You know how it goes, you make up your mind to do something and you want to get started right away. The only problem was I had to convince my wife of what a good idea it was. It was during that conversation that I discovered what the real problem would be. Yep you guessed it, how much is it going to cost and where are you going to get the money for it. Reality sure has a way of putting a dark cloud over things doesn't it? After much more discussion it was decided the only way I could get a new "toy" was to sell my current one which is a 1997 Chevy Z71. I have enjoyed every mile I put on that truck and I will sure be sorry to see it go. But there always comes a time to move on and now is the time for me. I hope whoever buys it will enjoy it and take as good of care of her as I did.

I had been looking at CJ 8's for a little while so I had a pretty good idea of what was out there and what you could get for your dollar. I emailed a few and called a few to get a little more information, and I found one that really intrigued me. I thought about it for a few days and then called and explained I would like to buy the CJ 8 but I had to sell my truck first. He was glad that I wanted to buy it and told me I would have to pick it up by the weekend. My jaw dropped as I knew there was no way that was going to happen. I could never sell my truck that fast and on top of that, we were practically across the country from each other. He explained that He was moving on the coming weekend and if he didn't sell it before then he was going to take it with him and restore it later. NO! I thought to myself, this is the one I want. This is the best deal I have seen. I tried to convince myself it was OK; there would be others in the future. Maybe even a better deal, who knows. But it didn't work.

That night after my wife came home from an exhausting day in the NICU we sat down at our desks and I explained the situation. She said I should go ahead and buy it then pay the money back when I sold my truck. Man, I love this woman!

The next day I called the owner back and worked out the details of FedExing him a check and him FedExing me the title. Then I set up a trucking company to pick it up and deliver it to me which would take about 10 days.

On October 7, 2006 the truck driver called and said he was over in the HEB parking lot and I could come and get my Jeep. My wife drove me over and we watched as he unloaded the Jeep from his truck. I paid him, jumped in and drove it home with my wife right behind me. That afternoon I took some pictures, pulled into the garage and started taking her apart.

She's spent all 23 years of her life working hard in the harsh northeastern part of the United States. With one motion she was released from a life of toil and drudgery, and both our lives were changed forever. If someone were to look at her now they might think she's a bit rough, but all I see is pure character. Now its her turn, it's time for her to relax, let her hair down, and have some fun. I think we are going to get along just fine.

I am well over a year into the project now and as you will see in the pictures a lot has changed as I have progressed with the rebuild. When I originally started I was going to stick with the original six cylinder 258 engine that she came with. My friend Eric came up with a deal on a Chevy 327 I couldn't refuse though, so I decided to go that route. After all, can you ever have too much power?

I was also planning on repairing and using the original steel body. However, the more I moved it around the garage the more it fell apart, so I decided to completely replace it. The body rot and rust from years of northeastern winters were just more than she and I could handle. I found one of my fellow club members that had a one piece fiberglass frontend and he was looking to go to a steel frontend so we traded. Once I got the "glass" frontend home I started thinking more and more about going fiberglass all the way. After all, I would never have to worry about body rot again and fiberglass is pretty easy to patch if you break it.

The bad thing about all these changes was that they required a lot of going back and reworking the way I had done things up to that point. Unfortuneatly, I probably wasted about two months on these retrofits.

One of the biggest problems I have had during this project is getting ahead of myself and this was just another example. Had I given it more thought and decided that was the route I wanted to go in the beginning I would have saved a lot of time and probably some money also. In the long run I am glad I made the changes, as I know I will be much happier with the end result.

I didn't get too much accomplished during April and May as I was recovering from knee surgery. I did get a few things done that didn't require a lot of bending though. I'm feeling much better now and should start to make some major progress during the next few months. My goal still, is to have her ready the first part of December for the charity event our club does every year at Buckner Children's Home in Beaumont, Texas.

 October 2006.
 November 2006.
 December 2006.
 January 2007.
 February 2007.
 March 2007.
 April 2007.
 May 2007.
 July 2007.
 August 2007.
 November 2007.
 December 2007.
 January 2008.
 February 2008.
 March 2008.
 April 2008.
 May 2008.