I just acquired my dad's 78 CJ7. Its one that I grew up with and now that my father got a new truck, he gave it to me. The jeep is stock 258 inline 6, still runs good. T150 tranny. Lots of rust on the body. I am afraid to sit in it thinking at any moment I may fall through the floor board. I want to occasionally take it muddin, or some light trail riding. I also want to drive it around town and show it off. Something about a jeep just looks tough. Should I look to buy a new tub or replace the rust spots with new metal. I don't want to sink a lot of money at the moment. Any thoughts on my first jeep and where I should begin to get this baby going?

We're in the same boat with my sons(17) '76 CJ7, runs great, floorboards are shot. We're replacing bad metal with new, much cheaper and we're not looking to build a show jeep. I'm a metal worker by trade so that kinda gives us an advantage we started with the rear section behind the seats. We cut everything out from the rise in the tub floor to the tail gate and replaced it 2"channel iron tub crossmembers, 1.5"x1.5" angle iron tube side supports, and floored it with 1/8" tread plate. Solid, cheap, and done in 3 days. We started on a Friday morning and finished Sunday after 3 very long days.

You can do it either way, but,,,, i was in your same shoes in 1990. i replaced the tub with an AJ's body with color in the jellcoat. Today it still looks great and I drive it every week.

I also understand the money factor, so good luck.

I think if I were you I would go cheap until you know that you deffinately want a new tub, no reason to put a new tub on something your going to beat the heck out of(look at my CJ looks aren't important but it rocks with the best of them) but if you want a real nice jeep that is capable of wheeling and looking good then you know what to do