complete late-model floor console swap

I read BIGSLVRXJ's console swap write-up a long time back, and I've been gathering up the parts to do this mod for a while too. Today I finally got all of the stuff together to finish it up, so here is my write-up from beginning to end and everything that was used.

Note that this is much easier to do when the carpet is out, but the carpet has to be in for the complete fit and finish, and some parts of it are easier when the carpet is in place (drilling holes through floorboard and carpet together, for example). IOW, it's simpler to do without carpet if you don't plan to put carpet back in, but if you have carpet or plan to have carpet then it should probably be done with the carpet installed.

First thing you have to do is swap the transmission shifter with a late-model unit. This is pretty simple, and just requires removing some bolts and popping the shifter cables loose. However I did run into two problems here. For one, the bushing post on the steering column release cable is slightly different and I had to enlarge the bushing to get it on the post--just rough it out with sandpaper around a drill bit and slather it in silicon dielectric grease to make the bushing easier to press onto the post. Second is that I had replaced the shifter handle with a ZJ handle, which has a slightly different thumb button design that was too short to engage the late-model XJ rod--I fixed that by cutting 1/4" off the ZJ rod and supergluing it to the XJ rod, which made it just long enough to reach. Here is a pic of the shifter and rod, and you can see the dark line where the rod pieces were glued together:



Next I had to fit the console to the floor in order to determine placement for the heater tubing, the rear support bracket, and the parking brake handle. I found that this was easiest to do by screwing the front of the console to the shifter brackets (this forced the HVAC tubing into place and prevented the rear from sliding around too much), then lining up the rear parts accordingly through the open console bucket in the rear. These pictures show the determined placement, with the screw holes highlighted in the first pic, and the rear pieces positioned in the second:





Everything more or less depends on the placement of the support bracket, so that is where you have to start mounting. I found it easiest to use a silver paint pen to mark the holes in the rear support bracket and then drill them out separately. At first I used some small #8 sheet metal screws to hold the bracket to the floor but that put too much pressure on it and the plastic cracked. For the second attempt I used some rubber well nuts that were pushed through the floor, with #8 machine screws holding the bracket down. This makes the bracket a bit less rigid, but it seems to work just fine and I am less worried about breaking the bracket.

Once the bracket position was determined, I fitted the parking brake handle in the holes to see what would work best, and found that the front parking brake mounting hole had the handle too far forward (part of the handle metal was exposed through the console), so I had to use the rear hole, which required some clearance trims of the bracket. Here is a picture of the first bracket and parking brake handle fitted, although later pics show how it was clearanced again after the first one broke:

As stated, the parking brake assembly is somewhat different. For one thing it is off-set to the side, which is what allows the cup holders to be there. However it is also a little bit shorter, with the forward and aft bolt holes closer together, and a third bolt hole on the drivers side. The rear bolt hole is the one I wanted to use so as to keep the handle far enough inside the console, so that was just screwed into the existing weld nut. I also drilled a hole in the floor for the side bolt, and secured it with a nut from below. This is strong enough for most things, but I decided to go ahead and beef it up by adding a third hole in the proper forward position. I did this by comparing the difference between the early- and late-model handles, cutting off the forward tab from the original, and welding it onto the late-model bracket. This is not really needed but it does provide additional strength, and has the second benefit of letting you reuse the original rubber gasket to seal up the floorboard opening. Here's a pic of the modified brake handle mounted along with the replacement rear support bracket:





Next step was to make the brake functional. After studying on the problem for a while, I decided that the simplest thing to do was to run a piece of threaded rod from the handle down to the parking brake lines. This was pretty simple to do, but did require some basic fabrication work. First, I bought a 12" piece of 1/4" threaded rod from Lowes ($2 I think), along with a small bag of four nylon lock nuts. Then I drilled a 3/8" opening into the brake handle clasp, pinched one of the lock nuts into the clasp sideways, threaded a lock nut onto the rod backwards, and then threaded the rod into the captive nut in the clasp (see pic). The pair of lock nuts provide a very secure linkage for the threaded rod, so that it will not move in and out.

However, I also encountered problems with the threads of the rod rubbing against the passageway when the brake handle was pulled--since the handle pulls the rod upwards a bit, the threads were rubbing against the opening in the bottom of the handle, which interfered with the brake action and also made a really annoying noise. In order to resolve this, I bought a 3/8" diameter 1" spacer and tack welded it inside the brake handle opening, and then slightly bent the rod so that it would curve along the path as the handle was raised and lowered. This eliminated all of the interference, and the handle works smoothly and quietly. Here's a pic showing how the threaded rod is attached to the clasp, and also showing the piece of sleeving that is used to guide the rod along the path:



Here's a picture showing the final placement of the parking brake handle as it sits in the console

The next big step is to connect the HVAC tubing to the blower outlet, so that air goes where it is supposed to. If you don't do this, neither the forward or rear cabin heat will work very well. Obviously the rear HVAC depends on the tube being connected. However, the tubing also creates pressure in the blower outlet, which forces air to come out the side openings, and without the tube the hot air will just spill out the large hole and go under the console.

The way I fixed this was to chop the large mouth off the original HVAC tube just past the bend, and cut and fold the smaller pieces back to close off the side. Then I taped everything into place and let it set up overnight:



However, even with the original piece of tube mouth there was still a gap between the blower and the HVAC tube. The way I solved that problem was to get a second piece of late-model tubing, cutting off the mouth just after it narrowed down, and then using the small piece as a bridge between the full-length tubing and the early-model blower mouth. Once everything was fitted to length, I used 3M weatherstrip and gasket adhesive to glue the HVAC tube and bridge piece together, then used GE Gasket & Seal black silicone sealant to seal the openings around the mouth and bridge pieces. This pic shows the final assembly:



Here's a pic showing the HVAC tubing installed. I used a couple of screwdrivers to lever the assembly tightly to the blower mouth so that there would be as little bleeding as possible

At this point the conversion was pretty much finished except for a couple of minor things. For one I wanted to update the transfer case shifter handle, since I did not like how the original shifter fit in the slot. I tried swapping in a ZJ handle to match the transmission shifter but the rods are just a little bit different and are not compatible (as in, cannot shift to forward positions at all). So for that I swapped in a late-model XJ transfer case handle, and it works pretty well.

While I was messing with this, I also got the wiring for the lights sorted out. Although the original wiring pigtail can reach the shifter bezels, one of them is a round connector while the other is a twist-lock, but both of the late-model bezels use the round (smooth) connectors for the 194 bulbs. I got a hold of a late-model pigtail at the junkyard with the intention of splicing it to the body harness, but I discovered that even though the connectors are different the late-model pigtail will interface with the old-style body harness fine. The late-model style uses flat pins, while the old style uses round pins, but the flat pins are small enough to go into the female round plug, so no splicing is required.

Once the lights were working, I discovered another annoyance, which is that the transmission shifter bezel has a greenish tint when the lights are on. Since the rest of the interior lighting is a dull white, this really stands out and got on my nerves very fast. Poking around a bit, I noticed that there was a sea-green strip hanging out the back of the bezel:



I started picking at it and tugging on it, but it would not come out, so I used a screwdriver to separate the white and black bezel pieces from each other (they are glued at the corners) and then was able to get the green strip out



Note that the strip actually acts as a light diffuser, and the bezel is transparent without the strip. In order to diffuse the light some, I cut a piece of printer paper to fit and slipped it inside, then superglued the assembly back together. If you still have the old-style shifter bezel, you can probably use the white diffuser strip from that to get the exact match (I'm donating mine to a Comanche project and didn't have another handy to test with).

Here's a pic showing the new bezel insert, along with the late-model transfer case shifter:



The last item on the to-do list was to close up the gap at the front of the console where it meets the lower dash. I had a serendipitous moment when I was moving stuff around in the shed and laid the old passenger seat cover on top of the console and noticed that it fit almost perfectly. Today I trimmed a little section of it off and sure enough it fits really well. There is a small gap around the sides that I will eventually fill with some kind of foam or rubber stripping, but I will do that later. Here's a pic of the trimmed piece lying over the top front lip of the console:



That more or less finishes the conversion. The console is installed and secured to the floor with well nuts, the HVAC tube works (although I may still wrap it in foam or insulating tape), the lights are close to the same so it doesn't look as badly out of place in the dark, and the gap at the front is more or less sealed off. Eventually I will take everything back out and paint all of the interior plastic trim with the same color of Krylon and will make some additional tweaks at that time, but otherwise it's done.

For those of you interested in such things, the total cost after buying all the pieces from various jeepers and junkyards was about $200 I think. It took a full day to make all of the work, or about three evenings including the time spent running around to the hardware store.

I was at the junkyard today and found a 242 shifter with white letering instead of yellow



No idea what the difference is, but the white one sure looks better paired with the whitened transmission shifter bezel

I have a 99 now and had an 88 before that. I liked the 88 interior way better. Wonder if any one is doing this but in the other direction? But I would want the whole dash, I don't think it would fit.

Looks good by the way. Shifter out of a ZJ? I like that.

Eric- have you decided what to do with the paint? I look at all the work you did, and cringe when I see what it turned into. I just had my '92 painted at the Maaco shop in Allentown, PA- I live about an hour north of there. I know there are many on this and other forums that bash Maaco, but the job and the shop are only as good as the owner wants them to be. We had my son's '95 done there three years ago, the cheapest job, and to this day is great. I had the opportunity to paint mine myself, as I'd been going to auto body classes at the local vo-tec, and they have a beautiful spray booth, but I know my limitations. So, we did the bodywork (both rockers, fabricated inner rockers, inner and outer lower quarters, as well as front end collision damage), and got it all under a good coat of primer, in the spray booth, which is what convinced me NOT to do the final paint myself. For about $400, it turned out great! I don't want to sound like a commercial for Maaco, as I've had my share of bad jobs from shops in the Philly area- none of which remained open very long. The guy in Allentown has had his shop for 20+ years, which is why I took a shot. If you'd like to see some before/afters, let me know and I'll e-mail to you, as I don't know how to post pics here.

I have no intention of doing this mod, but I always enjoy your write-ups. Thanks for posting!
Billy

ehall said:

The last item on the to-do list was to close up the gap at the front of the console where it meets the lower dash. I had a serendipitous moment when I was moving stuff around in the shed and laid the old passenger seat cover on top of the console and noticed that it fit almost perfectly. Today I trimmed a little section of it off and sure enough it fits really well. There is a small gap around the sides that I will eventually fill with some kind of foam or rubber stripping, but I will do that later. Here's a pic of the trimmed piece lying over the top front lip of the console:

Click to expand...

Follow-up note on this, I got some self-adhesive rubber insulation strips for securing campers to pickup beds and used that to seal the gap. In order to secure the cover in position, I drilled a hole through each side and then used some of the expanding push-pin plastic anchors.



It needs a minor bit of cleanup around the edges.Also there is a hair gap at the top still but I will hide that with some edge trim probably. It works pretty well considering it was originally the cover for the base of the passenger power seat.

Very nice, good job

do you need to swap the tranny shifter if you have a 5 spd??

You don't have to swap the auto shifter, so for a manual, I'd think it would be OK to leave the shifter.