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Jurassic Park Project - 94 Sahara to JP 12

48K views 106 replies 57 participants last post by  rininger85 
#1 · (Edited by Moderator)
Hello all

I recently purchased a 1994 Sahara with a few mods to turn into a Jurassic Park Jeep.
The Donor:


I'm trying to turn it into:


I bought this Jeep knowing that it has some things wrong, but it had more things right.

The good:
NO rust on the frame or body, which is surprising having lived its 20 year life in Ohio.
Correct interior color (green)
Tan Original door pouches.
Newer Spice colored top with roll bar padding.
Factory (!!) A/C

The bad:
The original owner sold the Sahara interior
Has a lift that needs removed
Have 31" General Grabber tires with chrome rims (FOR SALE) that need to be switched for BFG and aluminum OEM 15" rims
Needs a paint job from the Sahara green to the LJ1 low gloss paint
Transmission synchros dont like second or third

Whats on the plan before end of the year:
Sell the 31" tires (note, I do not know what these are actually going for, but here is the craigslist ad, if I priced these too high or you are interested, please let me know. I would like these gone sooner than later: https://cincinnati.craigslist.org/pts/4139853584.html

Also attempting to trade my new Rugged Ridge interior, the entire thing, for the Sahara interior's front seats, console and rear seat. I have a FS/FT thread on this site here: http://www.wranglerforum.com/f14/trade-your-yj-sahara-interior-for-my-brand-new-rugged-ridge-interior-everything-352290.html I'm in the Cincinnati area and willing to travel half way to swap or each person pays shipping if the distance is too far.

Transmission fluid change is scheduled this week with RedLine MT90 to hopefully help with the synchro issue.

Getting the custom license plate from the state of Kentucky "JP 14". Will have the Jeep registered this week with a temp tag.

Will remove the lift once the tires are gone.

Meeting with the paint guy sometime next week to discuss monies and timeline. Since there is no rust, dings, dents, etc, it should be (hopefully) cheap-ish to paint.

Thanks it for now. I'm looking forward to finally having my childhood dream car. I will be updating here and on the Jurassic Park Jeep forums: Redirecting to Jurassic Park Jeep Forum.
 
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#3 ·
Theres one around here but its not stock. Its more of a Jurassic park themed crawler... I like the idea of actually making it look like the one from the movie. Keep us posted on your progress!
 
#4 ·
I seen one of these rigs in Tulsa a few weekends ago. Hell I thought it was a special edition you could get back then. That's how clean it was done.

Best of luck with it. Go slow, take your time & get everything just right. It would be a big hit at local car shows & whatnot.
 
#10 ·
Thanks!The hard part for me right now is finding the interior and selling the wheels and tires. I am trying to be patient, but I'm super worried that I won't be able to find the interior.

Transmission fluid gets changed tonight to hopefully fix the synchros in 2nd and 3rd.
 
#18 · (Edited by Moderator)
Transmission fluid change

On Wednesday I pulled the Wrangler into the garage



and realized pretty quickly that I needed a 15/16" wrench. Oh course I didn't own one, so into the diesel and up to ace to buy one. :facepalm:

Got back from the store and the garage finally heated up with my portable heater. Undid the fill bolt (to make sure I could actually fill the transmission after I drained it) first and it came off without any issues. I couldn't fit the wrench on the bolt at first due to the caked mud/dirt but I got it on there without too much effort. Drain bolt took a little bit of elbow grease but it came off without too much effort.

I started to drain the fluid and forgot my camera! So I grabbed my camera and took the following shots while draining the fluid:




That does not look good...

Here is the aftermath on the pan's surface:




WTF :atomic: :censored: So much for the transmission getting "better" as the fluid warmed up, as per the previous owner...

Well, lets see if this stuff will fix it, but I have my doubts:



And it did not. Still slightly grinds going into second, and still grinds as much as before going into third. Looks like a synchro rebuild is in my future :(

Still looking for a buyer for my tires/wheels, and will be dropping the price soon.

Also still looking for a swap with my Rugged Ridge interior for the correct Sahara interior. Hoping someone here will help me out with that. :) Until next time!
 
#20 · (Edited by Moderator)
Interior swap

A few updates since I last posted.

Found someone to swap my Rugged Ridge interior with their 95 Sahara interior.


I was able to remove the front passenger seat without any issues. Bolts were a little rusted, but not too bad.


Some progress

And then the problems started

Thats a bolt stuck in my 15mm 1/2" socket, I couldn't remove it for a few hours. Time to bust out the 3/8" socket.


My gods! Another one! I was able to free this one after a few minutes and choice words. However, I had 2 bolts stuck underneath the vehicle that required someone on the upper bolt and me on the lower nut to remove. Thankfully the guy who swapped seats was able to help remove everything.

I removed the center console and noticed a CB connector?


Huh, where does that go? I did some tracing and found

And a bonus ice scrapper! :)

New interior look


Seats are a little stained, and the driver seat has a small hole, but things that can be fixed with a steam fabric cleaner (family owns a cleaning company with the good stuff) and may need to have the driver seat reupholstered at some point.

Making some progress
 
#21 ·
I also picked up the 102" whip antenna and stainless steel ball mount. The whip antenna was around $30 at the local radio shack and the stainless steel ball mount was $42 on eBay. Will wait to install those once paint is done.

I talked with a local friend of a friend to do a paint job. He wants $2,000 to paint and prep the vehicle how I want, as long as the paint isn't too expensive. I'm not sure if this is a good deal or middle of the road. I was hoping for a little more cost effective paint job since its a project jeep. I have a coworker's husband who does paint, so I may be prepping myself and letting the husband paint.

What do you think about the cost of the paint? Too much? Too little? Just right? Jeep is straight, no rust that needs to be fixed or any sort of body work that I can see.
 
#22 ·
While at the DMV I decided to change the vehicle's number from JP14 to JP12. JP12 was my original number but the license plate was taken, but the DMV lady said it just expired a few weeks prior and that it was finally released a few days before my visit. So I picked up a custom JP 12 Kentucky license plate. This helps with a more "canon" look since there was no JP14 in the movie, only the game. In addition, most of the decals and stamped licenses plates are more easily had with JP12 than JP14.

I will most likely be canon up to the Jabsco upper lights. Those are around $200-$250 a piece on eBay and I'm not sure I want to spend $800-$1000 just on overhead lights. Maybe in the future if I can find them for a good deal, but not right now.
 
#25 ·
OK, wasn't the Jurassic Park Jeeps Electric or Hybrid? You thinking about going there?

Have a friend that converted a 94 s-10 blazer to straight electric and full convertible. Great job and works great for limited trips.
 
#27 · (Edited by Moderator)
A few updates:

I changed from JP14 to JP12 to be more 'canon' since you can get more 'canon' license plates if you go with a movie number. My custom license plate from the state of Kentucky is in:



There was a guy who had it before me doing also doing a Jurassic Park project but he must have stopped because he let the license plate expire.

After the license plate, I went to the junk yard to find the 15" aluminum wheels since I was having a difficult time finding them on craigslist. $35 per later, and I got 5 decent shape wheels. Some of them needed cleaning so I went to home depot and bought some CLR to get some of the stuff off.



After cleaning:




This was by far the worst one. No amount of cleaning, scrubbing, soaking could get it completely clean. I am hoping that 4 layers of red plastidip will hide most of the imperfections. The budget does not currently allow for professional cleaning/sanding. That may come later if the budget allows or i'm not happy with the plastidip results.

Most though came out nice and clean. Along with the cleaning I scuffed up some of the service to help with the adhesion of the plastidip. I went to HD and bought 3 cans of plastidip in red (located in the paint aisle) and started coating the aluminum wheels. The first coat looked awful, second got a little better. You can see the second one closest the camera only has one coat. Its slightly pink and not well covered. The one closest the camera just had the second coat applied and is starting to look better, if a bit shiny (this goes away with drying time).





The temperature wasn't the best as the cans kept freezing. I put on 2 coats and then waited 5 days and put on another 2. Here is the final result:







I think they turned out fantastic. There is some touchups I'll need to do, but nothing super major, mainly along the inside lip that I couldn't see needed sprayed because of the lighting in the garage. Again, nothing major.

I was scheduled to have the tires installed today, but the tire shop ordered the wrong BFG version, rugged terrain instead of all terrain. At least the size was correct! The all-terrains will be here Monday and will have them installed next week.

I ordered some parts to get the few things fixed as needed. Coming in the week are new shackles to remove the 2" shackle lift; sway bar links to replace the missing ones; sway bar plate that was broken when the previous owner removed the sway bar link; new wipers, among other things.

Parts still needed include OEM door mirrors, new windshield frame as mine is damaged, custom light bar fabricated locally, front fogs and carpet. Those will be coming over the next few weeks so I can prep for paint around March/April.

Thanks for reading!
 
#32 ·
Thanks, that looks great

this will be great to see the finished product...
I'm hoping to get paint around April and then re-assembly in May (depending how long the paint guy takes)

Was thinking about doing this I got a 92 base model green with tan top and tan aftermarket seats. Do you think the body work could be done with plastic dip the strips and stuff and how much would a project like this cost like I said I just spent good money on seats and stuff so I am leaving that alone but other than that my jeep is stock
It all depends on how "canon" you want to be. If you have a great Jeep now, you would need to paint it LJ1 (sand beige metalic low gloss). At the same time you could have the painter also paint on the red stripes, or you could go plasti-dip. Someone on the jurassicparkjeep.com forums did plastidip and it doesn't look too bad. Of course it'll be the cheaper option and will not look perfect, but all it has to do is look perfect to you.

Plastidip is $5 a can and it took 3 cans to paint 5 15" wheels with 4-5 coats each. So you could do plastidip for under $100 easily.

PM me if you want to chat more.

Looks like it is coming along nicely. Lots of work but it will pay off in the end.
Thanks, its been fun to work on the Jeep and see it come along
 
#30 ·
Was thinking about doing this I got a 92 base model green with tan top and tan aftermarket seats. Do you think the body work could be done with plastic dip the strips and stuff and how much would a project like this cost like I said I just spent good money on seats and stuff so I am leaving that alone but other than that my jeep is stock
 
#33 · (Edited by Moderator)
Some work since last update. The correct tires came in so I went to a friend's dad's shop and had the tires mounted and balanced on the plasti-dipped wheels. The wheels held up 100% and look great with the new tires. I definitely recommend plasti-dip for those wanting to change their wheel color.





I had not seen the process in person and it was really interesting and not as difficult as I had thought. It does take practice and know-how to get the tires inflated and how the hunter machine works for balancing. It was really neat to watch how everything goes together. And what the dots mean on the new tires (they line up with the valve stem, because the tire was balanced at the factory and the 1 oz weight of the valve stem throws off the balance of the tire).

Now that I have new tires, i can remove the old and start on returning the YJ to stock suspension and steering. However, there was a problem I did not anticipate.

Rhino-lining is great stuff; long lasting, strong, rust proof, and annoying to remove from nuts and bolts. Guess what the previous owner did? They rhino-lined everything they could on the underside of the vehicle, and I do mean everything. In addition, they also installed a 2" shackle lift and a dual stabilizer kit. Both will need to be removed.

I didn't realize how much the PO had rhino-lined until I started removing the shackle lift. Normally removing the shack lift would not require removing the u-bolts or spring plates, but the PO did 2 things
a) broke the driver side leaf spring plate
b) rhino-lined the passenger side left spring plate's threads

This meant that the u-bolts had to come off to replace the plates. It was then that we discovered that the rhino-lining had penetrated the u-bolt and nut, which made them one solid unit. Two snapped u-bolts later, it was decided to start cutting the u-bolts to save time and frustration. I didn't have the tools necessary to cut the u-bolts (they are tough!) so we called it a week and started up the following Sunday.

I didn't have an angle grinder, so off to HF to buy their $10 version along with some cutoff discs and got to work:



After removing the passenger side first, we mounted one of the new tires and got the first look at how the tires are going to look. I was super excited at this point :D



We finished the the driver side in short order a few days later. Heres how the driver side, with a better angle, looks today



We only had a few hours to work on the Jeep, so the Jeep sits a little funny because the rear still has the 2" lift and big tires. It reminds me of the hot rods from the 20s and 30s, with big fat rear tires lifted higher than the fronts. It has not been driven this way, so there shouldn't be any issues with frame stresses due to the extreme size difference in tires and lift.



One thing that I was expecting was a few Wranglers to be in the local junkyards. I was shocked to find out that there were 3 junk yards locally that had Wranglers, but that most of them had been stripped in the 3 weeks they arrived at the yards. I need a sway bar up front to complete the front suspension stock conversion and finally found one. I will be heading there tomorrow with a friend to remove it and a few other parts.

Removal of the rear shackles and installation of the stock shackles and front sway bar should be in the next few weeks. Once those two items are done, my suspension work is finished :punk:

After the suspension work, I need to remove the front fog lights and figure out the wiring since these are aftermarket and tied to a relay directly from the battery. Also will start removing the windshield mounted mirrors that I broke the bolts on, but wont come out due to the washer/nut combo hiding behind the windshield.

I've decided to go ahead and replace the entire soft top since the current one leaks when it rains, which will be a problem when I install carpet. The uppers also look more like they are from a TJ instead of a YJ. The soft top needs to be removed for paint anyways, so this will be a good time to remove and sell it during spring time along with (hopefully) the old wheels and tires.

"Item one fifty-one on today's project list. We've got all the problems of a major jeep project and a major restoration, and the jeep's not even on its feet yet."
 
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