I replaced the steering box because it was sloppy and leaky. I also welded some new metal in a couple of small holes in the driver's floorboard and where the roll bar bolts the the floor. I threw on the repop fenders and decent hood I had found for it. I also put a skim coat of mud on the rockers where I had to patch a small area. I don't mind welding in metal, but I hate body work. Losing motivation I had thoughts of throwing a quick spray job on it and calling it good. I kept going back and forth so I figured it would be best to let it sit before I did something I may regret. Winter was coming and I had a different project I wanted to work on so back to the storage barn it went.
I parked it towards the back of the barn....where projects to go die.
At least a year later I needed to thin the herd some and I had a guy coming over to look at a Monte SS I had posted on CL. He turned out buying both the Monte and a '76 C10 SWB I had owned for just a few months that wasn't even for sale. He told me that he owned a body shop so I had him take a look at the CJ7. He game me a price that I thought was fair to dustless blast the whole thing, spray the inner and outer fenders, roll bar, dash, tailgate, windshield frame....he was going to spray everything except the inner tub which didn't need it anyways. He was also going to fix a dent in the cowl (hood flip up at speed incident) and install new body bushings too. He showed me some pics of previous work, seemed like a good guy, looks like the Jeep is going to get painted.
it took twice as long, and cost a little bit more money than anticipated, but I was happy with the result.