oggy017

So, I'm new to the whole "Jeep Thing," not new to mechanics, just the "Jeep thing." I have a 99 XJ classic with automatic, right now it's pretty much stock, save for the truck bed liner I sprayed onto the lower doors after clearing up the rust problem I had on the drivers door... and the seat covers I was allowed to purchase because of the stain that mysteriously appeared on the wife's $60 hoodie... So if things keep going this way I may end up driving a bunch of really rough roads to get the wife to allow me a new suspension... and flatten a tire for a new set... Seriously though cash is king and the king doesn't allow me to do everything I want to... only the necessities, which are looking like a new steering stabilizer, and maybe bushings, and a set of 235/75/15s... from what I've seen they're the largest I can put on without a lift or cutting fenders, so that's what I'll be putting on.

This is the Jeep before I did anything to it...


This is her all taped up and sprayed with the bedliner after I fixed up her cancer and sprayed the bed liner


And finally a finished product.... Looks good, I'm happy with it and the wife likes it a lot better than the rust.


And a little closer shot of the paint...


This was completed about a week or two after I got her... Easiest thing I've done to a vehicle... had to bondo a few pin holes, and it was my first time ever using the stuff... so it didn't come out too neat, I didn't worry too much about getting it sanded perfectly, as I knew I wasn't going to be repainting it blue, and the bedliner would cover it up. But anyhow like I said the wife and I are both happy with it.

The wife leaves the mechanical to me, but she's no fool, if I were to say "I need to put a new lift kit on it" she'd know I was trying to pull a fast one... and being in the army money's a little tight... so I get things that are necessities before the wants... which I can't really argue about. So like I said the seat covers became a necessity after the stain on the wife's hoodie, which, did I mention was white?

Soo Here's a before of the passenger seat, I always seem to forget the before pics... so the driver's is already done... but it was about the same as the passenger seat:


The seat covers installed pretty easily, the tops slid right over the back rest like a pillow case, and the bottom was secured using handy dandy little clips, you fit it over the elastic strap, and clip it to the cross bars under the seats.


The head rest covers just used elastic and wrapped the headrests... There were two options for the headrests, I could cut slits in the seat covers, or there was velcro at the top, so I just opened up the velcro, passed the posts through and closed the velcro around it, forgot to photo but here's how they turned out:



The back seat was a bit more of a pain... both the bottom and the back attached the same way as the fronts bottoms... with the clips, and they weren't quite shaped the same as the seats... so I had to finagle it a little here, and pull it a little there to get it to sit just right...
Here's a before:


Here's the finished product with the daughters booster seat sitting in there...


I did have to make a couple slits in rear seat covers though, one on each side for the the seat back latch:


And another in the bench so that I can access the pull tab for the bench lift. I had a little foresight and put the cut in the driver's side, away from the 4yr old... hopefully it doesn't tear...


The only downside to the seat covers is the back of the rear seat has this to show from the rear:


But for $52 I can't complain too much... They also came with a steering wheel cover which was badly needed as it left your hands all sticky and a couple seat belt pads...

Well as for now that's all I have completed, next on the list to be completed are necessities:
Due to beginning stages of death wobble I have to replace the steering stabilizer (if anyone has run into problems replacing this, and can toss some tips on how to remedy it quickly it'd be appreciated), hopefully not the bushings

an oil change

a new exhaust manifold/intake gasket as it has a small leak now,

some new tires before winter hits... money is tight, so I'll be sticking with 235-75-15's for now... if you've got some cheap and are in northern NY, Syracuse area let me know...

Sorry for the long post, I guess I could've broken it up... but for now that's where she sits, I'm trying to think of a name for her but when I ask the wife for ideas she gets this wtf look on her face and says "blue *****" idk what she's saying... but I hope I don't find out tonight... lol

mtparker97

looks good. love that color one of my favs.

Bustedknuckle

Welcome to CherokeeForum. And sorry to hear you were diagnosed with "Jeep Thing". Despite what you may have heard, its not curable at all. And tell tale symptoms are prolonged time under said Jeep, lengths of hours on Cherokeeforum and related websites, and a defined revenue stream to that thing occupying space outside of your house.

Welcome to the cereal bowl! Looks great so far!

oggy017

Thanks, I love it too, I know a lot of people think it's played out, but if it were any other color I might have walked away for something with better tires and less rust...

Thanks, I actually was just reading your build thread, I like the leaf packs, and I may have to try that in the future... and it def sounds like I've got the "jeep thing" bad... been on here all day with some time out for food and putting the seat covers on...lol

mcguyver_xj

nice color man...got the same color...and i'm sure if your a good boy you'll get what you want

oggy017

We were all sitting in the parking lot at work last month and one thing led to another and we were popping hoods... I popped min went to close it a few minutes later, and the latches wouldn't latch, long story short I ended up with this:


After that I was able to close the hood no problem, problem was opening it up... not a problem, you know until I absolutely NEED to open it... so I called up quadratec and and had them send me one out...


Which actually brings us up to now... I've had this sitting for about 3 weeks and haven't had the time to get it installed, I told the wifey today it was getting installed... I'm not so sure she realized that I couldn't even jump start my car without it installed (I could have just would've been a pain)

I started with the removal of the interior trim piece around the pull handle, and then moved on to removing the (3) star bolts holding the old lever cable in place.


With that removed I was able to cut the entire cable back to where I can get to the cable inside the sheat to open the hood.


With the hood open I can use a 3/16 drill bit to drill out the rivets holding the bellcrank in place.




With the rivets removed you can pull the bellcrank right off the hood, twisting as it comes off to disconnect the release rods for the latches.



The reason you need to remove it is this guy, the bellcrank sits so close to the hood that you can't remove it without bending something/everything... it should just twist out and unkey with the cable, I had to use a pair of pliers though...

oggy017

As you can see it's pretty rusted so I went for my pb blaster and was shocked to find that I had none... so I grabbed the brake cleaner, a wire brush and some black primer, as I didn't have any spray paint, it'll work til I get what I need.



I think this piece is actually what caused the cable to break, it was so rusted I had to use a pair of pliers to break it free and able to move freely.





After that it's just assembly from the reverse forward...



interior of hole in firewall:



Engine side of hole in firewall:



and with cable run through:



After that the cable was placed into the clips and the bellcrank reinstalled:





Bellcrank get re-riveted...



Then everything gets tightened up, and trim gets put back on, you close the hood, drop to your knees as you pull the handle and say a little prayer that the hood pops back open...

Fortunately for me It opened no problem, and after cleaning the bellcrank off the new cable works better than the old one ever did.

Biceps McRipped

I just had my exhaust manifold replaced, and the shop was going to charge me $380 for it. I looked around online and found one from 1A auto for a third of that!
http://www.1aauto.com/1A/ExhaustMani...tm_content=EEM

If you just want a stock replacement, there's the link. Hope it helps.
Keep up the good work!

oggy017

My wife has been nagging me about the passenger side window switch not working. So I figured today while on my lunch break i would do the window lockout switch override mod. I found the mod on a thread on this site, but the op had used a paperclip, which, personally, I don't feel is safe, others used jumper wires, I figured I'd go the easy route and just use a single wire tap. The tap I found didn't block one of the wires from extending all the way through, so I didn't have to worry about getting rid of plastic, I had the cover off yesterday and knew I was going to do this today so I didn't bother putting it all back on, would've done it yesterday, but the inlaws came over for dinner and I had to finish up.

The tap I used:


and the tap installed over the Yellow and Tan wires:



And finally all buttoned back up:



And that's all there is for now, Next on the list is probably tires, and/or new fogs for the lower fascia and a couple for in front of the grille, and/or replacement of the manifold gasket (intake/exhaust)

oggy017

Haven't updated in a while, the wife's been keeping me busy... Last week I took the jeep to the auto craft center on post, with the plan of replacing front brake pads, having the rotors turned, front axle u-joint replacement, as well as the wheel hubs, and an oil change.

What i actually got done was much less. After 7 hours, I had the rotors turned, the new pads on, the left side wheel hub replaced, and and after a run to the machine shop the left side u-joint installed.... What took so long? We used a ball joint removal tool, similar to the ball joint/u-joint removal tool sold by harbor freight, and we ended up closing the yoke a bit, making re-installation next to impossible. Which brings me to yesterday.

Yesterday's agenda was to finish everything I didn't get completed last week, minus oil change. Was it a success? Absolutely. What'd I do differently? Well for starters I got a few pics. I also said screw it, and just took the axle shaft/yoke straight to the shop to have them do the u-joint. The shop closed at 12 and i woke up at 8:30 and had to rush to get the axle shaft and u-joint removed. I had it there by 10, with a run for a hammer as I didn't realize the only one I had was my Estwing, and I didn't want to ruin it. the shop called an hour later and I was done by 12. Not bad for using just hand tools.

Here's some photos of the job:


New U-joint installed, So much easier this way, downside was it hit the wallet $32 in labor to have the shop do it...






Wheel hub installed, minus the axle nut being torqued down, unfortunately I forgot something...


Yup, the dust shield for the brake rotor... looks like I'm taking it back apart.


All better now.




On the agenda for this week is a new set of tires, I failed inspection because the tires I have are dry rotted... So I hit up TireRack.com and was expecting a set of these (they were the one's in the photo):


Instead I got a set of these:


Obviously there's quite a difference in the tread design, which kinda angered me. So, logical decision was to call them and get it taken care of. TireRack.com's customer service tried to tell me that they sell so many tires they couldn't show a photo of every single tire... Every size maybe not, but every tire Yes, especially when there's such a difference in tread design. My reply when she said that was "So you're telling me if you have a photo of a 5 spoke silver painted rim, I may end up with a chrome wire spoke wheel?" she had no reply and her only solution was to offer me the original tire at $33 more. NOt exactly what I was looking for... SO after talking to her supervisor, I'll be expecting a call back on Monday...

I had originally wanted them installed on Tuesday, but I guess we'll see what happens, if they're going to send me the KL61's and take back the 16's I purchased for the same price, I'll wait, otherwise I guess these'll be going on.