Jeep Enthusiast Forums banner

spidermonkey's 98 ZJ build

30K views 136 replies 32 participants last post by  spidermonkey 
#1 ·
A friend of mine had a black ZJ in his yard he was tired of looking at. He was moving and offered to drive it to my house and sell it to me for a measly $1000. It's a 98 Laredo SE, 4.0 242, with 140k.



I had to replace the motor and trans mounts, change the trans fluid and filter, give it a tune up and clean the heck out of it. I drove it around for about a week before I got the bug to lift it. I picked up some 4.0 front coils for the back for $5, and a 3" spacer stack for the front for $20. Then the 235s looked silly so I picked up some 31" Destination AT's.



I decided to rip my XJ to shreds to build this thing into my wheeler a week ago and havn't looked back. From the XJ I am going to use the Destination MT's for when I wheel it, IRO track bar conversion, shocks, and Rusty's tie rod, front coils, and intake. Any $ from the rest of the XJ is getting thrown at it.
 
See less See more
2
#3 ·
They are coming out soon, and are only in the front, they were in my XJ for many years that way withought issue. I know the XJ's pretty well but I am entering a new realm. A comfortable quiet one. :2thumbsup:
 
#6 ·
Well, my XJ is in pieces, and today I installed JKS BPE's and Quicker Disco's, IRO double sheer track bar conversion, Rusty's coils, tie rod, and throttle body spacer and RC shocks. I have to mount front tow points, fire extinguisher and my CB to wheel. The 8.8 is going in soon.
 
#7 ·
I made a small amount of progress today. I drug the 8.8 carcass out from under the XJ and cleaned the shed out to work on it. 34 and no garage yet. If I only knew all the wrenching I would be up to now. I had to pull my Aussie out of it to inspect it. I hastily threw it in and caused myself to chew up one side of it a little, but enough to make it skip some. I am going to flip the parts around to get a better mesh and cross my fingers or I will buy another one. Read all the dirrections first!

 
#8 ·
Today I got my Rusty's front diff skid on and some lights.
 
#10 ·
The light install wasn't pic worthy, I used a nice 30 amp switch I had and wired all four int it. I also used a foglight wiring kit harness with a 15 amp fuse. The lights in front are mounted on the front side of the wheel well, the other set are mounted to the iside of the frame rails facing the opposite side right after the trans crossmemeber. I have the 8.8 stripped and ready for new ZJ mounts. 4 hrs of cuttin n grindin to get the XJ perches off. I also ordered Bilstien 5100s, KOR radiator support and steering box brace. I wait for the brown truck and my friend to have time to weld.

 
#11 ·
Today I relocated the charcoal canister under the hood. It fit great since I have the airbox long gone in favor of the Rusty's intake from my XJ. I trimmed the bumper cover more and made a bracket for the canister from the metal strip I removed from the bottom of the radiator for the bumper. Then I pulled the forglights until I remount them out of harms way.


 
#12 · (Edited)
This morning at 6 I went to a friends shop and tore into the axle swap. We had the 35 out in about 1-2 hrs.

I put it up on three jack stands and set the pinion at zero. We measured placement of everything and wrote it down. Then we spent about 3 more hrs cutting off brackets withought destroying them so they could be reused. We tacked everything in place on the 8.8 and double checked it then fired up the stick welder and went to town. I cleaned it up and gave it a nice shiny coat of hammertone dark grey.

Then we bolted it back up. I have the brake backer plates on and the shafts in, tomorrow its brake lines, the Aussie install, and the driveshaft. One thing to remember, on a ZJ the exhaust will probabaly be in the way. The pinion on the 8.8 is a couple inches closer to the passenger side than the 35. I will check it out and take pics tomorrow.
 
#13 ·
The 8.8 is done. I reused brake lines I had bent for it on my XJ and modified them a little for now. I will likely replace them soon. I installed the Aussie and put the brakes back on. Then I had to take the pinion flange off the XJ driveshaft and put it on the ZJ shaft and bolted it up. I cut the ABS wires right off and bled the brakes. Then I took it for a drive. The back got about another 1/2" lift just from the bigger axle tubes. It feels very solid. Because I had the axle in my XJ all the swap cost me was some XJ parts for welding and new axle seals and gear oil.
 
#14 ·
The other day I fnally got the Bilsteins in. Damn nice ride now. She's plush again.



I did some number crunching and it's looking like scrapping the XJ was a good deal.
So far I have sold $995 in parts I won't use with the potential to sell $500-$700 more yet.

The parts I did use off the XJ:

- track bar and mount $185
- tie rod $100
- 8.8 axle $700 (what I spent on building it for the XJ)
- tires $800 (replacement cost of the Firesone MTs)
- diff skids $100
-sub and amp $300
-cb and antenna
-extinguisher
-spare tire :have saved me $2185 building the ZJ so far :2thumbsup:

I have spent $570 on new parts so far but it all came out of sold parts.

If I keep on track I will have the ZJ set soon for almost no out of pocket exept the $1000 purchase price. I had about $4k into the XJ in the four years I owned it and I might get most of it back too. :cheers2:
 
#17 · (Edited)
It wasn't hard. To salvage them you just have to be careful. I used a 4 1/2" grinder with a cutting wheel first. This will allow you to get at most of the welds. I cut right into the weld or under it instead of above like I did on the 8.8 to prevent cutting into the tubes. I then used a die grinder to get into the tighter spots the grinder wouldn't fit. It took about three hours for us to get them all off in one piece. I didn't care about the 35. If you cut too high you lose too much metal from the bracket and it's tougher to fit them on the 8.8.
I set the 35 on stands, set the pinion at zero. I measured the angle of each bracket and wrote it down. Then I measured placement from the center of the housing and the distance between each set of brackets for a way to double check. I wrote it all down with illistrations. We set the 8.8 up the same with pinion at zero on the angle finder. and copied placement from center.
We used a wirefeed to tack brackets and double and triple cheched measurements and angles, and kept checking the pinion stayed at zero. After we were positive each pair of brackets was right we used the stick welder to finish. Take care welding too. You should only do one pass and do one on the other side of the housing to give each pass time to cool before doing another on the same side. This prevents the possibility of warping the tubes. However, they are 1/4 thick so you should be fine. It's possible for the brackets to move slightly like with any time you weld so be sure your placement before hand is dead on. Once the heavy welding goes on thats where they are stayin, 1-2 degrees off should be OK for it.
This was my second 8.8 swap so I'm sorry I didn't document it better, any more questions just ask.
 
#18 ·
Today I tackled the low hanging adjustable width hitch. I took it apart, flipped the center and cut the bumper up 2". Then I painted it up to match the 8.8.



Just as I finished the Fed-Ex guy delivered my KOR radiator support and steering brace so I wiped them down and primed and painted to match. They are going on tomorrow.

 
#20 ·
Today I made up some swaybar disco retainers. I put small eye bolts in factory holes above the swaybar. One is holding the battery tray in, the other is under the air box if you still have one. It cost me about $13 for hardware.





Here is a cheep driveway poser shot since I didn't have time to go rock hunting.

 
#21 ·
I got these wheels on trade and they were too nice to paint yet so I cleaned them with acid and polished them by hand.



Here is a shot of the junyard skid I scored locally. I have to get the tranfer case skid mounted yet. I also picked up some used ACOS's on trade I hope to have in soon to perk the front end up.

 
#22 ·
After helping my cousin on his rig I aquired his old RC lower control arms. I was waiting on these to finish up the front suspension. Now that I had the parts I tore into it yesterday. I had a pair of ACOS's from Randy waiting to go in too.

The ACOS's were missing the bumpstops though. Because they slip over the factory post I had to figure out how to make a bumpstop work. The Idea I had in my head worked out great.


The ACOS has a 1" thick aluminum spacer that mounts in the stock bumpstop location with a single bolt. The ZJ has bolt on bump stops like my old XJ.

The only issue I had was that the aftermarket bump stops I was using had the bolt welded to the insde of the cap.


Because of the spacer that must be used to mount the ACOS the bolts were too short. Luckily I saved the stock ZJ bump stops. They had the bolt seperate from the cup like this.



I used the bolt from the ACOS and the factory ZJ stops. Then I added a puck to the bottom and ended up with this.


I gave the RC control arms a shot of hammertone to clean them up and bolted them on. They are about 1/2" longer than stock. I didn't realy need the length because the ZJ uses cam bolts at the axle end of the arms. I will be going high pinion eventually though and these will be gone. The main reason is more suspension droop=more flex.


So now with the ACOS as low as they go it sits 1/2" higher in the front than before. If I need another inch or two of lift, or add a heavy bumper all I have to do is crank them up. It also freed up my 1" spacers so if needed I can use them in the back.
 
#24 ·
I took it on it's first real wheeling trip. It worked flawlessly. Some of the trails were realy tight and I made it through unscathed.
 
#25 ·
I put a set of AJ's superrails on today. I like.

 
#26 ·
#28 ·
$320 out of Iowa. For me it was the way to go. I had them in about a week.
 
#29 ·
I picked up a brand new Aussie from a buddy who never installed it for $200. I had it in in about three hours. I was hoping to do a nice write up with pics but they are everywhere and I didn't want to oil up the camera. Here is a rough idea of what is involved.

-put the front axle on stands and pull the wheels, brake calipers, and rotors

-remove the three 12 point bolts that hold the unit bearing on on each side

-remove the bearings and pull the shafts out about 6" may need a some taps with a hammer

-remove the diff cover and drain the oil, give the diff a brake cleaner bath

-remove the bearing caps that hold the diff in taking note of placement, they need to go back in the same locations

-gently pry out the carrier assembly, with a little meneuvering it should clear the tie rod

-put the carrier in a vice and remove the ring gear bolts, I used an impact

-tap out the roll pin with a screwdriver or correct size punch

-pull out the spider gears taking reference to the location and dirrection of the thrust washers on each side gear

- carefully install the Aussie as per the dirrections

-install the ring gear and lock tight and torque the bolts

-scrape all the old sealand off the housing and clean the cover

-gently install the carrier back in the housing and torque the bolts

-install the cover and fill with new oil

-re-install the shafts, bearings, brakes and wheels

-go crawlin!
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top