Some of you know I bought a red 1981 a few weeks ago. A bunch of years prior to this, I also bought a 1980 that needed a bunch of work. Over years, I had the bushings in the front end redone, put a new mono leaf in the rear, replaced all the brakes, emergency brakes and calipers and also put in a new ZZ4 and most everything in the engine bay. I also put on a new set of tire and rims (Weld Pro Stars). The problem was it still needed a bunch of body work and interior that I figured would cost at least several thousand to finish. Well the 1981 came along and it had excellent paint and interior, but needed about everything I've done to the 1980 already. I've decided to take the stuff off it to make a really nice car out of the '81.
I started today by removing the tires, calipers and emergency brakes. I forgot how much work the emergency brakes were...holy cow!! To prepare for the tires, I also had to remove the 3" ARP wheel studs from the 1980 and put the on the '81. To do so, I had to carefully cut a notch in the dust shields to make a access hole to get the studs in. After pulling the studs in, I replaced the emergency brakes and got the rotors back on. I also cleaned up the rear wheel well and everything in it and painted it with a fresh coat of black paint. It took about 5 hours to get to this point. I'm beat.
Tomorrow I hope to get the new stainless brake lines and the rear spring swapped out, put on some new bilstein shocks and finish up by putting the tires on. Ah, I guess I'd better bleed the brakes too.

I've attached a few pictures...

 

Good luck! thats a ton of work, but at least you will be familiar with it all when done!

 

Thats exactly why I eliminated the emerg brakes on my 75, plus all the cable work was frozen.......................

 

Lot's of work! You will be happy when it's finished.

 

What did you use to press out the old studs and press in the new ones?

 

Time for an update. I finally got the emergency brakes done and the rotors, calipers and stainless lines put on. I've also installed one of the new Bilstein shocks on the rear. Tomorrow I'll put on the other shock, swap the mono springs out, bleed the brakes and put on the Weld Pro Stars wrapped with BFGs.

Funny in hindsight, but I found a couple tricks that made the emergency brake install much easier. If there were much of a demand, I could probably make a couple bucks doing this.

Josh, I agree...this will surely get me very familiar with the car. I like doing my own work so this just reiterates that we all can do most anything if we have time, patience and a bit of mechanical ability.

CA-Legal, I popped the studs out with a couple swift blows of a 4 lb hammer. Seriously, that's all it took. I pulled the ARPs in using a long socket that fit over the stud, a heavy washer on top of that and a lug nut driven by a good impact wrench. I did cheat a bit by putting some anti seize on the grip part of the stud...figured it would act as a lubricator also.

All in all, the car is coming along nicely. I hope to have it put back together by this weekend. I'll get more pictures tomorrow. Until then, I must say I'm really happy with the progress.