Black beast CJ5 restoration and writeup

Just bought this 1980 CJ5 last week. It's in pretty rough shape. Paid $2,900 for it. The previous owner had just sank the motor in a mud pit. In the first week it's gotten 3 oil changes, new transmission fluid, transfer case fluid, front and rear differential fluid, power steering fluid, brake fluid, and every other fluid you can come up with.... headlight fluid??? 😂

It's gotten a new transmission mount, rear inner and outter axle seals and bearings, drum brake shoes and cylinders, a new brake line, and U-joints in both drive shafts.

Sometime in the past a previous owner has put a body lift in along with some new leaf springs. The body lift isn't too bad and makes it easy to work on but the springs are causing some horrible drive shafts angles and I'm turn some of the worst vibration I've ever felt. On top of that it also needs a new clutch kit. Here are some pictures of it. Hopefully this thread will help some of yall out and in turn maybe yall can help me sometimes haha. Let me know if yall have any questions.

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wayoflife said:
How tall of a lift do you think you have, what type of drive shaft are you running?
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I'm not sure on the lift size, I'm not familiar enough with the original cj5 ride height. It has 32's on it, can you take a guess from the pictures? It has a standard drive shaft, just 2 U-joints on it

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JOHNNYICE4 said:
View attachment 249587

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32's with a body lift would probably be about a 2"-3" lift. Looks like one of the leafs on the left side is sliding out, would not surprise me if the lift kit was for a pre-76 cj. The rear springs were widened 1/2" in the around then if I remember correctly. If that were the case it might be missing the axle shims that would help to correct the driveshaft angle, or some longer shackles. Or could just be worn out somewhere.
 
bigcale said:
32's with a body lift would probably be about a 2"-3" lift. Looks like one of the leafs on the left side is sliding out, would not surprise me if the lift kit was for a pre-76 cj. The rear springs were widened 1/2" in the around then if I remember correctly. If that were the case it might be missing the axle shims that would help to correct the driveshaft angle, or some longer shackles. Or could just be worn out somewhere.
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Took a look at it tonight and the problem was with the axle, the spring perch was collapsed causing the axle yoke to reach for the sky

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Fixed a lot of the vibration tonight! Both of the spring perchs in the rear were collapsed and broken so we corrected the angle and welded some bar steel in to keep it from rolling back.20170322_233215.jpg20170322_234624.jpg

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