The day the body arrived was a pretty exciting day, since it was the first time in over a year that the Jeep actually looked like a Jeep! I found that it was cheaper to have a local 4x4 shop order the body and pick it up at their shop, about 2 miles from the garage I am working in, than to order it directly from the factory and have it shipped to me. The body I am using is from Four Wheel Drive Hardware in Columbiana, Ohio and seems to be well made. I visited their showroom and looked at their body compared to a couple competitors they also had on display. I thought it was cool that they displayed other manufacturers bodies so you could compare the quality, but they didn't have an AJ's body to look at, and they were the only other manufacturer I'd considered.


Four Wheel Drive Hardware includes a video with their bodies that is supposed to show how to do the project. I do recommend the video, since it will illustrate the solutions to problems you might run into, but I don't recommend following the directions in the video too closely. The method shown in the video of aligning the body on the frame did not work at all. The video showed measuring from the outside of each frame rail to the outside of the body tub and centering so both sides measured the same. I tried this and the fenders, hood, and grill didn't line up at all. Also, with this alignment the right front tire stuck out about an inch or so more than the left.

After wasting a lot of time trying to align everything I decided to try a different approach. I measured and marked the exact center of the rear cross member and the back of the body tub, then ran a string from the center of the rear cross member to the grill body mount, which is the exact center of the front cross member. With the rear of the body centered with the rear of the frame, I measured from the fender mounting points on the front of the body tub to the string and centered the front of the tub with it. With the body aligned using this method the measurements from the frame rail to the outside of the body are about 1 inch off at the front body mount from one side to the other, however the fenders, grill, and hood all align correctly and the tires sit out the same distance on both sides. I´m guessing that the frame rails are not exactly symetrical to allow more room for the transfer case or something. In any case, everything fit much better using my centerline method.




With the body centered from side to side where I wanted it, I marked the body location at the front by drawing a line across where the body sits on the front mounts. This way if anything moves while I am working on cutting the body mounting rubber and drilling the holes for the mounting bolts I will notice and be able to correct it quickly.


Mounting the grill to the fenders was also a challenge. The video showed the installation of a fiberglass grill, and I am using the factory one, which is too heavy and awkward to just hold in place and mark the hole locations like the video showed. Fortunately I still had the old fenders to use as a reference and was able to mark the location of the top hole in each fender by measuring its location on the old ones. With one correctly placed bolt in each side it is much easier to handle everything and mark the rest of the holes.


As you can see in the picture to the above, the grill is sitting too high above the frame. The video suggested using 4 2-inch body mounts to start with, and it looks like this was wrong too. The next update will include figuring out the correct height to cut the body mounts.