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| This all started
out innocently enough in 1994 as a long-term project to build a second
Jeep for my family and I to enjoy off-roading with. I already owned a 1983
CJ-7 that I had purchased in 1990 after finally giving up on conforming to
my sensible, conservative, middle-class suburban up-bringing in New
Jersey. I had always wanted a Jeep after seeing Daisy Duke with her Golden
Eagle on the "Dukes of Hazard" TV show. I bought the '83 CJ-7
which came to be known as Alter Ego from the used car lot of Bob Ciasulli
Toyota where a friend of mine was a salesman. She was a rather
non-descript red Jeep with some battle scars and only a handful of options
like power steering, auto trans, I6, hard top, and towing package, but I
happily turned over the keys to my VW Quantum and signed on the dotted
line. Several of the salesman visibly laughed as I walked out the door and
drove off the lot, but what did they know? "It's a Jeep Thing!" Most of my friends were into it and a
couple would borrow it from time to time. My parents were astonished and
my mother apparently thought that it was a loaner vehicle. At one point
she sat me down and asked me when I was getting my VW back from the shop
and was almost speechless when I informed her that I owned the Jeep and
the VW was gone. Living near New York City and having only a Sears catalog
to go by (hey, what did I know?), my first additions were a
"Jeep" spare tire cover, light bar and 4 lights, and a stereo
system (the first of several). Then a friend gave me a JC Whitney catalog,
and my world grew a little bigger...chrome hinges and various odds and
ends. One weekend while visiting my girlfriend (now my wife) at Penn
State, we went into a store and I browsed the magazine rack while she was
shopping and found my first copies of Four Wheeler, 4Wheel & Off-Road,
4 Wheel Drive & Sport Utility, and Off-Road and my addiction grew. The
rest of the time in New Jersey wasn't too eventful as I moved out on my
own with my girlfriend who was doing an internship (read: no pay) and got
married...money was tight. I did manage a few more stainless steel parts
(I learned my lesson with the chrome) and a fresh Maaco paint job, which
brings us to 1992. I was working for Comdisco Technical
Services (based in Illinois), and they informed us that they were closing
the New Jersey facility. I was kept on as part of a skeleton crew to
handle the shutdown and was eventually offered a transfer in December
which I accepted. I had plenty of time to kill by then being just about
the only person in the building, so I immersed myself in catalogs and
magazines and even parked my Jeep inside the warehouse to work on it. The
salesmen who laughed when I drove the Jeep off the lot weren't laughing
now, and offered to buy it back from me. I replaced the now tired and
leaky engine with one that turned out not to be much better off and added
goodies like a Weber carb, Blackjack headers, Jacobs ignition system with
Duraspark conversion, and finally moved to Illinois in March of 1993. I went kinda nuts once we moved because
during most of the shutdown, as far as I knew I was going to be unemployed
at some time so I didn't spend any money on things that I wanted...only on
what I needed. This was like liberation. Every broken or worn out piece
became an upgrade opportunity. New mirrors, shocks, lift, seats, etc. Then
one day I was talking to an electrician who had been doing some work at my
job and had started in on a fiberglass tub swap on a Jeep CJ-7 he had
bought back from a friend he had sold it to a few years earlier. With the
early warmth of Spring, he had gotten restless and bought a motorcycle and
wanted to sell the Jeep. $400 and a flatbed tow, and it was in my garage.
Then Alter Ego's replacement engine bit the dust, so I replaced it again
with one from an '86 that was in much better shape...that was an omen of
things to come. I had promised my wife that I'd buy her a car by the end
of the year, and that time was quickly approaching. I looked at the beater
Bronco that I had bought as a second vehicle with the intention of fixing
up that had been pressed into service too soon when Alter Ego's engine
died, and looked at the revamped Jeep and put the for sale sign in the
window of the Jeep. Then the trans in the Bronco went south, ensuring that
there was no turning back. When I finally got a real buyer and he handed
over the cash, I gave him a few odds and ends that I had bought and never
had a chance to use, fought back the tears, and gave my baby a parting pat
on the hard top. I had saved a few items from Alter Ego and
picked up a Dana 300 and some odds and ends. Fast forward to December of
1995 and I picked up a Dana 44 front and GM 12-bolt rear from a '72 Blazer
that was on it's way to the junk yard. Throughout this time, we were
trying to start a family and found out that we were expecting in January
of 1996. Quickly waking up and realizing that we were living in a rented
townhouse and would have a tough time getting financing for a house once
my wife wasn't working, we set about hunting for a garage with a house
attached. We closed in March, moved in in June, put the frame up on blocks
in the backyard, and became parents in July. Of course money became tight
once again. After a few more runs of bad vehicular
luck, things finally settled down and I was buying parts again. Then in
October of 1997, we applied for and received a home equity line of credit.
Shortly afterwards, I saw an ad in the jeep+willys usenet newsgroup from
someone in Chicago selling the remains of a rolled '95 Wrangler 4.0 with
920 miles on it. We settled on $2,000 for the whole shebang, and I headed
down there the next day with my buddy's cube van to collect my goodies. I
basically got everything except the hardtop, doors, body tub, steering
column, rear axle & springs, seatbelts, and frame. I drove home and
unloaded everything into the garage and decided that it was time to get
things in motion and build my new Jeep...Jeepskate. Onward to Phase
2: |
