94 Jeep Wrangler YJ Restoration

The project I always wanted to do but didn't know where to start. 

I had always wanted a Jeep. Ever since I was a kid. Watching people drive by with the top off or doors off would make me so jealous. I worked for a car dealership when I was 18 and got to drive one whenever we got one on the lot.

Over the years I never followed through with having a Jeep. Every time I bought a car, it simply wasn't practical for having a Jeep. Last summer I got the itch again. I had always wanted a Jeep for driving around on perfect summer days with no top and no doors.

I started looking on craigslist.com for a Jeep that I could pick up cheaply and could drive for at least the rest of the summer. Internet postings were mostly a joke. Jeep owners are seriously crazy for what they think their rusted out 4 cyl 20 year old Jeep is worth. Lifted jacked up YJs are in theory a dime a dozen but not any that I saw. I simply wasn't going to pay $4,000 for a 90s rusted out Jeep.

One day I saw a post for this 94 YJ. 110k miles, Sahara model, V6 and a 5-spd manual! It was in the mid $2,000 range so I decided to take a look at it. I bought it. The owner let me know that there were some significant rust issues, and I said ok ok, no problem, its 20 years old, its all good.

Took it home, got the top off, and we drove it a few weeks. We were loving it!

Frame  rust

One day I noticed the frame had a pretty good sized crack in it. I decided it was best to take it off the road for the rest of the summer and repair the damaged sections over the winter.  I cleaned it up, power washed the entire thing which stripped much more paint that was loose due to all of the rust that was underneath. Discovered the drivers floorboards were completely gone, and there were some pretty serious issues going on.

Last summer I started stripping it down. I started by stripping off the front fenders, grille, the seats on the interior, the hood, etc. The first major problem I encountered was the spare tire. It had a locking lug nut on it which literally could not be turned without the special tool. I had to contact the manufacturer of this specific lock (which luckily was in the owner's manual pouch) and purchase the tool to remove it. (Read special tool = $30) I removed the tailgate and pretty much everything I could

Basically at this point I had to take a few months off. I was in my last semester of college and had to focus on the work I needed to do there. I didn't even really know where to begin. I signed up for a few accounts on online Jeep forums. The forums are honestly a double edged sword. You can find great information. Many users are very helpful, give great advice and earnestly want to help. Some users are quite adversarial as well. One of the posts I made I had a guy tell me I needed to just get a new tub. Clearly if I had the $4000 for a new tub, I wouldn't be posting here.

When I resumed I had a pretty good plan. I was going to cut out the bad metal on the driver's side first, purchase the replacement parts I needed, and then move on to the passenger side.





The rust was significantly worse than I could have imagined. Once everything was torn down and cut out, rust covered a much larger area than I originally expected. Beneath the roll bars was completely rusted out. The only thing holding the floorboards together on the driver's side was literally the rubber floor mat.

Part of the initial planning required acquiring a lot more tools than I had before. I had an air powered 3" angle grinder which I started using to cut out the rust and found that it was simply not enough power for what I was needing to do. I purchased a 4 1/2" angle grinder for cutting and one for grinding. I found that mainly these worked the best for most things that needed done. For a welder, I bought one from Harbor Freight and an argon. Having never welded before, I practiced using the flux core wire. I made a couple projects for practice, a welding table, a cube that looks pretty cool.

Upon further inspection of the frame, there was no way I was going to be able to patch all of the rusted out frame without removing the tub, so I decided to remove the tub. Removing the tub wasn't very difficult at all. Unfortunately all of the bolts holding the body to the frame either broke or had to be cut out.




With the body off, I was able to see a lot more areas that needed to be replaced. Probably the most important was the inside of the frame by the transmission that had probably a foot of metal that was completely rusted out. I cut out the bad metal, created patches out of 3/16 steel (factory frame is 1/8th inch) and welded them in. The inside of the original frame and the patches were painted with weldable primer to protect against rust.

Another area that was severely damaged was the toe support on the front. This piece is the support beneath the firewall and has a body mount bolt in it. I found a replacement piece online through Classic Enterprises out of Wisconsin. I ordered it and it was an absolute perfect match. 

Next I welded in a replacement floor pan

I then moved back along the frame inspecting for damage. The crack in the frame I showed earlier was probably the most difficult part. After cutting out the bad metal, It took almost the entire four inch long wall of the 2x4 inch frame rail. I decided to reinforce the original lines, and then make a section to go around it which was also welded to the body mount and leaf spring mounts. 

Installed it looks like this

The left rear leaf spring mount had some rust and was rather easy to cut out and repair. The right side however was significantly worse. In order to get to good metal almost the entire rail had to be cut out. 

For this I would not be able to fabricate a replacement myself and have the leaf spring mount in the correct place. I purchased a Safe-T-Cap and installed that per the instructions. 

My next step was to coat the frame in POR-15 and then I applied a bedliner paint on top. Two coats of each was applied. 

Next was to install the body panels. I started on the drivers side front of the tub and worked my way to the rear, and then the pass side. The rusty metal was cut out until it was good metal, and then replacement pieces were welded in place. Welding sheet metal is much more difficult than welding plate metal. Literally the welder would burn through the metal if the trigger was held for more than a second. The technique I used was called stitch welding where you would literally only hold down the trigger until a puddle of molten metal formed. It is basically just a tack weld next to a tack weld. You would then move over and repeat. It was very time consuming but in the end I was able to install the new sheet metal without any warping. 

Right Side floor and under roll bar

Time to prime and paint began. I chose to use rustoleum paint to paint the car. I wanted a flat desert tan and they have a spray flat paint. Probably this year just from a cost perspective and the look I wanted, I was going to give it a whirl. 

 

And then... time to reunite the body with the frame - after new cat-back exhaust 

And the painting continues!

New Fenders!

The rear corners were gone just at the bottom. In order to keep the lines as close to original as possible, I cut out the bad part and then welded in replacement pieces. 

Next was applying the base layer of metal-reinforced body filler, then regular bondo and sand, sand sand! 

The grille had some issues with it. I didn't realize that there were actually some rust holes in it. I decided to have it sandblasted completely so that I could weld in new metal into the holes.

Once again - time to prime, sand paint, and repeat! 

Running out of tan paint, so the underside of the hood was painted OD Green

All back together - time for an oil change, new plugs, distributor cap, rotor, wires, brake adjustment, radiator, and the list goes on! And Then....

Time to hit the trail. Gorgeous 80 degree day hit the trail, got a little muddy and had a blast!

If I knew then what I know now, I would advise to take pictures of EVERYTHING! Before you remove a single bolt, take a picture of where things go. What wire goes where and what it looked like before. I didn't take many before pictures of under the hood. It took me much longer to put everything back than it should have because I just had to guess where it went. I have a friend that has a 95 but his is much different because it has AC and ABS, so under the hood looks nothing like mine. Take your time on most things. There are parts of the project that are vital and there are some that don't matter. I can look at this Jeep and point out hundreds of flaws that I didn't do right. But an average guy isn't going to see them. The online forums are a huge asset to anyone wanting to do a project like this, but you have to make your own decision based upon your project and your budget. A project like this is truly a labor of love. I began it back in December and it was on the road in May. It took constant focus, attention, frustration, love and a lot of love to finish. All in all, I loved every minute of it. I loved being focused on getting this done and seeing the end result. I most especially having a Jeep that is truly one of a kind and I know every single inch of it. There isn't much in life that is as satisfying as having a project that you don't even knowing where to start, and ending up with an amazing vehicle that you love. 

Any question - just post and I will respond!