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KG6MOV's Niner Build

59K views 160 replies 29 participants last post by  riot1987 
#1 ·
Back in january I was trolling the local craigslist looking for a Niner, just wanted something a little more beefy than the 5.2, a little nicer, a little newer. Something I could call a DD and give myself an excuse to go whole hog making the green one a weekend jeep. I wasn't searching hard but I came across one for $2k, not horrible condition, engine and trans were good, some of the cosmetics not so much, but overall a good deal for around here (no rust :teehee:). We went and test drove it, my buddy who has ridden in the green one a lot says he knew the guy had made the sale as soon as I started it up, the sound was it.

Stop me if you've heard this one:

What do you get when you take a niner five miles down the highway in 1st gear?
A blown engine.
We were just gonna go five miles down the highway, just five miles to the chevron, fill up the jeeps, swap some gear. Then I was gonna drive it home, my buddy was gonna drive the green one, it seemed a perfect plan.

The green one had the gps, my buddy is bad with gps, so he'd follow me to the chevron in the niner.

Why the hell is he driving so slow?
He put it 5 miles down the highway in first gear, overheated the engine, bent a rod, it's now 8pm and we're two hours from home with a dead jeep.

AAA towed it the 95 miles (first 100 miles free :2thumbsup:) to my mechanic.

That was second week of January, it's now February 26th.

And it's back!

The ugly:
New to me used engine with 6 month warranty
New to me transmission
New to me t-case (came with the trans)
Total: $4800 with labor

The bad (knew this when I bought it):
Driver side headlight is full of water
Driver side mirror is full of auto dim fluid
Driver side tail light is taped together
Passenger fog light out
No front DS
****ty tires
Ignition tumbler falls out, need to get things rekeyed
Lots of dead lamps inside
Front passenger speaker is shot (the other 5 sound great though)

Tonight I cleaned the windows up and drained a little of the autodim fluid, checked the lights, they all work. Got rid of the yakima snowboard holders that were on the roof rack. Pulled the cd player and cleaned the lens so I can play music. Gonna get addicted to the steering wheel audio controls real fast.

Gonna do e-codes from kolak for headlights, find the rears somewhere, I toasted the driver side fog on the green one, so thats half a win.

The plan:
KOR radiator support
New sound
Radios
New shocks (Bilstein)
New coils (maybe, want to keep stock upcountry height)
LED interior lights
SCT tuner
Plenum fix (for the green one as well)
JY front driveshaft

After driving tonight (and putting the back end way out in a corner) I've remembered why I HATE 2wd, so driveshaft is going way higher on the list than I thought.

Any other suggestions?
 
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#2 ·
Pictures

New engine
Automotive tire Vehicle Motor vehicle Automotive design Automobile repair shop


And a place to put it
Motor vehicle Automotive exterior Car Auto part Gas


Finally home!
Automotive side marker light Tire Automotive parking light Wheel Car


Few more things to fix though
Automotive parking light Automotive side-view mirror Mirror Vehicle Automotive lighting

Wheel Tire Automotive parking light Automotive side marker light Automotive tail & brake light

Automotive parking light Grille Motor vehicle White Automotive lighting
 
#4 ·
Glad ya got it back. Can't wait to see some progress made on it. On speedfreaks there is a guy selling plenum gaskets for 65$ shipped. It's good stuff. Comes with all new hardware. Just need to buy new gaskets. Soo for a little more than one from Hughes you can do both zjs :2thumpsup:
 
#6 ·
Had the mechanic just try to get it back to stock. Worry about exhaust at some point once I get some other things fixed up. Have to keep this thing Cali legal for emissions, not sure what that's going to mean.

Additions to the todo list:
Durango air hat
Saggy drivers door
703 injectors
Check the brakes
 
#7 ·
#9 ·
It looks like this:


 
#10 ·
I won't run a budget boost, I'm trying the do it right the first time philosophy with jeeps. I don't want to go above upcountry height for this one, it's not gonna be wheeled, thats what the other one is for. Stock suspension and a little bigger tires has gotten me through a hell of a lot on the green jeep in the last 17 years.

McCloud: What tires are those? I love your build thread BTW, fixing that 9er up right. Hopefully I won't have to do quite as much.
 
#11 ·
kg6mov said:
I won't run a budget boost, I'm trying the do it right the first time philosophy with jeeps. I don't want to go above upcountry height for this one, it's not gonna be wheeled, thats what the other one is for. Stock suspension and a little bigger tires has gotten me through a hell of a lot on the green jeep in the last 17 years.

McCloud: What tires are those? I love your build thread BTW, fixing that 9er up right. Hopefully I won't have to do quite as much.
They're Bridgestone Duelers 235/75r16. A little bigger than stock but they don't look out of place.

EDIT: For if/when you go to fix the EL fluid in the mirror: If you want to replace the glass and keep the auto dimming function, the glass on the 98 slides UP instead of straight out like every other year. If you try to pull the glass straight out, you'll break the mounting tabs. If you just want to drain the EL fluid and keep the same glass, then ratmonkey has a pretty idiot-proof write up on draining it.

Sent from my iPhone 6 using JeepForum
 
#13 ·
Yeh I drained it first day cause there was zero visibility, but I cracked the actual mirror in the process, replacing it from the JY this weekend anyway. Hoping I can get a good condition front DS, I may have toasted the one on the 96 as well, but that has no front axle right now so I can't tell.

Pull the back door apart to figure out why the flipper glass doesn't open. I've always wished that it did on the 96 so it was a pisser that the 9er was broken. The microswitch that reads whether the door is locked or not was bad so I pulled it. Can't bypass though or the glass would open even when the car is locked. Another thing for the jy list.
 
#14 ·
Digging around for some cash to fix things up, the shocks are quickly moving to the top of the list, damn thing rolls like it's discoed. Driver side headlight finally died.

Noticed something else wonderful today, the rear passenger tire is a Hankook, the other three are Falken. ******* **** ***** PO.
 
#16 ·
The "spare" that came with my niner was a 225/55r15. The rim wasn't even the right bolt pattern...

Sent from my iPhone 6 using JeepForum
 
#17 ·
I dunno about the treadwrights, I can see running them on the trail jeep, but I want to take this thing as TSF as I can make it and still show my face around here.
 
#18 ·
kg6mov said:
I dunno about the treadwrights, I can see running them on the trail jeep, but I want to take this thing as TSF as I can make it and still show my face around here.
I don't think anyone's gonna hate on you it you have a sweet street jeep and a trail jeep. I will before the year is over and still planning on showing both. Even twitch some of the ideas I have planned for it.
 
#21 ·
Just biased against retreads, worried they won't hold up to my lead hoof
 
#22 ·
#23 ·
I have good year re treads that I have put about 1500 miles on them. They were used when I got them but still had great tread on them and they were slightly dry rotted. But I havnt had issues with them.
 
#25 ·
Shipped from tire rack the BFG's are only $15 more than the treadwrights from their online store. Am I missing something?

How much does it cost to get the tires mounted and balanced once they show up on my doorstep?
 
#27 ·
#28 ·
I'm pricing for 5 tires since I'm changing size.
 
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