Regretfully looking for opinions

If you haven't already done so you need to start soaking all your fasteners with either Kroil or 50/50 Acetone/ATF.

You have a rough path ahead of you. Do what you can to make it easier.

OUCH!! Not trying to be a downer here, but I would have to say ... I no longer try to cure that kind of cancer. My first car was a '67 VW beetle that had cancer almost as bad as yours. I spent countless hours grinding away the rust and repairing it, only for the rust to show up again several years later. I learned my lesson from that, and whenever I buy a car now, I crawl all over it looking for rust.

I've had my XJ for more than 12 years, and plan to keep it forever, so I just wouldn't want to start with such a massive amount of cancer. You also need to consider that if you weld in entire replacement panels, the unibody "frame" might not be in a completely aligned position during welding, which would create tracking/alignment problems.

Sorry about that, but I agree with old_man. I'd look for a decent body and combine the two vehicles.

OK here's the deal with the lug nuts.

Those look to be the factory ones which are stainless capped; it looks like your caps have gone missing over time (very common.) I HATE those things! Chrysler used them on everything. What would happen is the cap would start to spin on the lug nut and eventually you'd have to beat the socket on then the cap would come off with the socket. Alternately you couldn't get a socket on at all and you'd have to "peel" the stainless off, there's plenty of ways to **** this up and only one way I've found to do it right. I take a worn out flat blade screwdriver and a BFH and punch a hole in the end of the cap and then use it like a chisel to get it loose.

THEN - and this is the important thing - you need to use a socket ONE SIZE SMALLER than intended, in your case this would be 3/4" so use a 11/16" or 18mm whichever fits better. Otherwise you round it off and hate your life. I see you ended up using a turbo socket on one that is probably because in the past some idiot used a 19mm or 3/4" socket (they're essentially the same size, within .05mm, so interchanging them is not a big sin) and munged it all up.

On mine whenever any of the caps get loose I replace them immediately with McGard 64010 chrome plated ones. Reason I do this is I feel the closed end protects the wheel studs from corrosion better than open end lug nuts like the ones used with hubcaps, or what yours have become.

I know this sounds anal retentive but I did grow up in western PA so I'm pretty sensitive to rust making things hard to work on, but it looks like you are too!

Good luck...

All the caps slipped off with not much trouble. I then drove a smaller socket on and removed 2 and rounded then snapped 2 off at the threads... i snapped the nut remover and beat up a cold chisel getting the half nuts from the remover. Need a trip to the store now for a new narrow chisel to split what remains holding the wheel on. Thats the only way i see of getting the wheel off at this point.
No one to blame, for the munged nuts, but myself unfortunately!
Gotta pay to go to school.

These types of nuts should be illegal to install at the factory, they all inevitably fail. Ive replaced all of them on my dd (F150).

montanaman said:

OUCH!! Not trying to be a downer here, but I would have to say ... I no longer try to cure that kind of cancer. My first car was a '67 VW beetle that had cancer almost as bad as yours. I spent countless hours grinding away the rust and repairing it, only for the rust to show up again several years later. I learned my lesson from that, and whenever I buy a car now, I crawl all over it looking for rust.

I've had my XJ for more than 12 years, and plan to keep it forever, so I just wouldn't want to start with such a massive amount of cancer. You also need to consider that if you weld in entire replacement panels, the unibody "frame" might not be in a completely aligned position during welding, which would create tracking/alignment problems.

Sorry about that, but I agree with old_man. I'd look for a decent body and combine the two vehicles.

Click to expand...

I too agree with everything you guys are saying. Chances are I would have just bought a quad if I havent been holding on to this jeep for all these years. Call me stubborn but im going to whittle away at it and see whats left at the end. Might be a set of stiffeners for sale when its all said and done!

This is a slow work in progress, wont be setting any speed records with this tear down.

Appreciate all the feed back folks!

Remember to get your tetanus shot before you start.:jester:

After working on my old K5 that was a rust bucket, I learned one thing......It's a lot easier and cheaper to not try and fix it. I applaud your want to fix it, but with unibodys and that amount of rust you're never going to get it 100% let alone 50%. I suggest chopping it all and making a juggy if you really want to do anything with it.

Yes for sure i hear ya... my goal isnt to achieve a rust free rig but to mend it well enough so it doesnt taco on while out drowning some worms.
Ive got the time to mess with it and its a good learning experience for me incase i ever come across one in good shape down the road.

When ive actually completed something noteworthy ill post some pics. Just bought a sled last week so the xj is on the back burner for now.

Appreciate the feed back!

Sent from my SM-G930W8 using Tapatalk

I restored muscle cars for years and definitely tackled jobs like this but I also had them attached to a frame rack to ensure everything is in alignment when cutting and replacing stuff. If it's trail only I'd think about adding a cage if you don't replace the sub structure. Get a bunch of square tube steel to replace the unit body that's bad if you can't get good solid replacements, weld those to, well, everything. Cars this bad would normally get acid dipped so you know what is actually still steel. But a sand blaster will be mandatory to be able to weld anything, it's impossible to weld rust, you just blow holes in stuff.