1978 4bt Jeep Cj7

Jeep

CJ

1978

0

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Fall 2023
Summer 2023
Dana 60 restoration
Axle rebuilds
Dana 30 out
Dana 60 in
Sbc out
Sbc out
New seals
Wife not happy cleaning 4bt haha
Coat of cummins beige
Turbo turned around and stacked
4bt in
14 bolt in
New psc gear and hd mount
First drive with the wife
Finally whole again
New paint
Body back on
355 sbc/sm465/dana 300
New to me frame
Original donor vehicle

Mods

1978 jeep cj7
Fiberglass body, hood, fenders
2005 silverado HD 14 bolt rear end.
1992 dodge dana 60.
37 inch tires with hummer h2 wheels.
Nv4500 adapted to dana 300.
Cummins 4bt with factory chevy adapter.
Custom bumpers and tire rack.
Painless wiring harness.
Vintage Warn 8274 winch.
Diy 20 foot paintjob.

Build story

Started out with an atv riding the backroads around smithville and wainfleet, wanted to upgrade to a sxs to be able to ride with my wife. Decided that 30+ grand for a toy I couldnt drive on the road was a bad idea. Jeeps are better in every way. Road legal, windows, roof, heat, seats 4, bigger and more capable.

Started out with a stock 1978 304 amc v8, th400 with a quadratrac transfer case. Tore it down to the frame, discovered the frame was beyond repair. Rebuilt it with a better frame, wide track dana 30 and amc 20 axles and drive train swapped it to a 350 chevy and sm465 granny low trans.
Drove it like that for a few years with no major issues.

After 5 years with the sbc, I got tired of it being a pig on fuel and the open diffs and small tires made it useless on the trails. Winter '21 I swapped the sbc for a 4bt and installed a dana 60 and 14 bolt with lockers.

I found a 4bt cummins with a factory chevy adapter and flywheel out of a bread van. It had a water to air intercooler, got rid of that to run a grid heater. Shortened a 12 valve manifold to move the turbo. I put in a fuel pin and 3200 spring. It also had a remote oil filter cover swapped that with a normal one. Had northtown machine clean up the flywheel. Motor got all new seals. Didn't need anything rebuilt, just some leaks fixed. Stock h1c turbo was pretty laggy so I threw on an he221w. You reccomended that model turbo in your tahoe build videos and it works great.

Drives absolutely amazing. One huge perk to the 4bt is drivability offroad. The chevy v8 motor, you had to feather the clutch to get it to go on trails. The 4bt has so much low end torque that you can dump the clutch and not even touch the throttle. Can't stall it even if you try.
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