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Thatxjguy's 1999 Jeep Cherokee Build 'Hole in the Pocket'

Today, I picked up a brand new 1998 Jeep Grand Cherokee (ZJ) tie rod assembly for a V8 model.

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The ZJ tie rod is a direct bolt-on mod for the XJ that replaces the pathetic rolled sheet metal tie rod. It's also a much beefier solid steel tie rod, which is great for over-sized tires:

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Got the dinky little XJ tie rod out today:

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ZJ one installed:

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It has the new adjustment sleeve:

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The steering is noticeably stiffer, and when I hit bumps, the wheel doesn't move. It was a GREAT upgrade for the oversized tires for the price.
 
Previous owner of my Jeep tried to kill me today!

After installing my ZJ tie rod, I decided to go and get a professional alignment. Everything went well... until the manager test drove my Jeep.

When that happened, the steering gave out. The manager called a wrecker and and got my Jeep towed back to the alignment shop. Luckily, he was only going 5 MPH when the steering gave out. It could have been me driving the Jeep when it went out, and I could have been going highway speeds – I'd have been done for.

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Anyway... it turns out that the previous owner rigged my steering intermediate shaft in such a half-assed way that it just came un-done. You can visibly see the wear and tear from the bolt not being seated high enough to fit into the notch:

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The rust also goes so far up the splines that you can tell the sleeve that goes over it wasn't seated all the way over it. In fact, it wouldn't even reach:

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Holy crap, that's scary! Good thing no one was hurt.

A good friend of mine just had a caliper fall off (completely!) on his 4 Runner which caused a complete loss of brakes. The shop that did the brakes didn't tighten the bolts after doing a pad slap. He had just gotten off the highway as well but thankfully was able to slam it into park.
 
Holy crap, that's scary! Good thing no one was hurt.

A good friend of mine just had a caliper fall off (completely!) on his 4 Runner which caused a complete loss of brakes. The shop that did the brakes didn't tighten the bolts after doing a pad slap. He had just gotten off the highway as well but thankfully was able to slam it into park.

Yeah, it was a real eye opener. It makes me anxious even driving it anymore.
 
After having found out that the mechanic that took the Jeep for a test drive and broke the steering had broken the clock spring too, the shop was happy to buy a new one and install that for free. So now that's in.

Today, I fixed the fact that the rear view mirror fell off. Easy fix.

And I also installed a Putco H4 wiring harness for the headlights.

Putco harness came today:

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I'm not using halogen headlights, I'm using LED, so I have no idea if I'll even see a brightness difference. Fortunately, everything does work correctly. I'll see tonight if it actually makes a brightness difference.

On the other hand, although it's a crap shoot, I only paid $2 for the harness. I used all my Discover card cash rewards haha.

Lots of people on CherokeeForum like the upgrade, and I figured I'd give it a shot.
 
Tested out tonight and the Putco harness didn't really do much for the brightness of the trucklite LEDs. On the other hand, it's still good that it takes some strain off of the light switch, so I guess I'll keep it for that benefit.
 
Don't need the PUTCO when using the TruckLites. They are low current flow. That is one of the advantages of using the TruckLites. Sometimes water and bad relays plague the PUTCO.
 
Got a 12-inch LED light bar installed on my bumper tonight:

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This bad boy puts out over 5000 lumens, and it outshines my TruckLite LED headlights. I love it.
 
Finally got to that engine heat issue.

Since it was getting really bad with the engine getting hot while idling, I decided to investigate. I took off the cap of my radiator and found that there was a lot of green muddy buildup in there:

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I had already bought a new thermostat for the Jeep, because the one that was in there already was staying stuck open:

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After taking off the thermostat housing from the front of the engine, I tugged on the old thermostat, which was stuck open, and the whole thing just BROKE. Yeah, I think it was definitely in need of replacing:

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It was pretty nasty in there:

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I cleaned up the gasket area real well on both the thermostat housing and the engine head before applying a little permatex to the gasket and re-applying. Then I tightened in the new thermostat.

Now one more thing... with the thermostat replaced, and the obvious need to get all that crud out of my engine and radiator, it was time for a full flush and engine cleaning. To help with this, I installed a T connection in the top coolant line to make it all easier:

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I then emptied the coolant system and filled it up with a mixture of water and oxalic acid to eat away at the crud. I ran the engine at 1500 rpms for 2 hours straight with this solution, and then drained it and added water and sodium carbonate and ran the engine for 10 minutes to neutralize the acid. Then, I flushed one more time and added all new coolant and water to finalize the process.

The Jeep is now operating at 190 degrees with a very nice idle.
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I like that routing and will probably do the same thing if I ever mount a bar up top. That's slick.
 
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