Mambo Dave
New member
Hello - my first post here after being told what a great bunch of off-roaders you all were.
Sorry to disappoint, but this will not be the build thread of a lifetime. It won't even be impressive by anyone's standards. What it will be is a slow progression of what I feel I want and need in a daily commuter to make myself happy.
I searched high and low for a contender for a cheap every-day CJ7 commuter and wheeler, but they were just too rusted out, or too much money. What I needed was a Jeep that I didn't feel I had to climb up in to since I was wearing dress slacks, dress shoes, etc. for my job, and needed it only to let me enjoy the Florida weather while giving me an exploratory vehicle that could contend with Florida's sugar sands. I'm not into mudding anymore, so water holes don't interest me like they used to. Crawling and off-road exploring while not stressing out the vehicle too much are more my style (unless I hit the lottery 👍 ).
Had to consider YJ's. After test driving and checking out a few, I happened on one in Opa Locka, FL. (From Wikipedia: "In 2004 Opa-locka had the highest rate of violent crime for any city in the United States.[18] Calvin Godfrey of the Miami New Times said in a 2009 article that Opa-locka was 'mired in crime and sinking fast'." )
It had seen better days, for sure, and I could only laugh when, during the test drive, the owner was surprised that only the passenger's side windshield wiper worked. He said that normally it was only the driver's side that worked. I gave him a check to cash, and came back in three days. By that time what I hadn't noticed was that he had taken out the large and new Interstate battery that I test drove it with, and 'bought' it with, and had changed it out for some dinky little older battery that would fail in two month's time. Who knows what else they pulled off of it in that time... it was night time when I saw it and test drove it.
All I knew was that the brakes sucked, the tires were mis-matched and a few were bald, the wipers basically didn't work, but... from a flash-light's view the body and frame seemed OK. I was sold on what would be my
So here it is / was as of November 2013:
Craigslist ad picture.
To be continued.
Sorry to disappoint, but this will not be the build thread of a lifetime. It won't even be impressive by anyone's standards. What it will be is a slow progression of what I feel I want and need in a daily commuter to make myself happy.
I searched high and low for a contender for a cheap every-day CJ7 commuter and wheeler, but they were just too rusted out, or too much money. What I needed was a Jeep that I didn't feel I had to climb up in to since I was wearing dress slacks, dress shoes, etc. for my job, and needed it only to let me enjoy the Florida weather while giving me an exploratory vehicle that could contend with Florida's sugar sands. I'm not into mudding anymore, so water holes don't interest me like they used to. Crawling and off-road exploring while not stressing out the vehicle too much are more my style (unless I hit the lottery 👍 ).
Had to consider YJ's. After test driving and checking out a few, I happened on one in Opa Locka, FL. (From Wikipedia: "In 2004 Opa-locka had the highest rate of violent crime for any city in the United States.[18] Calvin Godfrey of the Miami New Times said in a 2009 article that Opa-locka was 'mired in crime and sinking fast'." )
It had seen better days, for sure, and I could only laugh when, during the test drive, the owner was surprised that only the passenger's side windshield wiper worked. He said that normally it was only the driver's side that worked. I gave him a check to cash, and came back in three days. By that time what I hadn't noticed was that he had taken out the large and new Interstate battery that I test drove it with, and 'bought' it with, and had changed it out for some dinky little older battery that would fail in two month's time. Who knows what else they pulled off of it in that time... it was night time when I saw it and test drove it.
All I knew was that the brakes sucked, the tires were mis-matched and a few were bald, the wipers basically didn't work, but... from a flash-light's view the body and frame seemed OK. I was sold on what would be my
So here it is / was as of November 2013:
Craigslist ad picture.
To be continued.
