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My build and maintenance thread...now with 100% less WJ!

23K views 98 replies 22 participants last post by  99sajeep 
#1 ·
EDIT

I figured I'd preface this post with the current setup of each WJ, making it a bit easier for folks to see what we're currently running on both WJ's:

Updated 5/11/17

Mine- 2000 WJ Limited 4.7, factory tow package, no factory skid/tow hook package

Zone Offroad 4" lift kit w/Nitro Shocks, no t-case drop kit and added 90MM bolts for the rear control arm spacer
JKS Bar Pin Eliminators for the front shocks
18x7.5 JK Sahara 'Phone Dial' wheels- JK Takeoffs
242HD T-case swap
OE double cardan front driveshaft swap
OE t-case skid added
OE front tow hooks added
255/70/18 Goodyear Wrangler Duratracs
IRO Steering Equalizer/Track Bar drop
OTK Drag link w/Crown RHD tie rod
OTK Tie rod flip
Teraflex Steering Knuckle Inserts

Hers- 2003 WJ Laredo 4.7, w/factory leather interior, factory tow package and factory skids/tow hook package

IRO 3" springs
Bilstein shocks
CORE4x4 front adjustable upper and lower control arms
Rusty's Offroad rear control arm spacer w/supplied 90MM bolts
Zone Offroad front and rear extended sway bar links
245/75/16 Goodyear Wrangler Duratrac Load Range 'E'
16x8 Ultra Motorsports Gloss Black Rogue 175's w/ 5" backspacing (no longer available)
Dynomax 19374 cat-back exhaust kit
Magnaflow 2.5" high flow converter (50 state legal)
RB1 Nav

Ours- 2011 Ram 1500 Crew Cab SLT, 5.7 Hemi, 4x4, Max Tow Package, tow mirrors, integral trailer brake, 3.92 gearing, LSD rear

OE Mopar side steps
Tyger Auto Tri-Fold tonneau cover
Hell Bent Steel 2.0" leveling kit
285/70/17 Michelin LTX A/T2's
B pillar black vinyl delete

Alrighty, this story actually begins back when my wife and I were dating. At that time I had my '94 YJ, lightly modified (lift, 33's, bumpers, etc.):





Shortly after we started going out, she expressed interest in making her '03 WJ a little more unique on the outside. The reason I bring that up is that her Laredo was a little unusual in the fact it is a well equipped 8 cylinder Laredo with leather, tow package, full skid group, etc. Unfortunately I don't have any stock photos of it, however here are some photos of the first phase of her build.

This setup was as follows: 245/65/16 Maxxis Bighorns, KOR 2.5" BB, Rubicon Express Monotube shocks, Kolak 3" exhaust w/Flowmaster Big Block muffler.







Eventually I sold my YJ for something a little more family friendly, along with my motorcycle and my now wife's Neon. At that point we just had her WJ and an '09 Charger. Her WJ stayed in the previously mentioned configuration for the next few years when I decided to go a little taller with her WJ as the stock springs were starting to sag. So we went with some IRO 3" springs, Bilstein shocks, Zone Offroad extended sway bar links, Core4x4 adjustable upper and lower front control arms, Ultra Motorsports Rogue 175's and some 265/75/16 Cooper ATP's:





 
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#2 ·
A few months after the above photographed Moab trip (June of 2013), my wife was browsing the local classifieds and spotted a '00 WJ Limited for sale. It was currently non-running and the seller described it as needing a crank position sensor and a new battery. However it did have fairly new tires and the asking price was $1100 OBO.

We decided to hurry and look at it that evening as the listing received lots of views in the short time it was up. I brought along my bluetooth OBDII scanner, and a spark plug socket and ratchet wrench. After pulling a few plugs and determining there likely wasn't any internal engine issues (blown head gasket, leaky fuel injectors, etc.) I went ahead and hooked up my scanner, however it would not communicate with the ECM, which I found odd, but wasn't terribly concerned with.

The exterior was little rough with at least one dent in every panel, the wheel were caked in brake dust and the clear coat was peeling on them. The driver's seat leather had some cracking, and both bumper covers had damage, with the rear one being cracked badly on the driver's side. This WJ was definitely a 20 footer.

After a little negotiating, I was able to get the seller down to $900 with him keeping the incorrectly sized battery that he had in it, and he even offered to deliver it to my house (tow truck driver):



First thing I did was attempt to fix the no start condition by replacing the crank position sensor. Unfortunately the new Mopar unit I installed made no difference and further trouble shooting revealed the real reason it didn't run was due to a bad ECM. I was able to score a used one from a local junkyard for a mere $40 and had a local independent parts store flash it to my VIN for only $60. Plugged that bad boy in and it fired right up.

At this point I decided to start finding out what else the WJ needed and started putting together a list:

Heater core leaked
Recirc door had a fault code
New plugs
New oxygen sensors
New oil pan (rusty) and gasket
Front and rear differential service
New OPSU
New front and rear bumper covers
New driver side rear tail light
A good interior carpet cleaning
Headlights needed polishing
New valve cover gaskets
Hood and rear hatch struts
New driver's side interior door panel
New dash tweeters/speakers
Inop rear door speakers
Inop driver rear window
Bad power steering leak
Coolant leak (besides the heater core) from the front of the motor
A/C not blowing cold

I also noticed that while this WJ has the factory tow package, it did not come with the skid plate group, so no front tow hooks, front skid or T-case skid. It also has the thinner brush guard for the fuel tank vs. the optional 1/8" skid. Definitely a bummer, but near me WJ's are fairly common in the junkyards, so I should be able to remedy that fairly easy.
 
#3 ·
I decided to tackle a couple of the easier and cheaper fixes before that coming winter in an effort to make it a little more road worthy and reliable.

I went ahead and cleaned up the headlights using the wet sanding method and some plastic polish and my variable speed polisher. I also took care of the PS fluid leak and I had narrowed it down to one of the lines between the PS gear box and PS cooler. I installed the new OPSU during an oil change, along with new O2 sensors, spark plugs and hood struts. I managed to score some good working dash speakers, along with repairing a broken driver's side door wire which fixed my inop driver's rear window.

I drove it sporadically throughout the winter and noticed that the heater core leak was getting worse and required topping off once every week. Not to mention the heat output was poor, but I attributed that to the broken recirc door.
 
#4 ·
That brings us to today, where I've just finished up the last major project that my WJ has needed, which was the heater core, A/C, recirc door, interior carpet cleaning and coolant leak from the front of the motor:













The previous owners must have spilled a shake in the area photographed above, as the carpet was matted down and really sticky. Add to the fact that they owned a dog, never cleaned in the interior and had spilled numerous sodas and you'll see why I felt the need to steam clean the carpets. Needless to say with the coolant gone and the carpets cleaned it smells much better in there.

When I opened up the HVAC assembly I was surprised to see that I wasn't the first person that had been in there. The heater core had already been replaced with an aftermarket copper unit made by Ready-Aire. I replaced it with an aluminum Ready-Aire as I've had great luck with them in the past. I also noticed that the blend doors had been upgraded with the now discontinued Mopar kit which used an aluminum passenger door and thicker stops on the drive connectors, however for whatever reason they did not replace the passenger side drive connector as it still had the OE thinner style installed. I found the recirc door drive connector was broken which explained the codes I had stored in the HVAC control module.

I used new Dorman HVAC sub assemblies for the blend doors (I used the upgraded Mopar doors, Dorman assembly and the Dorman drive connectors) and new recirc door. I kept the Dorman blend doors and the older upgraded drive connector as spares.

I also decided to tear into the front of the Jeep to see if I could track down my coolant leak and also use it as an opportunity to flush out the nasty old green coolant and fill with some fresh Zerex G-05. I had a spare new water pump gasket and a t-stat from my wife's WJ that was only a year old, so I opted to install those as well. I found that the water pump had some dried coolant crusting around it, so I think that was the source of my coolant leak. I also found that at almost 170k miles, the engine still had the factory t-stat in it. :eek:

I pulled the radiator, flushed it out and also sprayed the core down with my garden hose. I found lots of dirt packed into the core that was no doubt affecting the efficiency of the radiator. I went ahead and did the same thing with A/C condenser.

While poking around under the hood I found the source of my non-functioning A/C in the form of the hose running between the condenser and the compressor. I went ahead and ordered a replacement and a new o-ring set off Amazon for less than $30 for both. I opted not to replace the receiver drier at this time.

Well, that brings us up to the writing of this post. I just got back from my FIL's and now have ice cold A/C and fully functioning dual climate control. From here on out posts will consist of maintenance and upgrades to either of the two WJ's currently parked in my driveway.
 
#5 ·
We've been driving my WJ quite a bit the last couple of days and I've noticed that it gets a bit warmer than normal with the A/C going and driving up a hill or when sitting and idling for an extended period of time. I checked under the hood yesterday after driving a bit and noticed that the fan clutch speed doesn't increase when raising the engine speed.

Sounds like a replacement is in order rather quickly.
 
#6 ·
Seems like a promising build thread (Sub'd)

Keep up the good job :)
 
#7 ·
Yeah, I guess I should have laid out the plans I have for each WJ as well. So here it goes:

My wife and I view her WJ as the more-capable-than-stock-but-still-streetable 4x4 that we will likely drive around town when we don't take our car. So it will more than likely stay in its current configuration. Of course that could change based on what my wife wants to do, I do know that there's a set of sliders in the future and a few interior personalizations that we're working on. The most pressing matter for her WJ is fixing the rusted out exhaust, as the tailpipe rusted completely through and the back half of the muffler is in pretty rough shape too.

My WJ will be the more offroad oriented vehicle, but still fairly streetable. I'm going to try my hand at an overland/expedition type build, so 4-5" LA lift, clearanced fenders, 33's (or equivalent), 242 or 231 T-Case, front locker, armor, front and rear bumpers, etc.

I've still got a couple things that need to be looked at, so a lift will likely be put on hold until sometime next year. The most pressing matters are a new fan clutch, front brakes, rusted trans and oil pans, front driveshaft swap and a couple of other nitpicky things.
 
#8 ·
Attempted to replace my fan clutch yesterday with little luck. I had originally planned to use a rental tool kit from the local parts store, but none of them around here offer the correct type of wrench to hold the water pump pulley in place. After a little reading on here and around the innerwebs, I determined that I might be able to get away with just sticking an allen wrench in one of the water pump holes and it would jam against one of the casting ribs on the water pump.

I was wrong. :mad:

So, I attempted various other ways to hold the pulley in place while I try and break the clutch free, I even took my Dremel to the mounting nut and made relief cuts to try and loosen the grip the clutch had on the end of the water pump, but after about an hour I figured it wasn't going to work.

Today I decided to make my own tool, rather than pay $40+ for one online or locally. $10 and a trip to Home Depot yielded my materials:



After a little bit of fab work with the Dremel and my power drill, I had the old clutch off in no time:



So far the new clutch seems to have done the trick of keeping engine temps more consistent with the A/C going, however it was a little later in the day and a bit cooler when I was able to drive it around. I'll keep an eye on it during the course of the week. It's a bit louder than the old one when you first get going, but after about 30 yards it quiets down.

Next up will be front and rear diff service.
 
#10 ·
I was pretty pleased with it myself. It just happened to work out to where each piece of steel would press against the alternator and A/C pulleys once you applied a little bit of torque to the fan clutch, leaving both hands free to break the fan clutch nut free.
 
#11 ·
Went ahead and serviced the front differential this past weekend. The cover was leaking pretty bad, and with the maintenance history being unknown on this Jeep it was definitely time. I was quite happy finding minimal metal shavings on the differential fill plug magnet. I still need to do the rear, but the cover isn't leaking so I'll put it off till this next weekend.

I've also got some new exhaust stuff on order for the wife's Jeep. Plenty of pictures to follow on that install.
 
#12 ·
Looks like my phantom coolant leak decided to come back :brickwall

Judging by the small spot left on the driveway this morning, I'm willing to bet it's from the lower radiator hose clamp again. Last night was one of the cooler nights we've had in awhile, so I think the clamp has loosened up a bit. Hopefully we're not looking at a last minute radiator replacement before we leave on our trip this Thursday.

EDIT:

Turned out the radiator side clamp on the lower hose was a little loose. A couple turns of the wrench sealed it right up.
 
#13 ·
Been awhile since I've had an update, so here's a larger one:

The trip to Yellowstone (8/7-8/11) went well. We loaded up my '00 WJ with the kids, both dogs, a large cooler and cargo carrier full of luggage. Everything went great until we stopped in Idaho Falls for lunch. I decided to take a peek around the Jeep and noticed that the rear drive shaft seal on the t-case was leaking pretty bad. It had always been a little damp, but I could tell it was leaking pretty bad by this point. I decided to pull the fill plug on the case and found the fluid level was pretty low. We ended up stopping by the local Chrysler dealer and picking up a quart of fluid, then stopped at the local CarQuest for a new seal. About thirty minutes in the parts store parking lot and we were good to go again.



Other than that we didn't have any other issues, not bad considering she's got 172k miles on the clock and about a year ago she was a non-runner. Here's a quick pic I took at the Continental Divide in Yellowstone, elevation 8,391 ft. :

 
#14 ·
I was finally able to convince the wife that we needed to fix the exhaust on her WJ. After 7 years her Kolak exhaust kit bit the dust, the tailpipe rusted through where it exited the muffler. I ordered up the Dynomax 19374 kit from Summit Racing for $210 shipped and had it in a few days from Ohio. Upon disassembly I discovered the matting material in the catalytic converter that surrounds the catalyst brick was deteriorating, so I picked up another universal Magnaflow converter from my local O'Reilly's for $75, this time in a 2.5" flavor to match the new Dynomax kit. I also opted to have this one welded on, even though the kit comes with clamps, as it's advertised to be a bolt on system. Given that I was not removing the stock exhaust, I decided that welding up the new system was the way to go. A local muffler shop did it for $50 and it took them about an hour:





The Dynomax kit I purchased comes with one of their fiberglass packed, straight through flow mufflers with a 2.5" mandrel bent tailpipe with a 3" stainless engraved tip. The tubing and muffler are aluminized, but it is available in stainless for about $120 more:



It also includes a new mount to replace the factory one bolted to the frame of your WJ. Compared to the stock setup, it appears that this is needed to help center the new tailpipe in the bumper cover opening, however in my case I had an issue with the tailpipe side hanger banging against the tow hitch when going over bumps or going through dips in the neighborhood. I'm not sure if it's an issue with the install (ie; the tailpipe is clocked incorrectly), but the tip is centered and level, or if the tailpipe hanger wasn't manufactured correctly. Either way I came up with a quick solution with the extra rubber hanger sent in the muffler kit:



I also picked up a rear set of Husky mudflaps on the cheap, since my wife has always wanted a pair of the 'Jeep' branded mudflaps, from what I've seen in the junkyards of the 'Jeep' mudflaps, these appear to the be exact same thing, so it's likely Husky makes them for Mopar. They blend in with the rest of the Jeep pretty good:





Next update should be some new lash adjusters in the wife's ride,fixing a rust spot near the driver side tail light on my '00, and a u-joint front drive shaft conversion on my rig as well.

I might even be able to sneak in a quick MonstaLiner project before winter too.
 
#15 ·
Got bored and decided to load up the wife's Jeep with her and kids and head up to the mountains. About 30 minutes from where we live is American Fork Canyon, which along with being home to Mt. Timpanogos, it also has some decent wheeling trails. We made it about 3/4 of the way up the Mineral Basin trail before the kids had enough of bouncing on the rocks and wanted to go play in the river.





It's not a terribly difficult trail, but at lower lift heights it's best to use a spotter through a section that we call the 'Rock Garden'. There was a couple decent hits underneath, and a quick inspection after returning down the trail showed nothing major damaged. At this point we know the limits of her current setup and it looks like a front diff guard and rear axle skid are in order, along with some sliders too.
 
#16 ·
When I bought my '00 the paint and bumpers were kinda rough, but by far the worst spot was back near the driver's tail light, where I assumed the PO had backed into something at one point. So since we've been having some unusually warm weather lately, so I decided to sneak one more project in before it starts to really cool off.





I wasn't able to completely remove all the oxidation, so I went ahead and used a little bit of Duplicolor rust converter, which requires a 24 hour cure time before primer. Tomorrow I plan on sanding down the converter and priming the area I plan on repainting. I'll have to take my paint code down to a local paint supply store and have them make me a small aerosol can of paint, since it doesn't appear Duplicolor offer Silverstone Metallic (PS5) in their color match series.
 
#17 ·
Added a little bling to the wife's ride. She's always liked the red highlights on the new TrailHawks, so I found a pair of red 'Trail Rated' badges on Amazon for cheap. The plan is paint the recovery points red to match as well. I used the placement shown on WJJeeps and slapped them on after work tonight:





 
#19 ·
Picked them up off Amazon. They have a couple different colors, black, grey, red and then a forest green color. Only paid $12 for the pair and they came with mounting tape already on them.

As for a roof rack, we won't likely put one on my wife's WJ, as we can still fit a full size spare in the spare tire well with the size of tires she's currently running. Despite the 'poser-esque' badging, we don't see any real advantage to adding a rack to her's at this time.

However, I think my WJ will get one, I may try my hand at building one next spring since I plan on taking a welding class at the local community college this winter.
 
#20 ·
MEGA UPDATE!

Holy cow! I've been meaning to update this for quite some time. Unfortunately from the last update 'till now it seemed like once I finished one project, another one came up. Anyway, shortly after the last update, we ended up listing our home and moving. Within 30 days of listing our home, we went under contract for the sale of our home, purchased a new home and moved. It was a quite hectic 4 weeks, as we had some items with our old home that the buyer's wanted us to address, plus we had to still find a new place. Regardless, it all worked out and we were moved in to the new place the week of Thanksgiving.

Fortunately for me the new house has a nice, mostly finished 3 car garage, so no more working out in the elements for this guy :2thumbsup:

Anyway, let's pick up where we left off. Last project I posted about for my WJ was repairing the chipped and rusted area around the driver side tail light. I had a local auto paint supply house mix up a can of Silverstone Metallic in a rattle can, and went to town. I used a rust converter/sealer, followed with some primer, a little wet sanding and color coat. Now, I think my big mistake (which really affected the final results) was using an old can of clear coat I had laying around. I should have spent the extra $10 for a fresh can, as the clear kind of yellowed as it cured, which makes the repair area fairly noticeable:



However, it's much better than the rusty mess from before. Looking back if I had used a fresh can of clear, I should have also sanded out the clear coat in a larger area to help blend the repair better. However, at this point in time, I'm not too worried about it. More on that later :D

About a month later I picked up a new in box rear upper control arm spacer from a member here, which I later found out to be a Rusty's spacer. I also picked up a new Mopar rear upper control arm ball joint and set out to install it in the wife's '03 WJ. We ran her rear upper control arm without a spacer for about 5 years at 3" of lift. We replaced it due to clunking, and I figured now would be as good of time as any to add a spacer. I was rather pleased to find out that the addition of the spacer helped reduce rear end roll around corners and it felt a little less squirrely changing lanes at freeway speeds. I highly recommend picking up a 2" spacer if you're running 3"+ of lift.

After that, I decided it was time to address the severely rusting oil pan on my '00's 4.7. So at the next oil change interval, I picked up a Spectra Premium pan and a Fel-Pro oil pan gasket:





Install was fairly straight forward, and I was able to get the job done without dropping the exhaust. The hardest part was removing the 15 year old factory gasket, as it was stuck firmly to the block:



I was happy to see that the bottom end of the engine looked good and I saw no tell-tale signs of running the engine low on oil (blued/discolored connecting rod caps), which was nice as I have zero maintenance history on this vehicle. At the time this work was done the engine had roughly 175k miles on it.
 
#21 ·
For the next few months, nothing really happened, until I noticed a lot of uneven wear from the passenger front tire. I also got a weird groaning/creaking sound when turning the steering wheel that was happening more frequently. Turns out the passenger TRE was bad, along with the one at the pitman arm (cause of the groan/creaking). So I ordered up some Moog goodness:



I also noticed that my steering stabilizer had seen better days, so I picked up a Monroe/Tenneco SS, which is roughly twice the size of the stock piece, but not so big that it becomes a rock catcher like the Moog Super Trail Boss does.

Shortly after the steering refresh, this thread happened:

http://www.jeepforum.com/forum/f310/stock-jk-rubicon-springs-shocks-1259158/

C/N: Bought some stock JK Rubicon shocks and springs. Rear springs gained about 2" of lift over the factory WJ springs, fronts did squat diddly. While the Rubicon shocks road very nice, they're a bit too long for a stock height WJ.

Which led to this showing up on my front door a few weeks later:





I had also received a care package from our very own ChrisHager shortly before the Zone kit showed up:



:D

I didn't take too many photos of the install, as the Zone instructions are well thought out and written, along with providing good photos. However, here is a photo of the rear end just prior to installing the upper a-arm spacer. I had read that some folks had fitment issues with the Zone spacer, which required that they oblong out one of the mounting holes. That was not the case for me:

 
#22 ·
I'll provide a more in depth review of the Zone lift in a separate post, but here's my post-lift hub to fender measurements:

Front


Rear

^Look closely, you'll see a cameo in the reflections :laugh:

Next to the wife's WJ in the garage, note that I am still running around on well worn stock sized all-terrain tires:



My pre-lift measurements were 18.25" Front and just over 18.25" Rear, which put me around 4.5" of lift. Note that I did not replace the factory spring isolators. However I noticed that my rear isolators were in pretty poor shape compared to the fronts, so I will likely being doing that some time in the future. Given the amount of lift gained, I'd probably be at 5" of lift with fresh isolators :eek:, so giving the the springs some time to settle would probably be a good thing.

At this point, everything was well in Jeepland, until I got a call from the wife one evening saying her Jeep lost power and didn't want to stay running. I went to go tow the Jeep back, but was actually able to drive it without issue, until I went to accelerate hard or give it more than 50% throttle. A fuel pressure test with the engine running confirmed it:



It was time for a fuel pump :( Can't complain too much though, the factory pump lasted 12 years and 140K miles. I debated back and forth whether to go aftermarket or not, but eventually settled on a NEW Mopar pump. It should be noted that several dealers around me offered a remanufactured Mopar pump, but it wasn't a very big price difference between the two. Plus, with the wife's WJ being our primary means of transportation, I didn't want to end up stranded somewhere due to a faulty aftermarket or rebuilt pump.



Now, I am a big 'Mopar Only' proponent here on the forum, especially when it comes to engine sensors. That being said, I opted to replace the fuel filter again (I had replaced the OE one about 4 years ago) with the new pump. I opted to go aftermarket on the filter, since the Microguard filter I used previously had performed without issue.
 
#23 ·
Tank ready to come down:



Post replacement note- The trailer hitch can be removed independently of the tank. There's two bolts that will hold the tank up after all of the hitch bolts are removed. I didn't notice this during tear down, which is why you see the tank and hitch dropped down at the same time.

Out and on the ground:



Looking a little naked back there. It was awfully tempting to do a tank tuck :laugh: :



Now, once you get the tank out and secured on the ground (in my case I left it on the floor jack, as it had about half a tank of fuel in it, and supported the sides of the skid with jack stands to prevent tipping side to side), you'll want to thoroughly clean the fuel pump lock ring and area surrounding it, as lots of dirt can get trapped in there. Also, you'll notice an arrow on the top of the sending unit. It needs to be aligned between the two hash marks on the fuel tank when installing the new pump:



All cleaned up:



Inside the tank:



Now, I had planned to remove the tank from the skid and inspect for rust, along with giving it a fresh coat of paint. However, as I mentioned earlier, there was about half a tank of fuel in there and I had no easy way to transfer it to a gas can for storage. So I settled for cleaning up and painting the mounting straps, trailer hitch, and fuel filter lines:







During the removal of the rear bumper cover, the corners nearest to the hatch cracked. So I 'welded' them back together with a zip tie and soldering iron:



Fortunately it's only visible when you open the hatch, and even then it's pretty much covered by the tail light.

It's been about a week since the replacement, but all is well, no whining/whistling from the aftermarket fuel filter and the Jeep seems to have better acceleration. Fuel economy so far has remained about the same.

The next project for the wife's Jeep is to clean up and refinish the Overland rails I picked up for her a while back.

My Jeep is due a fresh set of tires soon, and I'm keeping my eye out for a good deal on some JK takeoffs in a 255/75/17. If nothing catches my fancy, then I'm thinking a fresh coat of paint for the factory Silverblades and some 235/85/16 Duratracs.

After that, I think it's going to be time to address some of issues I have with the factory paint on my '00:



:D
 
#24 ·
When you did the oil pan, what all did you do? I need to do my gasket as well, but have been putting it off because I've heard it's such a pain. I do not want to get half-way into it only to find that I have to do remove the exhaust or other components.

Also, what's with your paint? UT sun and lots of salt?

I've been praying for a couple years now for my clear to fail so I can get permission to hit it with Monstaliner (OD w/Black cladding), but I can't bring myself not to wax it at least once a year. Being in SW VA, we don't get a lot of road salt, but in 13 years, it's not spent even one night in a garage. I really don't understand how my paint still looks so good, especially when I see other local WJs with badly failing clear. I guess they don't wax at all.

I'm *still* on the fence about my lift. After all the talk about the Zone 4", I'm seriously considering it. I mean, the OME 3" is nice and all, but it really only nets 2" over UC, and I just don't know if I'll be happy with it.

Oh well, TREs are first. They passed inspection just 6 months ago, but the inner and right upper are now popping. Wife (she drives it more than me) says they've been doing it for a while now. Good stuff to know!
 
#25 ·
I just did the pan gasket, it comes as a kit with a new oil pump pickup rube o-ring. On a stock height WJ you'll need to drop the front axle in order to get the pan out without pulling the exhaust. Since my WJ was stock height at the time I had to disconnect the track bar and the front shocks to let the axle droop. I'm confident after the lift that wouldn't be necessary.

Also, my '00 doesn't have the pre-cats on the y-pipe. I recently went to replace the pan gasket on the wife's WJ (the joys of owning two WJ's) and realized I need to drop the exhaust as the pre-cats don't allow me to pull the trans inspection cover down past the exhaust. So when that time comes I'll check for broken manifold bolts while I'm there.

As for my paint, the vehicle is a 20 footer, which is part of the reason I got it so cheap. There's a dent or paint defect on just about every panel and the clear coat is starting to fail in small quarter sized spots. The vehicle spent some time in New Mexico based off the dealer sticker on the hatch, so I'm sure that took a toll on it. It's fairly rust free thankfully, but there is some rust on the lower passenger rocker panel back by the rear wheel. Nothing a good trim won't fix though :) For me, since I'm not worried about resale value, I don't mind Monster lining the whole thing. I wash it regularly, but given the clear coat issues, I don't see the point in waxing it. The wife's WJ on the other hand is a different story, it's gets pampered :D

As for the lift, at this point I'm convinced the Zone kit is the best bang for the buck out there. Not to mention it's the most complete, the only thing I changed was the three bolts for the upper a-arm spacer. Zone includes 80MM bolts, but to get as close to factory thread engagement as possible, 90MM bolts are needed. I did not install the t-case drop and I think I'm going to shorten the front bump stop extensions as I think they're too long.
 
#27 ·
^ Thanks.

Still have a few maintenance projects to catch up still. Unfortunately the fuel pump going on on the wife's Jeep pushed those back a bit. Both WJ's need transmission services, new trans pans, and the buzzing shift solenoids in the wife's Jeep are getting worse, so those need to be addressed as well. It's also time for front and rear diff services for my WJ, plus I still need to get my double cardan driveshaft rebuilt and swapped in.
 
#28 ·
I recognize that spacer! Glad it worked it for you. :thumbsup:
You mentioned that the Rubicon shocks were too long for a stock WJ. Did you take measurements? I forgot to before I swapped them in my WJ. I'm thinking about adding a new set of UpCountry springs in my WJ and wanted to make sure that the shocks will still be fine. Thanks.
 
#29 ·
That's actually the Zone spacer that came with my lift. The one I picked up from you is living happily on the wife's WJ :D

Unfortunately I didn't take measurements of the Rubicon shocks. However I would bottom out the front shocks going through the dips in my neighborhood at anything more than about 5 MPH or so.

I did a quick visual comparison next to my Zone shocks prior to installation, and it looked like they were about 1.5", maybe 2" shorter. I'd suspect you'd probably be okay stepping up to UpCountry springs with the JK shocks.
 
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