Project Hatari!, Part 3

The Jeep Legend Understood
While I've built up plenty of Jeeps for gnarly trails, this is the first older Jeep I've hit the dirt in that's relatively stock. Aside from the 31-inch tires and fenderwell headers, this Jeep is factory Kaiser-spec, with open diffs, 4.88 gears, a torquey 225, and good approach and departure angles. I was constantly amazed at the places the CJ would go. The suspension flexes a lot, but so does the body: so much so, in fact, that you can feel the seat frame contorting under your butt. All the chassis flex helps the tires stay on the ground, but by the end of the weekend I could see new cracks in the body tub forming. Along with the flex, the 101.5-inch wheelbase of the longer '6 makes hard obstacles easy. If you don't make it through something the first time, just back up and hit the obstacle with a little more momentum. I did high-center it once, though, requiring a tug from a tow strap to get the T-case crossmember off of a rock.

Finally, I'm convinced after driving it all weekend that the Buick 225 V-6 is the most perfect off-road engine ever created. Thanks to the 50-pound flywheel, I could lug the engine down to what seemed like 50 rpm. It got so low that you could hear the individual cylinders firing, but it wouldn't stall. There's enough torque that it won't lose momentum going up really steep stuff and enough horsepower to blast down washes and merge with freeway traffic.

The Gawk Factor
It's not every day you see a semi-stock-looking CJ-6 on the trail. It's even less often you see one with more patina than a cannon recovered from the bottom of the ocean and a seat mounted on the front bumper. Out of all the vehicles I've hit the trails with, this one is by far the crowd favorite. Besides the fact that it's low buck and it works, there are lots of little surprises when you look close. Lots of people thought the High-Tec Retread tires on BFG A/T carcasses were, in fact, BFG's new tread design. We set them straight, but it made for good comedy. Also, few could fathom how a rig that looks like a cat hairball could be outfitted with every piece of recovery gear you may need out in the trail, including a welder, spare parts, power tools, and a 10-pound Powertank.

Most of all, people dug the seat on the front. I built the mount with some trailer-hitch stock, and it comes off with the pull of the trailer-hitch pin. It has a working seatbelt and makes a killer perch for watching the action when parked. A few people actually got the reference to the movie, Hatari!, but most offered suggestions for its use, ranging from "government spotter's seat" to "mother-in-law seating." We joked about strapping Cappa on the front and running him down washes at 50 mph, but in reality it wouldn't be safe at all. The most we did was putt him around camp at 1 mph to take some photos, and even then we were afraid he'd wind up under the front tire.

What Now?
For now we're going to wheel the CJ-6 in its current state. It's just too much fun to mess up with a big engine and crazy running gear. Look for it to serve as the fodder for some early CJ Jeep tech in the coming issues. We'll be addressing the crappy Ross cam-and-lever steering, getting the engine running better, and probably even tackling some bodywork to make it a little more presentable. The T-14 tranny has no synchros left, so we'll probably do something about that as well. Stay tuned.

In the end, we accomplished what we set out to do: build a junk Jeep on a budget and have mad amounts of fun wheeling it. You can bet we'll pull a stunt like this again. I'm already talking Cappa into buying a flattie, and Trasborg is always mumbling something to himself about something. Who knows -- maybe there's a battle of the junk Jeeps brewing?

Here are our expenditures to date with all our Jeep wheelings and dealings. Call us cheaters, but we're not counting things we already had lying around, like the Premier Power Welder and Edelbrock front shocks.

Project Hatari! Part 1
Project Hatari! Part 2
Project Hatari! Part 3
Project Hatari! To the Rubicon, Part 1
Project Hatari! To the Rubicon, Part 2
Project Hatari! To the Rubicon, Part 2 - Web Extras