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My newest addiction, 80 CJ5


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Now that the Jeep is fuel injected I needed a check engine light. I will be using this as my check engine light. I needed a way to let other people know what that glowing red ring means.

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I decided to rip apart my new fan switch and make something different.

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I drew this up on Microsoft Paint, attached it to a Word Doc, adjusted the size until I liked it, printed it and then I laminated it.

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I then trimmed it to fit into the fan switch housing.

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I also replaced the bulbs with blue LEDs.

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Not bad at all. It puts a unique spin on a boring check engine light!

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  • 2 weeks later...

I spent the last two days redoing my dash. A prior owner butchered it!

Those three gauges are not supposed to be there.

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I removed the whole dash panel.

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Then cut out a square and welded new metal in. This is my first time welding sheet metal. I learned a lot.

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I then stripped, painted and installed all my new parts.

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I installed new gauges, lights, face plate and speakers. The gauge cluster is from Intellitronix and it is awesome!

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It was a ton of work but we'll worth it.

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I've done similar work on both my 67 Cj5 and 83 CJ7.  Looks great, big improvement!  I like the "retains the factory layout but with upgraded components" approach.  One of my biggest pet peeves for a CJ or Wrangler, is stray wires hanging from beneath the dash.  It screams "POS", and a previous owner who lacks attention to detail, making one wonder "what else did he shortcut?"

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I got the CJ running pretty good so I took it out into the desert for a shake down run. It performed beautifully! This this is a beast off road. Just point the wheels and she'll eat!

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That is until you blow a power steering o ring and high tail it back to the house and things go from bad to worse.

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Lost a front wheel at 40 mph. Thank God I was out in the desert and not on the highway. All four wheels had worked loose. I ordered new lugs with a longer shank so hopefully this doesn't happen again.

With the wheels coming off and this thing only having a stock roll bar I started looking for windshield bars or a better cage. Just so happens the guy I bought my EFI setup hit me up and asked me if I wanted to buy his old cage and sliders.

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We struck a deal for $200! Well, ok, I guess!

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  • 1 month later...

I got the cage set in the CJ and it looked great!

 

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Unfortunately my top would not fit right. So I fixed that.

 

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Now my top fits like it should.

 

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In the process of fighting with the cage I shattered the windshield. It was shot and it allowed me to see that the windshield frame was completely rusted out.

 

I also found out this was originally a real Renegade. I just threw the sticker on the hood because I liked it.

 

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