The only real progress for the first year or so was collecting some spare body panels, a new tailgate, and making piles of plans.
Fast forward to this spring when I got a 98 Grand Cherokee rear axle (3.73 with positraction) for the back and a Speedway disk brake kit for the front. The summer turned into a variety of disasters, but we finally got a chance to get serious about working on it this fall.
First, we went through the underside. We find the front driver shock mount was busted off, the rear pinion was leaking like a sieve, there were visible leaks in the rear brake hard lines, the shocks that were present were done, the spring bushings were shot, and the fuel line was leaking. Nothing good here...
While we worked on cataloging all of that and swept the dead mice out of the doors, we cut all the old mounts off the new axle to prep it for installation. We ended up stripping it all the way down, painting the main axle black and the rebuilt brake parts silver.
I also got tired of using a prop rod on the hood, so I got a buddy to help me swap out the hood hinges. In the process of doing that, I discovered that the latch was all kinds of borked so we spent some time fixing that.
I didn't trust the current axle/springs because they had clearly been replaced badly before, so I went to the vehicle information kit and pulled out the pinion angle (3.5°) before welding the new perches on. I was very, very careful to get this angle right...
