Cheap Jeep Mod of a Different Kind: Video
One man’s race to get Jeep CJ-5 back on its feet is unlike any build we’ve covered.
Every Jeep mod story probably shares some common touch points. The typical commonalities are things like “Hey, the vehicles are meant to be customized” or “I just wanted to do something different to mine.” But every now and then, we come across a different tale.
Take, for example, the story of Austin Childs and his cheap 1973 Jeep CJ-5. He landed the Jeep in a trade for .25 caliber off-brand hand gun, as detailed in a Torque News report. Already seems like something a bit out of the norm, right?
Well, that only taps the surface of this interesting mod story. The crux of Childs’ entire build was the short window he had to buy the Jeep and fix it without his fiancé finding out he’d bought a non-running vehicle, cheap or not. As the Jeep enthusiast explains, that’s when the real fun in the project started.
First, Childs had to figure out how to pick up the Jeep from the buyer. “He lived about an hour and a half away from me and my fiancé,” Childs writes, as detailed in Torque News. “So, I convinced her to go to her mom’s house for the weekend and rented a trailer. I only had two days to drive there, get the Jeep, drive back, and get it running so my fiancé wouldn’t kill me. So, after renting a trailer and attaching it to my trusty 2000 Silverado with 314,000 miles on it, I set off.”
Back to Life
Then Childs faced the challenge of starting the CJ-5. Childs soon discovered the negative battery cable was tangled up in the Jeep’s underside.
“After a quick fluid flush, I sprayed some starting fluid in the one-barrel carburetor and turned the key… I would be lying to you if the sound of the straight six firing up on the first try didn’t almost bring tears to my eyes,” recalls Childs. “At that moment, I knew my fiancé wouldn’t kill me.”
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After reaching the clear, Childs added a few more mods to the CJ-5. Those included 15- inch black rims for $80 and a set of Mud Terrain tires for $80. The end result is a cool vintage Jeep with under $300 invested. We imagine even his fiancé would like to drive the cheap CJ-5.