversion. What used to pump Freon, now pumps compressed air to the front and rear bumpers. 125 psi, 2 gallons of storage, air fittings at the bumpers, enough CFM to power air tools!. Click Here for more Details

Dick Cepek's 2008 F-250 Super Duty Project Vehicle ? Project CRUSHER

Warn X8000i
Winch Installation