Surgery Begins

After test driving the Jeep, it was time to begin the tear down. The first thing to remove was the hood, which was only secured by a few bolts.

Step 1 was to remove the hood.

The doors were a little harder to remove, they had become fairly rusted at the hinges and needed to be pounded out with a hammer.

The doors lift upwards out of the hinges,

Next I removed the grill and the radiator as one unit.

The fenders were harder to remove because there were many bolts securing them to the main tub, most which were hard to access without first removing the various engine bay components surrounding the engine.

Nothing like a nice cold beer to help stay hydrated.

In order to gain access to the transmission and transfer case, I needed to remove a large plate from under the Jeep. The bolts securing this plate to the frame were large and extremely rusted, so Dave used a hot wrench (basically just a blow torch) to heat up the bolts, which allowed me to use a breaker bar to break them loose. Then I used an impact wrench (like an air powered drill) to unscrew the bolts the rest of the way.

When I was able to reach the transmission, I unbolted it from the frame which allowed me to disconnect the front and rear drive shafts. Unfortunately, Dave didn't warn me that the transfer case would be full of gear fluid, and when I pulled the driveshaft out of the t-case I watched as fluid poored all over my chest... good times.

The engine is much more accessible without the grill or fenders in the way.

The pile of removed parts is constantly growing.