Riderjay253. I wouldn't worry about breaking into that. Unless it's bolted down they could just walk off with it. I got a mig welder when your ready if you need help man.

So I installed some LED running/brake lights. Nice and bright. But the other day I noticed my passenger front corner all lights where out. My clutch fan got a hold of my wiring. I pulled harness repaired it put it back tucked and zip tied it real good. Everything worked. Hooked up my putco headlight harness and headlights are much brighter now. But, in st there always a but. Now my brake lights are barely noticeable. Gonna swap in stock style bulbs and see if it fixes problem.

Well I swapped back to register bulbs. Leds need resistors I think. Got a bid in on some adj control arms. So that's up next. My front tires with stock arms and 4"s of lift are way to close to floor/pinch seam

Replaces driver door switch panel from junk yard$15 and got a factory fog light switch for dash. Talked to Doug at Napier about being a test rig for their flat flares. I'll have to put on my fender armor to cover up the bushwacker flare holes so I'm looking forward to getting those bolted up. :-)

Swapped out alternator as bearing was toast. Love how AutoZone has lifetime warranty on most there parts.

Well the Jeep Jeeps been down now two weeks. Truck passed me on i90 when it was dumping buckets, hosed my rig with a good splash and crazy enough it threw my belt and jeep ended up overheating getting to a safe spot. Which resulted in a cracked 0630 head. Super lame.

So along with that and two other recent financial hits I had to fix the jeep and get back on top financially. I have about $1300 to get the jeep jeep fixed up.

I got the head off hoping it was just blown head gasket but nope. Irish folks have all the luck. Bad luck, haha. Well ebay came through with a rebuilt warranty 0630 head ready to go for $285 shipped. Nice!!

My stock header was cracked and I knew this but didn't realize it had multiple cracks. Ie junk!
Ebay again with a ceramic coated stainless header for $120.

I bought a gasket kit from autozone for $145. Come to find out ebay has kit with new head bolts for $80. So that's getting sent back and other kit ordered.

We all know why that header usually cracks, I got some motor mounts on the way too.

I left some extra cash because my bastard pack on passenger rear is toast. Actually almost all my springs are toast. I ran the rear with no spring clamps and boy did it flex fantastically. But at a price. So I'm ordering some 2.75 medium duty old man emu leafs and some 4.5 Rubicon coils for the front. Unfortunately this means putting off my flat flares for a month but it will be worth.

Got coolant out the exhaust but none in the oil. Upside to the downside.

Getting started..

Dirty S

Good to see some work getting done!!

At least the jeeps under cover!

I'm very grateful my rig is under cover. It's actually at my buddies place because jeep won't fit in my garage and it would mean my barracuda would have to sit outside in the mean time which is not gonna happen.

Doug had free shipping this weekend so I got my flat flares coming.
My 4.5" lift Rubicon Express coils came in yesterday. Amazon shipped them so fast, my ome leaf springs will be in today too.

Still waiting on rebuilt head, gasket kit, header, head bolts, and motor/trans mounts. I ordered stock rubber placements. I've heard to many complaints about vibrations in the cab from Poly mounts.

Head got delivered and gaskets will be here on Friday and the header here one wen. So today I will remove all the sensors from the intake and clean and prep it to be reinstalled.

I'll be cleaning up any cast flaws on the intake and then putting it all back together. I plan to put some petroleum jelly around all my sensors to help keep water/moisture out.

The head is refurbished but I will be checking valve guide clearances and doing some minor port work and cleanup on the intake ports. Not looking for big power or anything just efficiency.

I was getting 13.3mpg with stock gears and 35s with a really cracked header so I'm hoping with new header and a reflash of the computer I may get my mileage closer to the 16mpg I was getting with the 33s. I know a regear is what will help the most but for my tire size and my high mileage I think 13.3 is still not bad all things considered.

Well some bad news for me. Taking a closer look today at the pistons and bores when the jeep jeep overheated pistons got hot enough that the piston land on two pistons were damaged by the ridge at the top. The ridge is very small .005 or less and the bores are in great shape so looks like I need pistons rings and rod bearings as of right now. I will probably do oil pump too while pan is off. Not a lot of extra cash to make it right but more time waiting on parts and more disassembly.

Well the head is here and looks great. I got the intake stripped down but not cleaned up yet.

Got my header today!! Ohh yes sir, got a nice thick flange on this header. (0.500 at least)

Coating doesn't seem too thick but welds are nice. Also its stainless so with the new motor mounts that arived today also they will last many years.

Couple shots of the new head.

Gathering parts and lots of clean and prep till the pistons/rings get here.

Going to buy some rod and main bearings from parts store just in case I see anything I don't like. No more surprises I'm ready to get my rig back to cruiser status.

Second pic shows a few header cracks, man that thing was toast.

Here's my other project. Had this old girl long time. Coming up on 13 years now. Been building headers for the old girl and got a rear end I'm building with 4:56 gears to go play at Pacific raceways this summer.

Before and after of the intake manifold. Still A little work left on it. Not gonna go crazy but want it to look good. Torn on doing a high temp spray paint or just leave it raw.

Got my ome medium duty leafs. I pulled them apart and removed the overload spring as I dont haul a lot of weight and needed a little less lift than these advertise.

fricken lucky... i could use some better leafs...

Yeah my bastard pack was well over due. Both rears main leafs were a W shape. Passenger being so bad that the shock was holding up that corner and made for some funky handling especially hitting a bump at freeway speeds. Jeep would kind of rock from drivers rear to passenger front and just felt wrong.

After shopping around for full leaf packs in the 3"s of lift or less the OME was actually the best price. Pro comp was only $50 less with lots of bad reviews and pretty much everything else was $3-400. The OME's where $255 from amazon for the pair. Hell of a deal in my book. The front re coils were $75 from amazon too which is a great deal. I didn't want Rubicon express rear leafs as they have to much arc and ride relatively stiff.

Can't wait to feel the difference, though I think I may end up with a little more lift than I would like.

New pistons came in yesterday. Woo hoo time to get this rig back on the road and out on some trails.

man my leafs are frowning... no lift at all... i might have to check amazon...
new pistons... its getting a lot of LOVE

Yeah sounds long overdue like my leaf springs Wasilla Xj. Amazon has great deals. I hunt pretty thoroughly before buying parts.

Yeah my hopes of just changing head gasket turned into an engine overhaul and since I had to do all that I figured might as well fix my tired springs. Piston are really nice. Super light coated skirts and they came with new piston pins.

Also my Flat flares from Doug will be here on Thursday. Not enough time in the day it seems between work and just moving.

it always turns out that, small, then you do some research and before you know it you go from 3" of lift and 35s to 8" and savin for bigger tires....

Started off by cleaning the block so I could check freeze plugs and get off the caked on mud.

Also started cleaning where it would be hard to get too after intake is on.

Also changed drivers side motor mount. Man that thing was toast.

Got my flat flares in yesterday too. They look great. I'll be doing a write up on them here this weekend when I get them installed. You can see how cut my fenders are and these flares still fit without issue.

Teaser pics

what rims are those? i like the look of them

16x8 w/4.1 back spacing black ion 171s. Four of them are only around $450. I got mine off craigslist for $130 new in the box.

Guy was asking $200 and wouldn't move on the price. Calls me next day made the mistake of telling me he needed the cash so he would do $170 and well I told him best I could do was $130. Never heard someone complain so much about giving them money when they needed it.

Got the pistons out of the motor last night. Bores look great and rod journals on crank feel great but the bearings need replaced. Also noticed my timing chain is loose as all get out so need a few more gaskets, rod bearings, and now timing chain. I think I'll be doing a new water pump too since I don't know how old the one is that's on motor.

Got the drivers front re coil in. Not much of a increase in height thankfully but somethings limiting my down travel. Its not my shocks or brake line. I'm thinking track bar or stock control arms. Both of which are to be upgraded first of the year.

I will be installing my Napier flat flares today. Gonna look sharp and these things feel way more durable then that bushwhacker junk I had on there.

Got my Napier flat flares mounted. Was super easy install. I took quite a few pics but here's a few for now.

Here is the old bastard pack vs the 2.75 OME leafs.

Wow that's a sweet combination for your XJ!
dn

Thanks Doug. Looking sharp for sure.

Got my bores prepped and rod/main bearings in. I had to send my old pistons and rods out to get the pins pressed out and on the new pistons. Should have those back Monday to start assembly of the short block.

I'll be dissasembling the new head tomorrow to check valve stem clearances and installing the new main bearings.

And to anyone who thinks they can get there stock leaf spring bushings out to reuse them in new leafs forget it. Mine are in good shape but the are one with the leafs so new ones to be ordered tomorrow.

Well my crankshaft is toast. Jeeps getting a stroker. This would be good news if I wasn't financially buried from all the other **** life throws at ya.