I'm shopping for an older CJ to build up. I've seen many with fiberglass tubs, fenders, and hoods. What do you guys think about fiberglass bodies? Should I just stick with steel?

Depends on what you're going to do with it.

You are going to wheel it, right?

Yep, I'm going to wheel the shit out of it. From rock crawling to mud bogging, it will get used and abused. I'll probablly have to do some fender trimming as well. With that said....what do you think?

good. If you had said oh, show it and drive it around town, I would have taken great joy in deleting this post.

I'd go steel or aluminum. When you bash it, it bends. Then you can hammer it back (if you're so inclined :rolleyes: ) or you can just cut it off.

Glass will crack and shatter.

go steel and never look back

Steel

Fiberglass is for boats.

I 2nd STEEL.........unless you want to learn how much fun fiberglass is to work with "NOT".

GO steel.........la viva steel

Steel!!! cuts REAL easy with a SAWZALL:D :D

id go steel or the aluminum jp offroad is selling. i hear the whole aluminum tub is only 300 pounds and that it is stronger than the steel. aluminum is just as easy to fix as steal and it doesnt rust

If the aluminum is only 300lbs, how heavy is the steel?

You telling me that nobody knows the weight of a stock steel body tub?

i will go against the grain on this one..
I have had a glass tub on my trail rig for years... you guys talk about the ease of cutting a steel tub.. you think its harder to cut fiberglass?
how heavy do you think fiberglass is???
my jeep recently rlooed a couple times down a mountian. it would have kept going, but after the second or third time around, it got caught by a tree. as amazing as it sounds, i have fiberglassed the fenders back together (for the cost of 1 fiberglass repair kit) and the hood is fine. the tub is absolutley in remarkable shape.. a steel tub would have been totaled FOR SURE.

I'll second the glass bodys easy to fix and the fumes are better than than beer.:rasta:

Im not real sure which way to lean on this one, although, if its a wheeler, you WILL eventually do what we all have done, and you will cut it up. And something in my gut tells me a sawzall would like steel or aluminum better. If I had the 3000 that JP off road wants, I would have an aluminum body on my yj.. but its all good.. the stock tub is in decent shape :)
Scott :grinpimp:<><

I've had a glass body on my 7 for about four years now. It is a pain in the tuckus to work with, wiring is a nightmare, and it doesn't take rock or tree tags very well. But I'm in northern Maine, so the fact that it won't rust is paramount in my mind. Also the glass body was about half the price of a steel one. Pick yer poison. If you're out of the rust belt, I'd say definetly go steel and don't look back. Just for the fact that you can hammer, weld, and torch steel. Fiberglass doesn't like fire or anything more solid than jello.

As for cutting up a fiberglass tub, a friend of mine had one that he had to do some work on, and he said it chewed up sawzall blades pretty quick. I dunno. Gonna find out when I open it up to put my tailgate back in. :)

Boots

Originally posted by desertjeepin
You telling me that nobody knows the weight of a stock steel body tub?

All things being equal... The steel tub should weigh about two to three times what the aluminum tub weighs.

Density of aluminum:

~ 0.1 lbs / in^3

Density of steel:

~ 0.28 lbs / in^3

Brent

The aluminum tub is much thicker than the steel tub.

I want to know the weight of the steel tub gosh darn it!