[Haleyrz]

Hello fellow XJers! Im Haley for those of you who dont know me yet. I joined JF with a 1996 Grand Cherokee laredo 5.2. I had the typical dreams of a lift and big tires, but being in college and living 100% on my own with bills leaves minimal money for mods (check sig for complete details). I had it for about a year and a half before the tranny started to slip bad, and fast, so I traded it for $2300. This was what started it all:


Upon talking the lot up on my trade in, and down to $7500 for a 2003 Grand Cherokee Overland, I got away with a bank loan for $7300 (after paying off loan on ZJ).


The only mod the WJ got was 6000K HIDs. After having it for 3 months I got tired of how heavy and (yes) pretty it was, not to mention trying to make the payments and insurance. So I sold it for $10,000! Then I found a diamond in the rough 1997 XJ SE for $2000. Slightly overpaid. It was at a hole in the wall lot that was an "as is" lot, and they would NOT budge on the price. Not even with me having cash in hand. Oh well. Came out with it having some ok all terrains, wheels with the right amount of backspacing, and no electrical issues which killed almost all XJ's I looked at prior to. Here it was the day I brought it home next to my boyfriends TJ .


First thing was first. Tune up, oil change, general maintanence. Wires, cap and rotor were all pretty good, so I just did plugs, and through some valvoline max life and a fram tough guard filter on it for now so I can check for leaks and such before an amsoil switch. Pulled out bosch platinums that were overheated.


Found my pinion bearing was bad. Overhaul kits are around $150, then to find someone to do that work (since me and my friends have no experience tearing apart diffs). I opted for a direct bolt in, not messing with the ABS, and a quick job so I found another d35 an CL for $80. Only amazing because all the yards here wanted $250+ for a d35, and the 8.25 for more.


Bad one in the front, good in the back:

You can see it started scoring the ring:


Did the rear brakes with the axle swap. Did the duralast shoes and hardware from work. So the next week I decided the front needed to be done. Good thing too because the pads were about a millimeter away from bare metal! They were worn perfectly even though so my calipers are in good shape . Did the duralast pads and cheap valucraft rotors. In the future I'll do a drilled rotor, but I needed something fast!


Needed some music so I bought a $90 kenwood deck from work and found these in the door!!

[Haleyrz]

Time to disinfect! I stripped out the interior to shampoo. Used Tuff Stuff on everything. That stuff is amazing!!!




Before:

After:

Before:

After:


After one coat of Meguiars Show Car Glaze #7 and two coats of Meguiars High Tech Yellow Wax #26 I got this:






Up next is to try to straighten this out and put on a new arm:

[keaton]

Looks nice and clean. 2 grand is a good deal for that it seems like. And ouch that lca mount looks bad.

[connor0770]

nice jeep... looks very clean, especially after the wax! time to go get it dirty again

[Ridin' Around]

Looks good!

[-Shoey-]

Nice XJ!!!!!!

[Haleyrz]

Thanks guys, and Gabe! Gabe: your money was well spent on the XJ. Hope that exhaust is breaking in nice! Yeah, it will be interesting to see if we can bend back that bracket....I hope. I have a new arm coming from a member. Free...just paid shipping. After that I can diagnose the popping (ball joints i think) and get an alignment and at that point hopefully drive straight!!

[Haleyrz]

Thanks Jeremy!! Did you sell your WJ again? I think I was reading that somewhere?

[-Shoey-]

Haven't sold er yet, and probably will end up just keeping it. I'm pretty upside down in my loan and no one in this area is going to pay a lot for my WJ.

[Haleyrz]

Bummer deal. I hate loans. I'm sooooooo glad I was in my WJ for way less than it was worth. What would you get if you sold it?

[compcrasher86]

Looks good so far, I remember seeing you in the ZJ forums, I made the switch as well haha. Good luck on your XJ!

Also, you may get flamed here on Jeepforum for using a fram oil filter... I'll stand by everybody else cause I agree that they are crap. I bought my XJ and the oil pressure I noticed was dangerously low all the time... low and behold, there was a fram filter on there. I replaced it with mobil 1 everything and oil psi is back at spec.

[the6nightmares]

looks like youve got a bit of work still to do, seems like youre on the right track though

[xjfever]

I would not try to straighten the control arm mount. Just buy a new one and cut off the old and weld on the new. Bending that one back will further weaken the metal and next time it could break completely off. Rusty's, ballistic fab, and many more sell replacements cheap enough to make it worth while. http://www.ballisticfabrication.com/Lower-axle-link-brackets_p_1397.html

[Haleyrz]

Ah I know all about the fram. It just needed an oil change while I worked through some other stuff. It will get amsoil at the next change. As for the bracket we are going to re-enforce it with some weld and metal. I was looking at those rusty's brackets. I'm worried about getting the positioning on the new brackets right. I dunno. If money is alright in the next few weeks I might get the brackets from IRO and see about picking up some WJ LCA's and go that way before winter hits.

[tennesseewj]

Looking good, I was wondering when we'd see an XJ build thread.

Sweet find on the door speakers


Did you use Tuff Stuff on the carpet and everything? My girlfriend's dog left a few drool spots I'd like to clean up