After that first stage things started to go down hill...i like to wheel to much and a mall cruiser wasn't going to do it for me.....
After amassing a few minor dings here and there the wife would get after me...so on a saturday in 03 i squeezed it into the garage (literally)...tore it down...and got after it with the DA. The following day i bought the owner of MACO a big bottle of scotch to say thanx and had my wifes cousin shoot it in thier booth. The reasoning was dents and scrapes are cheaper and easier to fix with a rattle can.
First official wheelin trip after the paint job....Easter Jeep Safari 2003. This is was the monday run with JP and 4 Wheeler magazine. Rained all day but a week in moab regardless of weather is allways better than a week at work. My friend stephen from ORD is kind enough to invite me to run with the big dogs every year. Got a cool plastic 4 wheeler license plate out of the deal...but no rag shot like i got a few years back in offroad when she was still pretty.
After the EJS o3 run she sat in the back yard for quite an extended period of time as i was flat busy. After 1.5 years (lol) i finally drug her back out and fixed the intermitant miss (coil-tbi) and aquired the much needed arb for the front end as it was discovered on Hell's Revenge the front end wasn't pulling anymore. And with a family and being the only source of income it took that long doing sidework to buy a used arb for a front 10B...chrome moly shafts...etc. And not to mention the birth of my daughter...an allmost deployment to iraq a week after my son was born last year...and trying to get our new house up to snuff. So we squeezed it into the garage once again and waded in. After the shafts-superjoints-arb-custom engine xmember-xover sterring-trans service- motor work-etc. were done she sat once again as my new job and career in the oilfield keeps me in the patch for weeks at a time. Keep in mind up until ejs 0f 03 the 79 had been my daily driver for ever i think. And ever since it was put out of service the chalet became my daily driver....
The work area cluttered with parts and tools.
I managed to tear into the wiring to re-arrange a few circuits and do some custom wiring. That didn't get to far but i did manage to install the NOS GI M1009 cold weather covers. (Was working in wyoming last year-found a new definition to the word cold.). Engine kinda had a 15 psi all the time oil psi issue i had ignored for years...so while it was down... Cam bearings were the culprit in the 5 year old gm crate so i added ever so slightly used tbi heads an a slightly upgraded tbi cam as i had all ready 4 years or so earlier converted her. And i have yet to drive it since then as i trailered in to ORD in glenwood for a little work. Now adays i can afford the parts and let some one else do the labor so the wife relented as we were now selling the house and off to ORD she went. Should be done very soon...thought it might even be done this last week but stephen went to mexico to run in the baja 500....so maybe this week.
Thanx again Jake!
DW
DW