Weekend is over...what did you get done?

Swapped control arms on the XJ to some of the correct length. Finished breaking in the motor, played in the snow, changed ball joints....ball joints are the devil. I hate doing the damn things. Every time I do them it starts out going awesome, then all hell breaks loose and it takes 10 times as long as it should. Oh well, I shouldn't have to worry about them before I get another axle to put under it.

JRT1393 said:

Swapped control arms on the XJ to some of the correct length. Finished breaking in the motor, played in the snow, changed ball joints....ball joints are the devil. I hate doing the damn things. Every time I do them it starts out going awesome, then all hell breaks loose and it takes 10 times as long as it should. Oh well, I shouldn't have to worry about them before I get another axle to put under it.

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Try doing a Chevy 2500 Duramax with 200k on the original ball joints. The one stubborn joint took several hours and sounded like a gunshot when it finally let go. Along with copious amounts of heat and penetrating oil, I had graduated to a 10 ft cheater bar.

Throw out bearing has been making a lot of noise, so decided a month ago I better fix it. After 5 weekends of crappy weather I decided this was the weekend.

Throw out bearing is $35. But, if you are going to be in there you might as well replace the clutch and pressure plate, add another $75

I have done this before and used a neighbors ATV jack for the transmission. Neighbor is no longer there so decided I needed to buy one, add another $100

The exhaust system ok but the bolts proved to be hopelessly rusted. Bought another side grinder because the one I have is 200miles away on my boat, $35

Ended up breaking the front flange off the pipe that attaches to the header, $100 and add 3 days to the weekend job, for shipping because NO ONE in Charlotte has it in stock.

Broke one of the 4 bolts that hold on the cross member, ugh.

Transmission mount is looking very sad, $70 shipped with the pipe.

SO, So far the $35 throw out bearing has cost me $365 and 3 days of work to replace.

But, I still LOVE my XJ!

Finished making repairs to my brother in law's '92 XJ. His son is in college and had it with him. He wasn't supposed to let anyone else drive it, so naturally he let them, and this was the result:





So I dragged it home and did the best I could to repair it and get it driveable again. That kid nailed something fairly solid because the frame rail was crushed. I put some heat to it and pulled it out the best I could. It's not perfect but it'll do.



After finishing that one up, I decided to do some much needed maintenance on my XJ. I changed the oil and antifreeze. Naturally, the radiator petcock leaked like crazy after putting all that nice new coolant in it. Had to redrain and fix that. All seems to be good now.

AND! I also had to fix the wipers on our Wrangler. Tuesday night Wendy was driving home from work and the wipers stopped working. They were frozen solid all the way to the driver's side. Took it all apart to find the linkage had popped off the motor and was jammed up. And in typical Jeep fashion, every bolt came out easy except for ONE....which wound up breaking a torx socket and needed to have a MAPP gas heat treatment to break it free.

Typical experience for me, and I'm sure for many of you guys too. Getting kinda tired of working on junk....I need some wheeling time!

Moved the girlfriend into her new apartment Saturday. Got the jeep washed and mostly cleaned out today. Was going to pressure wash the carpet but got a phone call from a buddy who's excursion quit on him. Narrowed it down to no fuel. Pulled the tank and checked the pump. Kicked on so we called it good. Checked the rest of the electrical system for fuel and all tested good. Decided to check pump again and 30 seconds after it started running it stopped. Tank still had 15 gallons in it so we had to transfer all that out. Let's just say that all of the vehicles at his place now have full tanks haha. Should have parts in by Wednesday and everything back together Thursday.

Finished most of the new rear crossmember/upper shock mounts/gas tank hangers... next will be paint and reinstalling the gas tank.

Worked on the steering on this Friday evening...



Helped a friend move into a new house Saturday morning, then went to Arenacross in Greensboro Saturday night with my dad..



Then helped another friend install some new fog lights and stainless steel brake lines on his ST yesterday...

jeepdreamer said:

Finished most of the new rear crossmember/upper shock mounts/gas tank hangers... next will be paint and reinstalling the gas tank.

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Tell me what I'm looking at here with the overload bags.

I'm headed to france for a couple days of skiing. Spent the weekend in Morocco, and a couple days before that in Barcelona, Spain, Currently just sitting around the geneva airport having a beer and waiting on my bus. So yeah, no jeep work for a while for me

Lowrange2 said:

Tell me what I'm looking at here with the overload bags.

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I too am wondering whats going on here. There are a few things I don't recognize. The shock relocation I understand. Whats going on with your tunnel though?

Lowrange2 said:

Tell me what I'm looking at here with the overload bags.

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x2

Lowrange2 said:

Tell me what I'm looking at here with the overload bags.

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I'm building my 01 more for expedition/extended camping vs heavy wheeling. To that end I carry a lot of gear, my fridge, a RTT, etc. I'm building some drawers for the rear to organize stuff as well. In an effort to keep the jeep level with all that crap I chose to go with airbags versus overload springs. I know I'm sacrificing articulation and honestly don't know if it's actually gonna work but I'm hopeful. I'll have to add limiting straps and fab some bump stops too.
We'll see how it goes. Working without a frame has been challenging. The other benifit for changing that last crossmember is I can look towards having a custom fuel tank made which should about double my capacity.

jeepdreamer said:

I'm building my 01 more for expedition/extended camping vs heavy wheeling. To that end I carry a lot of gear, my fridge, a RTT, etc. I'm building some drawers for the rear to organize stuff as well. In an effort to keep the jeep level with all that crap I chose to go with airbags versus overload springs. I know I'm sacrificing articulation and honestly don't know if it's actually gonna work but I'm hopeful. I'll have to add limiting straps and fab some bump stops too.
We'll see how it goes. Working without a frame has been challenging. The other benifit for changing that last crossmember is I can look towards having a custom fuel tank made which should about double my capacity.

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Any more pictures of the jeep? Build thread?

Gotcha.

Ghost said:

Any more pictures of the jeep? Build thread?

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Drawers are here...
http://www.novajeepers.net/index.php?topic=23254.0

Xj cargo drawer(s), help me decide...


General build thread is here.

http://www.militaryjeepers.com/community/showthread.php?t=31305

Project "Side-trac" XJ

Nice Build. Friday I went to Florence to pick up the 99 Diesel after a catastrophic fan failure took out the radiator. Almost made it home before it had issues. UGH! Saturday I went to URE and moved all the guardrail and post from the spray field to the double parking lot for them. Had a flat on the trailer moving guardrail on the forest roads. Then I took the ghost up the close rocky mountain loop section to help remove the guardrail I helped install up there several years ago. Unfortunately my front hub was stuck in unlock so I really couldn't play. Left up there about 3 after chatting with Darin about needs of FOU and the Forest service. Had a flat on the tow truck on the way home. Picked up some kind of big ass nail that had a plastic head the size of a half dollar and was about the size of a half dollar. Sunday I tore into my hub to try and fix the lock out. It was packed with mud. So I got Deanna to help me service it. Today Little Glenn, who isn't really little any more, and I are doing a brake job on the 98.

Took Friday off and had a yard sale...made $15. Went to drive in and saw Kung Fu Panda 3...pretty good movie.

Saturday fixed the DS door armrest on the MJ and cleaned the laves out of the bed. Had yard sale...made $50

Sunday failed at fixing my wife's friend's leaking shower...well...we stopped the leak but the cold water valve is bad so she needed more work than we could provide. Had yard sale...made $30.

After 20 years of the fading and yellowing of the headlight lenses on my ZJ I finally broke down and ordered a new set.

I wonder what it will be like to see in the dark again? I'll know tomorrow night!

Cottontail said:

After 20 years of the fading and yellowing of the headlight lenses on my ZJ I finally broke down and ordered a new set.

I wonder what it will be like to see in the dark again? I'll know tomorrow night!

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Yep, this will certainly help!! For $40 I don't know what took me so long!!!

Cottontail said:

Yep, this will certainly help!! For $40 I don't know what took me so long!!!

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Where did you order them from?

I have to do some work on my 1998 Grand. The adjusters and housing are all jacked up. Some of the adjuster parts are missing and broken off the back or the housings. Any pics of how they come out or what the backside of the housing looks like?

I have some other issues with it and need to pick your brain sometime.