SCRAMBLED (eggs) 1981 CJ8 revival

It’s been awhile, I logged in to post about a trip I just took and was struggling with where to post it. So I figured I’d play catch up and make a build thread of sorts so I can post it here.

For a little back story. I’m in the process of building a Goat Built LJ chassis, here is as it sits June 2025: that I’ve completely stalled out on. All along it was supposed to be a fun project so if it’s not fun I haven’t worked on it, all of a sudden it’s turned into a 4 year project. I finally have figured out I’m going to have to buckle down and endure some stuff I don’t enjoy so I can show some progress. 115” wheel base, 6.0/4l80/3.8 atlas. Trailing are rear with 3 link front. ORI’s all the way around. Sitting on 43” stickies and have a set of 40” DOT tires for wheeling/road trips. Sold my CJ7 crawler:
fall 2021 just after the chassis kit arrived to free that was basically point and shoot shortly after the chassis kit arrived to free up cash. The following summer, 2023, was missing wheeling and ran across a good driver wheeler TJ that was stretched to LJ length. Picked that jeep up near Denver and wheeled it before coming home, had a great time. Was LS swapped, 44 front 9” rear nv4500 on 37’s. Drove/wheeled that jeep for almost two years then sold it this spring. Shortly after it sold this scrambler popped up on marketplace a few days later. Looked like a good fill in rig to use until my chassis was done.

Picked up a 1981 CJ8 this spring out of South Dakota. TBI 350/TH350/D300 with 60 with an ARB and 14 bolt with a Detroit. Had a set of 39” red labels and H2 wheels. When I bought it it needed the transmission rebuilt. Came to an agreement with the seller mid February when he posted it on FB and sent a deposit. Made the trip up there roughly a month later in March from NE Oklahoma while my kids were on spring break to make a little vacation out of it and see some sights we had never seen before. Pictures from the markeplace ad:

Did all the touristy stuff on our trip after the scrambler. Had to visit Mount Rushmore as we were only about 30 minutes away when we picked up the jeep. Turns out Mount Rushmore isn’t a super popular spring break destination. Which I enjoyed since I don’t like people 😂! Checked out the badlands and a few other roadside attractions.

The jeep came with allegedly good TH350 so I yanked the bad one out that only had reverse and realized at that point the output shaft had been swapped to adapt for the D300. I dove into the bad one to look at what I needed with plans to rebuild myself. Found lots of carnage. Have a local transmission guy that I would consider a friend. He was willing to help me take a look at it and tell me what parts I needed plus was going to supply the parts. Went and saw him, in the end I decided to just leave it with him vs trying to save a couple hundred dollars. Ended up having to rob the pump out of the other trans as the original one was trashed. Forward clutches were toast as well.

After dropping the transmission off I got started on installing the well worn suspension seats I bought off marketplace. Used some of the original mounts they had built and made some new.


From there added a few cage tie ins. Went back later on the front and added two more on each side to brace it up.




The jeep had a lean to it when I picked it up. Could tell the front leafs were bent. So swapped a set of rubicon express SOA springs on that I had leftover from another jeep a few years ago.


But even after the “new” fronts it still had a lean.

After the springs started on figuring out the positioning of the gated B&M shifter I bought. Similar to the art carr I ran on my 7 and have set aside for my chassis but was able to get it off amazon as an open box for quite a bit less. Whipped up a mount/cupholder setup to tie it all together.

The transmission was done at this point so it was time to stab it back in.

One of the mufflers had rotted off so I bought some exhaust tubing and mufflers off Amazon. The jeep sounds amazing!

After that started cleaning up wiring and checking wear parts. Was greasing u joints and tie rod ends and found all the ends were smoked. Found a blown out sector shaft that was replaced as well. Jeep appears to have a homebrew hydro assist on it. It works well, better than the pull PSC kit that was on the stretched LJ.
While waiting on steering parts went in and resealed the front and rear diffs, Transfercase, and replaced the driver side wheel bearings and lockout. Funny thing is passenger side is a 35 spline setup. Driver side is still the factory 30 spline setup.


Gearing up for the King of the Offroad with all the rain in the forecast I knew I would need a winch and some sort of cab enclosure. Have four 8274’s on the shelf, every single one didn’t work. All solenoid issues. Mounted the one that was already in a cradle and ordered a 500 amp contactor to convert it from the solenoid setup. Only had to use the winch once, on the trip but it worked great for that one time! Ended up using a wind hammer with a bikini top and a set of two piece soft doors to try to keep most of the weather out. Wasn’t perfect, but kept us pretty dry. At this point we are just three days from needing to leave for our trip. So I’m rushing around to say the least. Mounted a toolbox in the bed to put all my tools in to keep them dry. Made mounts for the cooler and gas can so I could strap them down. Also made a makeshift tire carrier that slid into the receiver so I could carry a spare and not have to waste bed space.

So now leading into the King of the Offroad. It was a three day, three Offroad parks, and three hundred mile ultimate adventure event that when I saw mention of it almost 6 months ago I knew I had to go.

Last Thursday was having a hard time deciding on tires. Wanted to run the reds but without beadlocks I wasn’t as crazy about not being able to air down as much. Thought about switching them over to a set of beadlocks but just didn’t have enough time. I ended up throwing the racelines and 40” DOT Nittos on that I’ve had set aside for my goat built chassis. Loaded it all down with tools, fuel, a tent cot, food, and a few extra parts. Shut up shop around 11pm Thursday night. Left the following morning, Friday, at 5 AM, was raining when my son and I left the house. Jeep was doing well on the highway. Pretty stable at 65mph. Everything went smooth for the first hour.

My son and I just got back from spending the weekend participating in an event we had marked on our calendar when we heard about it nearly six months ago. Ultimate adventure style event, wheel your vehicle then drive it to the next park. King Of The Off Road. Camp Gruber ORV Park in Braggs Oklahoma, then Twin Mountains in Quinton Oklahoma, and for the last day Cross Bar Ranch in Davis Oklahoma.

Their description was “Three Days. Three Hundred Miles. Three Off-Road Parks.” We added a few more numbered items to our own list. Three fuel pumps. Five O’Reilly’s visits. Five fuel filters and one belt tensioner. Bought the scrambler this spring out of South Dakota. Kept putting off finishing up the details on it until the last minute. I knew I should have shook it down but just didnt work out with weather and free time. It was roughly 100 miles from my house to Gruber so when I pulled in there I had roughly 101 miles on the scrambler, which that extra mile was from driving it in the yard, haha!

Originally planned on trailering to Gruber then having my dad chase us with the trailer in case we had issues, but he had foot surgery the first morning so we decided to drive it to the first spot. (He ended up picking us up with the trailer in Davis considering it was almost a 4 hour drive home. It sure was nice to have cruise control and being able to carry on a conversation!). Lost the tensioner pulley about an hour down the road. At that point we were 20 miles from the closest auto parts store. I actually had a new one that came with the jeep the guy gave me. I saw it in the box and wasn’t sure why it was in there as I had the belt off at one point and checked the pulley, seemed fine. Apparently the seller knew something I didn’t, 😂. My wife had to get out of bed (we left the house at 5 am to allow more than enough time, or so we thought, to make it to Gruber by 8:30. Was a 2 hour drive. She delivered us the tensioner assembly. Also in that box was a water pump, told her to bring that as well because apparently I missed the mark on the tensioner. Put it back together and limped it to oreillys as it was already surging before we lost the tensioner, I was guessing thermal issues with the pump. Pulled the pre filter, post filter and pump. That oreillys didn’t have the pump but had the filters. The closest pump was 20 miles down the road. Once back together it was running really good. The pre filter was plugged up. The tank that was in it was new but had sat half full for several years. I had siphoned all the rancid fuel out and refilled with fresh fuel and a can of seafoam. Guessing the roll half of the tank was crusty and being full all that started breaking loose.

Made it to the next oreillys to get the pump and one more filter, jeep was running great…..at that point didn’t think I needed the pump. Went on to Gruber and started running the trails. Started surging again. When pulling the pump the fuel from the filter looked like chocolate milk. Cleaned the filter and fresh pump was back in business for 5 minutes. Then back under the jeep to pull filter and clean. Had to do that almost every five minutes of run time. Had the idea to go get a quick connect filter and run it to the fenderwell so I didn’t have to climb under the jeep and undo hose clamps as often. Setup that bandaid and headed towards the second park. Had to stop every so often to clean the filter and let the pump cool off. All the debris in the filter was starving the pump for fuel. Made it to the next park after stopping half a dozen times. Let it cool off and setup camp. A few guys I knew swung by and said they were going to find a swimming hole. We followed. Issues were even worse on the trail without the air flow from road speeds it was only wanting to run for a minute or two. Finally made it back to camp. Found that 20 miles down the road they had a pump in stock. Woke up the next morning and crossed our fingers it would make it. Drove straight there without incident, cooling off overnight helped it out. Was able to warranty the pump and added another fresh filter. At this point the filter fuel was looking a lot better. From here on the jeep pretty well worked flawlessly outside of blowing one transmission cooler line off the second day at twin mountains. Tightened it back up and topped off with fluid. Didn’t have to work on the jeep at all of the last day.

It rained everyday, about the time we would dry out it would rain again. To quote Forest Gump on that subject “We been through every kind of rain there is. Little bitty stingin' rain... and big ol' fat rain. Rain that flew in sideways. And sometimes rain even seemed to come straight up from underneath.”

Even with all the issues we had it was an absolute blast. I think if it had been easy, finishing wouldn’t have been nearly as sweet. I told my wife the first night I felt like the smart thing to do would be head home versus continuing to beat my head against the wall with the same end result. Fortunately I’m too dumb to quit so the next oreillys trip for the third fuel pump was a “third times a charm” type of deal. From that point on things started looking up and made all the trouble worth it.

The icing on the cake was the grand prize they raffled off my son was holding the ticket as they called the number, I wish I had been filming because the look on his face was absolutely priceless. Something I’ll cherish from now on. Truly made memories this weekend that will last a lifetime. Along with making a few new friends!

That being said I plan on taking the goat built chassis on this adventure next year. This trip was the motovation I needed to finish up that project. But I think I’ll wait till the day before to finish it. The uncertainly of every mile made this trip that much more exciting!!!

Twin mountains pictures

Third and final day at crossbar. I have some good videos too, just need to figure out how to upload them. Probably spent an hour with the power washer trying to get all the mud out of the jeep when I got home.

Awesome write-up.

BustedCrank said:

Awesome write-up.

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Thanks!