stretch a CJ tub to fit on a wagoneer frame?

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81waggy
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stretch a CJ tub to fit on a wagoneer frame?

Post by 81waggy »

Ok, maybe i'm nuts, but I've got a pretty complete 83 wagoneer parts jeep (Title in hand) sitting in the yard up at the camp. The body is pretty well shot, but the frame, linkage, and everything else is great. 360 doesn't run but it is a qaudratrac. Paid 375 for it so the clean tail light housings and the dome light housing x2 that was packed into it pretty much cover the price. I plan on stripping the jeep down as much as possible so when someone decides to back into me I'll have doors/bumpers tail lights/etc to replace. Not to mention all the glass is there and good. When I'm done I'll pretty much have a rusted out body, and a really clean frame.

So here's the thought:

Since I'll have nothing but frame and chassis components left, I was thinking of dropping in a 350 and mate it to the 727 and quadratrac.
buy a cj tub (or a worn out cj) and stretch it to fit on the wagoneer frame, and make it something like a scrambler or cj-8...only longer.

Does anyone know if this will even work? I know I"ll need new body mounts and stretch the tub, but are the dimensions even close enough, side to side, to fit a wagoneer frame?
81 Wagoneer with a TBI 350 Vortec.
83 Wagoneer - 360 Quadratrac
69 Wagoneer - 350 Diesel trail rig
70 Wagoneer - 1414x
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tgreese
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Re: stretch a CJ tub to fit on a wagoneer frame?

Post by tgreese »

Pretty common to put the Wagoneer narrow track axles under a CJ. They stick out a few inches on each side; the rear fits with new perches but the front has to be outboarded. The main problem I see with using the CJ body is the width of the front clip. The CJ frame lines up with the width of the grille and the bottom of the front inner fenders. The floor is flat from the bottom of the firewall back to where it kicks up about 6" to form the rear floor, then flat to the rear. The CJ chassis is narrow, and is completely inside the wheel houses, front and rear.

I suppose you could do it, but the CJ has the same problem as the Wagoneer - the body rusts away much faster than the chassis. Usable tubs are much scarcer than usable rolling chassis. If you find a decent CJ to build, likely the chassis is not rusted and you may as well use it. And the repop tubs are probably way out of your price range.

Also, there already exists a stretched CJ-5 in the CJ-6. The CJ-5 wheelbase is 81" or 84" inches, and the CJ-6 is 101" or 104". The Wagoneer is 109". A Wrangler Unlimited is 116".

Lots of pictures of my CJ-6 here from the day I bought it - http://nmr.mgh.harvard.edu/~reese/ResizedJeepIPics/
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Stuka
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Re: stretch a CJ tub to fit on a wagoneer frame?

Post by Stuka »

There was one guy over on IFSJA that modded a scrambler to fit onto a Cherokee WT frame.

It worked, proportions were a bit off.
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PaulD
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Re: stretch a CJ tub to fit on a wagoneer frame?

Post by PaulD »

Interference issues between body and frame might be reduced with a body lift.
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