So I know the name is wierd, but my dad had a few beers in him, he said it, and it has stuck. So Jeepton. Here it is sittin where I got it.

 

So I got it for $1000 off of this friend of the family, I know it might sound like a little much, but it is a 1985 with only 135k mi on it, a new engine as of 5k mi ago, a rebuilt tranny (mostly), a flowmaster (40 I think), and ~29" tires on 15x8 black steels.
Heres more pictures so everyone will keep reading

 

As I said I paid $1000, I had the money and he needed the money so everything was ok. He talked me into the car and then we talked specifics. Basically I was dumb and fell in love with it, unconditionally.

It needed one more repair (yeah right) before it was good to go; when he had rebuilt the transmission, he had run out of money, all he had left to do was put in a new slave cylinder.

So I towed it home, which was a fiasco because he had it towed 100 mi then my tow truck had to come get it and tow it the last 100 mi, the middle point of these two tows was precisely in the middle of nowhere (East of Big Bar on 299 for any far-norcal-ers). Needless to say the transfer didnt go smoothly.

Oh and heres a cool picture of a spider I saw recently while wheelin to keep everyone going.

 

So I got it back to Eureka, and now the fun begins. I don't have many pictures of the fixing, because I was not on CF yet and did not realize that other people found pictures of this stuff interesting (little did I know).
So to sum up the repairs:

Things I knew were coming when I got the car:
New slave cylinder, new battery

Other things that needed fixing:
All of the rubber in the fuel line
Every single ******* hose under the hood
A new fuel pump

I was in a bad mood for a while.

I thought this would make a sick advertisement for cherokeeforum;

 

So all of that did great for a while. The car had actually been sitting for 5 years (no wonder all the rubber hoses were bad!), but as I drove it around all the cobwebs shook off and it started running pretty good. Oh that reminds me I ended up paying 500 in back registration fees to the DMV to get my sticker, this deal gets worse and worse...
I even tested out the 4WD up in the snow when I went to get an XMAS tree. Sorry no pics of that but I was impressed.
I drove the car down to college with me, 620mi to UCSB, and back for the summer. It did great.
But as luck would have it, it turned out that 5yrs sitting had pretty much ruined my (supposedly new) tires, specifically the front right. It started to separate at the seam and I knew it wasn't long for this world, plus the vibes were a nightmare.
So in the interest of not dying on the highway, I began looking for a new set of tires. Heres what I found





And the best part, $140 a piece plus free shipping from discounttiredirect

 

I purchased 31x10.5's because they were the biggest I could stuff (and I do not use that word lightly, I mean really stuff) under a 2" budget boost.
So I got some of these



and some of these

 

All that was left was elbow grease and tools. The stupid blocks in the back wouldn't fit right (the "centerpin" nipple thing didn't fit in the whole) So I had to file on it with a metal file till I could jam it in there, and then a crap-ton of torque produced by a ratchet and 4 u bolts eventually popped it in.
Long story short, Here is how it sits today, congradulations, this is the reward for reading or at least clicking and scrolling to the bottom of the page.

 

Most of those pics are from a trip I took to Rock Front OHV park, which is between santa maria and bakersfield. The Jeep performed amazingly. I was able to climb things that I don't think I could have walked up, and the tires provided excellent traction (if anyone is looking for tires and wants them to look cool/perform really well offroad but wants great highway ride quality, I recommend these. they may be louder than I think but I don't notice because the jeep has no carpet and no installation, I cant hear anything over the engine at 65)

On the way back, The jeep had no power, I could barely get above 60mph, and sounded like it was missing. Oh I forgot to mention that I also have the stupid 2.8l V6.
So I have problems, and now I cant even put it in gear without it dying, and theres a gap in the engine sound like its missing (I'm not super knowledgeable) I replaced all the spark plugs, the plug wires, the distributor cap, and the rotor. It helped but I still cant get it to go and the problem is still there.

I need help. Any ideas?

Oh I totally forgot to mention the extra 600 that I dropped to get the carb rebuilt a while back...

Why do I love this money pit...oh I know, because its COOL.

 

nice, any future plans?

 

nice work

 

Nice rig. Did you keep the spider?

 

Thanks,
No I didn't keep the spider.
Bare bones plans.
4.5" RC lift over xmas and much more
But first it needs to get running
More plans to come tomorrow

 

What kind of GoodYears are those your running? Any comments on them?

 

Those are the Wrangler Duratracs. I think they're really new, I had to look hard to find reviews for them online. I can't comment on the tread life yet because I haven't had them for that long, but they are the most capable all terrain I have come across. Way better than my dads BFG AT's. If there was a category between Mud terrain and AT, than these would be there. They ride super smooth on the highway too; A little whirring / humming sound but its not too bad and I can barely hear it above the jeep anyways.
I've used them in every condition except super deep mud so far, and they've never had any problems...winters comin' though
Plus I got em really cheap at discount tire.

 

K thanks. Good lookin rig buddy. Only reason I asked is my brother workers at a local Goodyear Ditributor and I didn't know if those was the Duratracs or not, he says they can get extremely good deals on em