Door-slammer CYJ7+1 buggy

Hey guys, I've got a small update. Been trying to make some progress with some of the little stuff and it was warm enough to get the exhaust mocked up over a couple of weekends. It should do the trick. 😀 If anyone thinks something should be changed let me know before I get my buddy to tig it all up pretty for me.

Well, it's almost been a year since my last post, but I'm still alive and kicking and the buggy is still here. I have been trying furiously to finish my other overland trailer build so I can get it fully out of the garage and get back to the buggy so I can start with finish welding the chassis and suspension, work on the firewall and floorpan, and get all the wiring and plumbing done. The last few months I've been trying to get both projects mobile enough so I could move them both out for a day and get my new garage door that I waited 20 weeks to get installed. The buggy will sit about 3" higher than this at ride height but it's starting to look like something.

Well, I figured I'd better get on here and show that I haven't been sitting idle over the last 20 months. After the last pics I posted, I got the other trailer out of the garage and got the roof, external kitchen slide, chassis electrical and front storage box nearly completed. That doesn't sound like much but it took me until last October to get to that stage.

Then, like I didn't have enough to do already, I pulled my JKU in the garage from October until March doing this to it.

5.7L VVT Hemi from a 2022 Warlock and 8HP70. The goal was to replace the 3.8L so the wife and I could start using my JK to pull the trailer instead of her mildly modified JKU with the 3.6L on 35s.

Then once spring hit, I got the trailer back out onto the driveway to try and get it finished, but still not quite there as of today. I didn't think to take any pics before putting it back in storage, but in addition to what you see, the diesel tank is mounted on the lower section of the rack under the box, which holds the external shower. Trying to incorporate some luxury here. LOL. The electrical in the first pic is mostly completed, and there is a 1000W inverter in the trailer behind the smaller compartment door.

So, that takes us to today. The plans are to get back on the buggy now that I have the other side of the garage open to provide some much needed room. I have a few tweaks to make to the exhaust, then I have to get serious about figuring out the firewall, trans tunnel and floor pan. These three things have been the bane of my existence for many years, as I just can't quite get things to fall in place in my head. Luckily, one of my co-workers is a major muscle/custom car builder, and has a much easier time than I do with that, and he's going to give me a hand at some point. With any luck, I would like to drive this thing out of the garage come May. It's been far too long that I've been working on this, and the time is now before I get too old to enjoy it. LOL. Sadly, the majority of the people I used to wheel with at the beginning of this project aren't really doing much anymore. If they are, it's more so with smaller rigs and more on the overlanding side, hence the mods to my JKU. Anyhow, I'll try to keep fresh updates coming from here on through. Thanks to all of you that continued to follow the build and give me some words of encouragement when I was starting to falter. I'm hoping that I can plan to wheel it with some of you at some point when I make a trek down to Moab or somewhere else in the area when this build becomes reality.