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So where do I begin? About 15 years ago my dad bought a 1968 Ford Mustang with every intent to restore it. Insert life into the mix, and a full restoration never happened.
Fast-forward to present day, and my dad is a couple years from retirement. He decided he didn't want to spend his retirement money in the Mustang, but would prefer to go places, do things, and have some time with his son! He told me to work on selling the Mustang, and use the money I get to get myself a 4x4 to join him in the adventures. I set my sights on an XJ!
The Mustang has sold, and now I have my 1999 Jeep Cherokee Sport. It's a 2-door, NP231 t-case, I6 motor, AW4 tranny, D30/D35 (to be replaced by C8.25). Around 175k miles on it, single prior owner.
Enough back story! Now to the build. This will be a fairly slow, steady build, with the intent to make this XJ into an overland style adventure vehicle.
Here's where she sits today!
This weekend, I'll be taking her to a local beach spot called Fiesta Island. I wanna play with the 4x4 a little bit in the sand, and the wife and I like the dog park there for our husky.
I'll also be doing some basic maintenance stuff this weekend to include: Oil change, spark plugs, wires, cap, rotor, air filter, and a new oil pressure sending unit. In addition to basic maintenance items, I also will be installing new 784 fuel injectors! Next weekend I'll be taking it in to have an alarm system installed, because my previous vehicle was stolen right off my street, and I don't have a garage to keep it in. I'm getting a Viper 2-way system, and installing a hidden kill switch. If a thief wants it, it'll notify me, and I'll get there with my SigSauer P226 before he finds the switch!
Within the next couple weeks, I'm also going to pick up a transmission cooler, and a bundle of trans fluid and a trans fluid filter. Once all that's said and done, I'll probably work on a coolant system flush!
The long term item's I'm hoping to go for are:
3.5ish" OME lift kit from DPG offroad.
31x10.5x15 Goodyear Wrangler MT/R with Kevlar.
Stock wheels with Spidertrax wheel spacers (1.25")
C8.25 29 spline axle swap
Front and rear air actuated OX lockers
On board air system
4.10 gears
Rear tire carrier bumper
Front winch bumper
Roof rack
And more stuff as I think of it.
It probably won't be a super fast paced build thread, one because I'm VERY far from rich, and two because my wife wants me to spend some of my time with her, rather than all of it with the Jeep... Crazy, right? lol
Anyways, wish me luck! I'll try to get pics of everything as I go to share my progress with you guys!
Took the Jeep out to Fiesta Island today. Did a little driving around in the sand, and let the pup (Denali) play around in the water.
My wife snapped a pic from the passenger seat while I was driving. Beautiful day out! I did learn that I need a good way to secure Denali in the back a bit more, I went over some pretty bumpy stuff and she got bounced around a little. Canine friendly back seat mod? hehe.
Been a long day of maintaining the Jeep! Got the spark plugs, wires, cap, rotor, oil, oil pressure sending unit, and fuel injectors done. I would have done the air filter but Amazon screwed up and sent me the wrong K&N filter, so I gotta send that back and wait for the new one. Oh well, at least that one is really easy to do!
Here are some pics. I will admit that I'm new to build threads, so I kinda forgot to stop for some photos along the way, but you get the idea. lol
Here's what I started with in the morning. F*****G air filter!
I got in touch with Amazon, new filter should be here Tuesday so I can drop it in! Here's the wrong part number, should be 33-2122.
Of course, lovely picture of the venerable 4.0!
Now onto the few pics I got of the process hehe. You'll see the pile of debris inside the air intake box, I vacuumed all that out and wiped out the dust. The filter that's in there really isn't all that bad, but it's no K&N.
Once I got the fuel rail out, which took some prying and pulling and cursing, I could see all the gunk from the old injectors. I got that all cleaned out!
Clean injector port.
Once I was done, I couldn't help but take it to a local trail. Seems like more of a hiking trail these days, but still had tire tracks so I went for it! I am honestly amazed by what this stock XJ can do! This is with swaybars still attached. I'll post some more pics my dad got on his phone a bit later tonight.
Those pics don't do justice to how deep some of the washed out areas of this trail were. I spent more time in the XJ than out, but my dad was spotting for me and I think he got some better ones that I can show. This is it for now though!
Rare find, 99 two doors are hard to get. Nice rig, but I don't recommend a K&N air filter. Hold it up to the light and notice all of the pin holes that will let dirt past and into your engine.
Hmmm. Well that's definitely not what I had expected to hear. Would you suggest a basic filter or do something a bit more drastic and do a CAI type setup?
Well, experience has won out on this one. I did a bit of extra homework and will definitely be taking your recommendation. The idea of dust and what not getting into my engine just doesn't sound like it's worth any potential gains I may otherwise get from the filter.
I'll probably just leave the paper filter that's in there now, as it looks pretty new actually, and replace it with Wix down the road. That frees up about $50 for me right there lol.
Surprised that a 99 2 door had D35 but welcome and i'm excited to see the build!
Thanks! I'm excited too!
I was just looking over your thread last night. I dig your XJ man, I was pretty impressed with what you did with the front end. I would have never been brave enough to start out a project like that, so kudos to ya for sure!
03-06-2015, 11:18 PM
99 XJ - Who needs 4 doors anyway?
