There she was – a clean, un-cut and rust-free Scrambler. The clouds parted, the sun shined through and the angels begin to sing. For the heck-of-it, I typed-in, “Scrambler.” While ideal for hunting rigs these Jeeps are not solid foundations for a fun project vehicle. These are rough Jeeps that look like they have been, “rode hard and put-up wet” for past twenty years. Barack Obama is in the White House, we’ve just lived through the largest drop in the economy since the great depression and your burgeoning 4x4Review Feature Editor is longing for a new project to commemorate his upcoming 40th birthday (January, 2010) – could this be a mid-life crisis kicking in? Having been through a string of 30+ cars over the decades including two dedicated track cars, my interests are now wandering back to Jeep CJs – the desire of my youth.Ī quick review of Craig’s list produced the same old, tired CJ-5s and CJ-7s that I continue to see in the Dallas area. This was the first in a long-line of passenger cars, each one more focused on improved performance – but my Jeep desires never came to be.įlash forward twenty-three more years to 2009. I made the most of it and converted the two-door coupe to “Grabber” trim (scoops on the hood and a small spoiler) to go along with the mild performance of the small-block 302 and the C4 automatic transmission (ironically, the very same power-train in our other 4x4Review project vehicle, Project Buckshot). The Jeep ended-up selling and I was forced to settle for the family car, a ’73 Ford Maverick. The trouble was I didn’t have the $3,000 that he wanted for his CJ-5.
#JEEP CJ8 SCRAMBLER LICENSE#
How perfect, I had my license and my brother was ready to pass the Jeep on to a new owner. I was now 16 and my brother was trying to sell his Jeep. Ronald Reagan was in the White House and Top Gun was in the theaters (Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, too). All that I had to do was wait to be of age, and come up with the dough.įlash forward eleven years to 1986. What could be cooler? I set my mind to it and made plans for all of the coolness that would be at my disposal when I turned 16. In these pages, and in my off-road focused mind, I watched the performances of the Bill Stroppe’s Baja Bronco Team as well as the Archer CJ-5 Baja racer.Īt the tender age of five, I knew what I wanted… a Jeep. Over the years, I was the second-hand beneficiary of his old 4-Wheeler and Pick-up, Van and 4WD magazines. I followed the simple progress made on my brother’s Jeep – Roll-bar, rear seat, Warn hubs, tire upgrades, headers and dual exhaust and eventually, a steel half-cab – with great interest and enthusiasm. In my eyes though, there was nothing cooler on or off the road. In other words, it was a complete base model. It had no roll-bar, no rear seat, white steel wheels and a spare tire mounted on the passenger quarter-panel.
#JEEP CJ8 SCRAMBLER MANUAL#
It was white with a black soft-top, it had a 232ci straight six sending power to a three-speed manual transmission. The Jeep was perfect in the eyes of this pre-pubescent gear-head. The average cost for a home was just over $50,000, a new car would set you back a mere $3,500 and the average household income was less than $10,000.ĭuring that same year, 4x4Review’s newest feature editor, yours truly, a car-crazed, bell-bottom wearing five year old, was deeply enamored with the brand-spanking new 1975 CJ-5 that my oldest brother had just purchased. Nobody had smoked a draft card in at least 2 years. So what was happening in 1975? Gerald Ford was in the White House. In the next few paragraphs, I will answer that riddle and lay-out a plan for coverage of this Jeep’s restoration / modification strategy too. How in the world, you might ask, can this be? Has 4X4Review found some method by which to bend space-time? Have they stolen components from their project vehicles to fabricate a time machine? Well, not so much – but our build plan began in 1975, which predates our newly acquired ‘81 Jeep CJ8 and our magazine too. It’s so old in fact, that it outdates the magazine, and the actual vehicle’s age. Welcome to the oldest build plan in 4X4Review Off Road Magazine’s history.