I found this "Hurst" Jeepster in the summer of 04. It was about 2 blocks away from where I had just moved in. I had always liked Jeepsters because I had grown up with a 67 convertible. I saw the hood tach and where it looked to be a hood scoop and thought that someone added these on. I had never heard of a "Hurst" Jeepster. I bought it and found a ton of things that the PO had done. It was repainted, a different engine/tranny swapped in, and a sweet front bumper. It needed a lot of work.

First to go was the front bumper and the rack hanging off of the rear bumper. I had plans of doing a small lift and converting the front to discs. The thoughts of doing a small lift and a disc swap ended after I started checking out the front end. It was a super strong dana 27 with closed knuckles. The ring and pinion were shot because someone swapped a front end that had 4.27:1 gears and the rear had a 3.73:1 gear ratio. It was then that I started having visions of a sprung over, big tired, low geared rock crawler.

I was in a tight time frame, so I had to find axles fast. Luckily I found a set of scout axles, so I re-geared and rebuilt them. If I would have had more time I would have waited for a pair of dana 60s. I really wish that I would have now, but at the time I was telling myself that dana 44s were going to be ok.

The spring over was pretty straight forward in the rear. My rear leafs already had an extra leaf so I will run it until I have an issue with axle wrap. I also added a 1" extended shackle. The front has outboarded yj springs. I also decided to go with a reverse shackle setup.

I am running a set of toyo 35/13.50/15 tires with some custom backspaced wheels. The wheels are 2.5" bs. I am regretting getting 35s when I should have gone with 37s. I guess when I go to dana 60s I will get 37s.

I was going to keep the engine/tranny/tcase, which at the time I thought was stock, until I got it running and heard an exhaust leak. I tore the heads off and found some metal shavings. I also realized that the engine was rebuilt with very few miles. I kept going until I found the root of the problem, the thrust bearing on the crank. It was in bad shape and so was the crank on that one journal. I started to check into rebuilding it and when I did I found out it was a 231 odd-fire. The transmission was a t-98 and it had the stock dana 20 tcase. I decided that I wanted fuel injection anyway and more power, so the v8 swap was on.

Since I went v8, the t-98 wasn't going to work out for me. I was thinking of just finding another standard transmission, but autos are better for slow speed crawling. I was going to rebuild a c6 auto but then I decided that I wanted overdrive. I found an aod transmission that I rebuilt with heavy duty clutch packs and beafed up the overdrive. It should work out just fine.

The transfer case is a stock dana 300. It is coupled to the aod using an advanced adapters unit.

The power steering is a saginaw unit with a ford pump ( I will see how long this holds up). As of now the jeepster needs painted, and I am still trying to find an original hood scoop. I also want to get the hood tach calibrated for a v8. I have a set of fender flares and a swing away tire carrier that aren't pictured. The next thing for me to tackle will be the interior. I already have a cb radio and a nice sound system to add. I am thinking of going with all custom gauges.

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