The Jeep Wagoneer was the original  luxury 4×4, sold and produced by Jeep  from 1962 to 1991. In order to stay true to the original design we’ll bring this FSJ into the 21st century by enhancing the weak areas and upgrading the limited options on the 1988 model.

We started out with a virtually rust free Dover Gray 1988 Jeep Grand Wagoneer.  The body was in good shape and mechanically everything but the electric windows were functional.   The interor, however, was in pretty bad shape and the carpet was wet from the broken window tracks.

The anemic gas guzzling 360ci engine, transmission and transfer case were yanked out to make room for the late model 5.7L Hemi, 5-speed overdrive transmission and electronic shift transfer case.  The Hemi still had the cross hatching in the bore, but a full performance rebuild with ported and polished heads and a custom grind cam are in it’s future.

The FSJ had been repainted at some point in the past and whoever painted it masked off the woodgrain and painted around it. The trim was removed and the decals were stripped using a rubber wheel. to reveal the original paint and 30 years of door dings.   Since the repainted area was failing we decided to stripe everything that wasn’t under tube woodgrain to bare metal.

The stripped body was dollied, filled, blocked and sanded before being treated to epoxy primer and sprayable polyester filler and then blocked again.

The wet carpet had taken a toll on the front floorboards causing some surface rust.  After cleaning it up with a wire wheel there were a few pin holes that had to be welded up and a section of the passenger side floor had to be patched.  We formed up a patch panel and butt welded it in, then treated the floor with rust converter, metal glazed and epoxy primer.