Dominic Barnes has a deep-seated love of 4WDing and an equal passion for the original military/civilian offroader, the Jeep. With the help of friends and family, he has created Simple Green, a tough track and offroad-only Jeep. Dom takes up the story:

“After wheeling the life out of a very well-built yellow CJ5 that had been purchased from Wellington, and realising it was becoming very tired, the concept was born of a very basic, simple early Jeep that could be taken anywhere and not fussed over, that was easy to maintain and repair with off the shelf parts.

Back in 2013, a ratty, rusty rolling Jeep Wrangler “YJ” was purchased off TradeMe, sight unseen. A five-hour road trip was made to rural Gisborne from the Waikato to collect the Jeep and a family project for the Barnes boys began.

The old yellow CJ5 was duly sold and the proceeds put into purchasing the initial pile of parts ex USA to get the YJ build started.

A complete (but in a million bits) very rusty Jeep J20 truck was purchased for $400 from Hāwera (another long road trip with the trailer) as the donor for the drive train having a Small Block Chevy, T18 four-speed manual and NP208 box.

The Dana 44 and 60 diffs would see a full overhaul with fresh bearings, ball joints and brakes, a Detroit Locker was fitted by Stevie Whitton at Four Wheel Drive Fibreglass and 12yr old Dale put in much of the donkey work stripping the old paint and rust and getting them ready for rebuilding.

The 350 Chevy was stripped and sent to Cambridge Engine Machinists where the block got a good going-over and prepped for assembly at home with a multitude of good quality no nonsense parts by then 17-year-old Liam and myself in the home garage.

In its previous life the YJ we purchased from rural Gisborne had been the stunt Jeep in the movie Evil Dead 2013 which was filmed in Woodhill Forest and as such the suspension was welded solid to the chassis and various bits of plate and box section were hacked into place to facilitate the Jeep being rolled over on a jig onto the zombie in the movie.

All of this was cleaned up and ground flat and after many hours between the Barnes boys a clean, tidy Wrangler chassis was ready to receive some serious mods courtesy of Motobilt USA.

A front bumper and suspension stretch kit, a shackle reversal and a rear bumper and stretch kit, plus a roll cage kit and custom mounts were all fabricated and welded into place along with a DIY beadlock kit onto the 17x9 steel wheels by Liam in the home garage.

While all this was happening, Dad was busy prepping the body tub, smoothing out various dings and dents, scraping off the movie effect “spray-zon mud” and comp cutting the rear quarters to allow the accommodation of the stretch and large tyres.

The build had originally called for a set of 37inch Super Swamper SX2s but with that particular size being out of stock the order was upgraded to 40s.

This particular “upgrade” would lead to a chain effect of upgrades in the near future.

In between fabrication work on the chassis Liam also found time to replace rusty floor pans in the body tub, scratch build an incredible set of tube fenders (his second set having built himself a set for his CJ6 when he was sixteen) and weld in panels to tidy up Dad’s comp cut on the rear corners.

By now things were starting to come together, a trial fit of everything was done with the Barnes boys working together to get everything assembled.

The freshly assembled motor and box was lifted in, the body tub was lifted into place and everything test fit and a set of Autometer gauges connected in the flat CJ-style dash.

After nearly two and a half years of hard work in the home workshop the YJ moved under its own power and was put through its paces on the 4x4 tracks at our Te Miro property.

A few mods were made with the stock engine mounts getting torn apart by the torque of the Chevy on one of its first spirited drives – no sweat to Liam, who promptly designed and fabricated a proper bushed set of mounts.

From there everything was stripped down, cleaned, polished and painted. Raptor liner was applied in and under the body tub, paint colour was chosen after getting inspiration from Dales Kawasaki dirt bike and somehow the name “Simple Green” was coined.

The paint job was again done at home in the driveway, as was the wiring and the plumbing.

A new “old” Jeep was born.

Over the next year or two Simple Green saw many outings with our club – “Cozzie Four Wheelers” going to Thompson’s Track, Woodhill, Go-Bush, Piropiro and various club days to name a few. A long day with a large club group at Porters Road saw a rollover in the dark around midnight whilst towing out a broken XJ Cherokee. Simple Green was promptly winched back onto his wheels and carried on with barely a scratch – testament to the strength of Liam’s Tube fenders and roll cage.

Slowly the upgrade to 40” tyres started to cause problems and a series of smashed U-Joints and broken axles proved that 40s, a healthy V8 and a manual box