HELP! 95 xj with bad rust and rot

whats up i got this 95 xj sport 4x4 5 speed for $600 a few months ago it has 220xxx miles on it. i need some expert advise on what to do about my floors and frame rails i will put up some pics. i would be thankful for any help i can get.

It's got rot but it may be fixable. I am putting new front floors in my XJ right now. I also have to do some patchwork arounf the fuel filler too.

The first question is can you weld thin metal or have a friends who can? If you have that, you can fix what you have as long as the unibody frame rails are okay. It looks like the top edges of the pass side are gone but they could be added back. Also if the rails are a little thin, consider adding some unibody stiffners like HD Off Road Engineering sells.

Floor pans are available, either the whole units front and rear or just individual pans. Raybuck has the best OEM style pans I have seen for replacement units. It will take all four to repair the front. Complete front and rear floors are available through discountjeepparts.com. They aren't cheap after paying shipping but the are OEM parts so they fit great.

Cut out the old rusty areas. Treat with a rust preventer like Rust Mort. Then prepare the area with a weld-thru primer and coat everything the best you can to prevent the rust from reoccuring. Install the new floors and then coat them to prevent rust. That's my plan. So far just the floors have been removed, similar to what you have done so far. I bought the OEM front floor and will be trimming the sides off. That will give me full new floors on both sides, pass and driver, front to back.

Good luck!

This was a long island jeep? Damn I was going to go down there to try to buy a non-rusty DD XJ... How far south/west do you have to go to get a used car that isn't swiss cheese? Texas?

i love these rust threads, it gives me a view of how the unibody structure is spot welded together, due to certain peices being systematically removed for you.

welcome to the site, and good luck with your project, your gonna need it!

oh jesus.

That's worse than mine (I hope), and I just spent multiple days cutting out and repairing this kind of mess. Having done it once, I would probably not do it again, not on an XJ. Find yourself a good southern XJ with no rust and a dead drivetrain, pick it up for cheap, swap the drivetrain from your rust monster into the non-rusty carcass and junk what's left over.

Those frame rails are dangerously rusted, you will need to either fully sleeve them with rectangular tubing (I used 3x6 3/16" and it worked pretty well, only did 3 feet of the rear end of the right frame rail though) or simply junk the vehicle.

Also, you need to fix your exhaust - it looks like those pipes are way too small, and they're not supposed to be hose clamped to the tranny crossmember. Get a new OEM downpipe and a Dynomax catback kit with the 75 dollar mail in rebate they're doing, throw it on, and it should both perform and sound better.

n1ywb, long island is just as bad as the northeast if not worse, they have the added problem of salt air and people driving on the beaches :roflmao: I'd say to aim for no further north than the center of pennsylvania personally. I've even seen some scary rusted jeeps from virginia before, gradon parted a 96 out recently that was far worse than mine OR jeepdriver19's.

i hate to say it, but you seriously overpaid. =\

My previous addiction included restoring Mustangs and based on my experiences with them-- yes, it's fixable. The parts are available and the rest of the task is nothing more than time and effort.

With that being said, I think it would be foolish to spend $1000.00 on materials to repair a vehicle the won't be worth much more than what you've got into it after you're done. I agree that with 2.8 million XJs in the world, you'd be dollars-to-doughnuts ahead finding a solid carcass (Richmond, VA and South seem to be relatively safe) and transfer the best parts of each into one decent body.

thanks for all the info my buddy has a MIG welder so im gunna go ahead and stiffen her up. and it was a new jersey jeep

n1ywb said:

This was a long island jeep? Damn I was going to go down there to try to buy a non-rusty DD XJ... How far south/west do you have to go to get a used car that isn't swiss cheese? Texas?

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New mexico has an anal load of xjs that are mainly surface rust, the hispanics loved them to tote people across, and they kinda got distributed across the southern area down here. cheap too.