2002 Bella Blue, WJ Build

GhostJeepWJ said:

Looking good bud!! I'm liking that blue! Take an overhead pic when you get her finished!

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Did I ever post this? The result of my rattle can adventures, and some Scotch blue electrical tape. Eh ... I had fun with it.

Updates! Rear LCAs and Addco Sway Bar. Lubelocker.

Hey all, it's been a while. Thought I would pop in and give an update. Let's start with the Addco.

GmanWJ said:

REAR SWAY BAR UPGRADE

Friday afternoon was Addco sway bar upgrade day. Added the Energy suspension greasable bushings. Also replaced the links with new Moogs since they were inexpensive. Easy enough job, even for a slow hobbyist like me.

PARTS LIST

Addco 684 1" sway bar
Energy Suspension 9.5161R 1" greasable sway bar bushings
Moog K3202 stabilizer bar link (2)
​

Side-by-side comparison of the stock bar versus the Addco bar.

underneath

The difference in ride quality was immediately obvious, even with my sloppy, worn-out upper control arm still in place. Next up: R&R the upper control arm.

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First off, the Addco 684 anti-sway bar is fantastic for adding highway cornering stability to you WJ. I never imagined the Jeep would feel so solid in the curves until I put this thing on. It is not difficult to install, just six bolts total: four that hold it to the axle, and two that tie it to the end links. Easy.
But unfortunately it doesn't fit quite right. When I installed the Addco about a year ago, I also put a new coat of paint on the rear differential cover. Been happy with the performance. Last weekend I changed the differential fluid and found a scuff mark on the cover, and a matching mark on the Addco (see pictures).


When the rear suspension is in compression, the bar makes contact with the diff. cover -- verified by having a friend bounce on the rear bumper while I watched. Yup, contact. I just can't have that.
Unfortunate because it really does make the ride so much better.
One other problem: the finish is not durable. Paint started flaking off before I even got it hooked up. After a year, a good portion of the outboard arm is missing paint (sorry, no picture of that). So another demerit for that.
I heard a rumor that Addco redesigned this unit so it no longer makes contact. But that's not the one they sold to me on Amazon. Take your chances if you are the gambling type.
I posted this same review to Amazon, maybe they will ship me the redesigned model if I am lucky. If not, I am going to try installing some washers to see if that buys me enough clearance.

GmanWJ said:

In an earlier post, I wrote about replacing the rear lower control arms (https://www.jeepforum.com/forum/f310/2002-bella-blue-wj-build-thread-4239282/#post39694594). The job itself is easy enough. Getting a quality replacement part is not.

The Mopar control arms that I bought from Rock Auto were complete garbage, they only lasted a few months. She started lurching around when I would apply or remove throttle while cornering. It started small and just kept getting worse, to the point where it began feeling downright dangerous. Not knowing what else to do, I tried putting the old rear lower control arms back on. Result? Problem solved.

The bushings on the replacement control arms looked fine at first. Then I stuck a screwdriver through the inner metal sleeve and gave it a little pry, which opened a big gap between the sleeve and the bushing rubber (no pic yet). The sleeve had delaminated from the rubber.

I ordered a new pair of axles (with bushings) from Detroit Axle. I put this brand on the front and have had no problems yet, so I will give them a try on the rear.

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So it has been 4 and a half months since I installed the Detroit Axle LCAs. Absolutely no problems, the bushings are holding up great. If you are just looking to replace your factory arms and do not need adjustable, I fully recommend the Detroit Axle units. Good stuff.

One last update. When I installed the Addco and serviced the rear diff, I also installed a LubeLocker gasket. So last weekend I got my first look at how the LubeLocker is holding up after a year of service. I thought you guys might be interested too.
Upon removing the diff cover, the gasket remained fixed to the axle and the cover fell right off, no sticking at all. Functioned perfectly. Drained the oil, replaced the cover, refilled and no leaks to be found. Couldn't be happier! Snapped a couple pictures so you could see.

2002 WJ Driver Door Lock Wire Repair

So it finally happened to me too. The electric lock switch began failing on me. I could wiggle the dust boot between the driver-side door and the body and the circuit would come back to life. So obviously I had a broken wire in there. Finally dug in there this weekend to fix it.

PARTS LIST
TOOLS LIST
1) Disconnect battery negative terminal.
It's never a good idea to solder on live circuits. Disconnect the battery.

2) Locate the dust boot between the door and the body.
There it is.

Right there.

It's got a funny bend in it, I wonder if that's where the wire broke.

3) Pull the plug.
We are going to need room to work, best to get the plug out. Peel off the boot.

The plug (black) has a collar (white) that holds it in the door. The collar has a tab on top and bottom. Press the tabs in to disengage the collar from the door.

Disengage the collar from the plug.

Remove the red plug lock. Pull up on the top while pushing the inner bit over to the right. You will have to get at this from the bottom, not the top as shown here. Note: your vehicle won't have those blue/silver wires; those are my speaker wires.

Now you can disconnect the plug. Push the thumb tab and pull apart.



3) Pull the boot out of the body.
I skipped a few pics here. You need to remove two trim pieces to get at the boot from inside. The piece at the bottom of the door frame is held in with 4 spring clips. The clips can be disengaged by simply pulling up on the trim. Be careful, get your fingers or pry tool under there and pull straight up. Start at the front and work your way back. Then remove the kick panel. There are three phillips-head trim screws holding it in place, one plastic torx head cap at the firewall end of the panel, and one spring clip next to the hood release. With the trim out of the way, you can remove the rubber boot from the door jamb.

Note I also removed my door panel to disconnect my speaker wires. You probably won't have to do that, but I did.

4) Find that broken wire and fix it!
There it is. The black one. I used a pair of C-clamps to hold the boot out of my way.

Strip the wire.

Patch in a short length of 12-gauge wire. Solder and heat shrink! You could use a crimp connector in a pinch, but I wouldn't.


Shove it into place. Did I use too much wire? Possibly, but I'm okay with that.


5) Reassemble.
The hard part is getting the boot back in the body the way it was. This is where it is really helpful to have removed the kick panel.

Bonus pic: Duct tape reinforced door moisture liner. The thing is crumbling to the touch, got to do something!

2002 WJ 4.7L Water Pump Replacement

It started as a minor rattle that I would hear intermittently while stopped at traffic lights. Initially, testing the accessory pulleys on motor revealed nothing obvious. Eventually the rattle became constant and I zeroed in on the water pump as the problem because that's where the noise was the loudest, but there was no leak. The noise finally got bad enough to be scary and wiggling on the pulley did show some excessive motion so I decided it was time to replace the pump.

The last time I did this was in 2014 at 160k miles. The replacement I used was from O'Reilly. Now at 195k miles I am replacing it again. This time I put in a Mopar because reliability in the aftermarket is clearly an issue.

PARTS LIST
TOOLS LIST
1) Drain Coolant
My least favorite part, dealing with the coolant. Loosen the radiator cap and the bleeder plug (8mm hex socket) to help the system drain faster, then open the petcock. Try to catch the fluid with your buckets and spill tray. 5.5 quarts came out of mine.




2) Remove Serpentine Belt
Use 15mm and breaker bar. Place socket on belt tensioner pulley, rotate clockwise to loosen belt, slip belt over AC compressor pulley. Gently release tensioner. Remove belt.

3) Unmount Alternator, Make Room

There isn't quite enough room with the alternator mounted. So we are going to unmount it to give us what we need. You may disconnect the negative battery terminal and completely remove the alternator if you want, but it isn't necessary. 3 bolts to remove: 1x13mm, 2x15mm.




Slip your pry bar in there to give it the gentle persuasion it needs.


Push the alternator off to the side. We just need a little extra room.


Now remove that big stud from the AC mount, because it is in the way, too. 17mm deep socket.


Two of the pump bolts are blocked by the idler pulley. Need to remove it. 15mm



4) Remove Water Pump
Remove 8x15mm bolts. Three bolts are longer than the rest; make note of where they go.


Place your pry bar on the housing and give it an encouraging tap or two to knock it loose. It shouldn't be too hard to break loose.


With the alternator unmounted, you should have just enough room to lift the pump out. Clean the gasket mating surface with brass brush (brass is softer than a steel brush and will not mar the surface). Remove any debris or dirt.


5) Install New Pump
Fit your gasket to the new pump. Ensure there are no nicks, cuts, dings, etc. in the gasket.


Remove the shipping plug from the weep hole.


Install pump. Finger-tighten 15mm bolts in an alternating star pattern. Snug the bolts down with your ratchet in same pattern. Torque to 40 ft-lbs. in the same pattern.


Then put the other pieces back on: idler pulley, AC mount, alternator. Replace serpentine belt.

6) Fill With Coolant
I went and bought 2 gallons (8 qts) of pre-mixed 50/50 Mopar coolant. Stick with whatever brand is in your system. Pour some directly into the radiator, then finish by filling at the bleeder plug until full.




Install radiator cap. Install bleeder plug. Start up and check for leaks. That's it.

Finally Lifted



I got tired of waiting for someday to come, so I contacted Kolak and he set me up with a set of heavy duty Old Man Emu springs and some Bilstein 5100 series shocks. An Iron Rock Offroad adjustable track bar was included to maintain front end stability and keep the bad DW demons away. Also added IRO extended end links for the rear sway bar, and a 1-inch sway bar spacer rounded out the package to keep my Addco rear sway bar from beating up my differential cover.

The OME springs were advertised as providing a 2.5-inch lift on a standard factory suspension. Bella already had the Up-Country suspension package which was advertised as a 1-inch lift from standard. So on paper, it looked like I would be getting a 1.5-inch lift from this package. Not going to lie, this did not exactly sound impressive to me and I questioned whether I should even do it and risk the DW problem. But my 17 year-old springs have been in there since day 1, maybe they are sagging, so what the heck let's do it.

This lift didn't amount to much more than replacing the springs and shocks. If you can do all the stuff that came earlier in this thread, then you can do this too. Here's what I did.

First thing, establish a starting reference because I want to know the results. I put some strips of blue painter's tape on the fenders above the center of the wheel and marked them. Then I taped a plumb bob to the fender and hung it down past the middle of the wheel, this will let me know how far inboard from the fender each center cap is. Then measured the distance from 1) the ground to the tape reference, 2) the center cap to the tape, 3) string to center cap. Great, now on with the lift.

1. Raise and support front end, remove wheels.
2. Support axle with jack.
3. Disconnect sway bar, loosen end link body mounts.
4. Loosen control arm mounts and track bar mounts so the axle is free to move.
5. Remove shocks, replace springs, install shocks.
6. Replace track bar. For this lift height, run the adjustable end of the IRO track bar almost all the way in because it is longer than the factory bar.
7. Put the wheels back on, lower to ground.
8. Use plumb bob and measure distance from fenders to center caps. Find the difference and take half of that for your track bar adjustment.
9. Lift and support again.
10. Disconnect adjustable track bar mount, extend by adjustment value, reconnect.
11. Repeat 7-10 until you are happy.
12. Put it back on the ground.
13. Connect sway bar.
14. Tighten and torque all control arm, track bar, sway bar, and end link connections.

Then repeat on the rear end, but there's no track bar back there so it's easier ... in theory. For some stupid reason I had a lot of trouble getting the right rear shock in the body mount. It just didn't want to fit in there, very tight. But it eventually went in.

Also on the rear I completely removed the Addco sway bar and repainted it because the original finish was flaking badly, and I was also installing the spacers so this was a great time to do it.

Result? About 2-3/8 inch (60 mm) lift in the front and 1-7/8 inch (47 mm) in the rear. The front axle shifted 1/4 inch (6 mm) to the left, but corrected that with track bar adjustments. Measurements: (post-lift) - (pre-lift) = (change)

• LF: (20 7/8) - (18 3/8) = (2 3/8) inches
• RF: (20 6/8) - (18 4/8) = (2 2/8) inches
• LR: (20 6/8) - (18 7/8) = (1 7/8) inches
• RR: (20 3/8) - (18 5/8) = (1 7/8) inches

Or in metric

• LF: (52.9) - (46.8) = (6.1) cm
• RF: (52.8) - (47.0) = (5.8) cm
• LR: (52.7) - (48.0) = (4.7) cm
• RR: (51.9) - (47.2) = (4.7) cm

Components about to go in


Front spring comparison


New stuff in the left front


Track bar comparison


Track bar body mount, don't see anything death wobbly here


Track bar axle mount looks pretty good I suppose


Track bar installed


Track bar mounted on the axle side seems to dip down a bit, hope this is okay.


Rear springs were about the same height, but different spring rate.


Rear sway bar end links


Biggest height change was on the front left corner. 81.7 cm before, 87.8 cm after



Measuring distance from fender to center cap, this is the left front after lifting and before adjusting the track bar.


One more for the road


New tires are going on tomorrow!

Had an alignment done mainly to get a reading on where the caster angle was sitting after the lift.

Specs:


Bella:


So the caster is about 1.25° below optimal and outside spec range. The ride is good right now but I don't like these numbers, so it looks like adjustable control arms will be coming in the near future.