There is a bit of work to do. A lot of time and mountain road driving to undo. Past due maintenance to be made up for and all sorts of noises to chase down. This XJ has not ran for three years and was a home to multiple families of birds when Covid 19 hit. Since then it has been over 700 miles and is becoming my daily obsession.

These birds were taken to a local rescue.

First squeaky noise taken care of.

First trip out.






Sitting low, needs some new suspension.

 

Before it ran it needed to be gone through and all the little twigs that the birds shoved into every little hole extracted. New battery got it started and cleaned out the tank and some fresh gas got it running but poorly. Limped it home to figure out the Ujoints were trash so those have been replaced in the front. Fuel pump quit shortly after (had been installed upside down so the gauge never worked for the three cousins that owned it previously). It got plugs, wires , cap, rotor, ignition coil and a new fuel filter of course along with the fuel pump. New air filter and emissions hose from the valve cover followed shortly after as well as hatch supports and new headlights blades and bulbs and fluids (upper end so far lower to come). This all made it drive able again. With the sound of the u joints gone I noticed the chatter of a bearing gone bad and traced that to the smooth idler pulley so I replaced that as well. New coolant reservoir did nothing for the puking antifreeze but made me realize that I probably need new heater hoses.

Anyways... that’s probably not it but that basically catches us up to present. Today I am removing my old instrument cluster and replacing it with one that has a tach because I found one at the junkyard and got it for a good price.

 

Totally awesome man. Good to see you in it from the minute. Fantastic.

 

Picked this up at the junkyard.

It was much easier to take out when it had all the other extras taken out first.

 

Thanks, It’s been a blast and it’s already taken me to some cool places pretty confidently.

 

Right on. These things will take you everywhere. Just want to say, to all you guys and gals out there who wanna lift it and gift it, pay attention to this person! He's doing it right! Get it running, and go adventure! These jeeps are great right out of the box, even worn down.

Superb, brother, keep it up

 

Testify! Coming from a newly inducted Jeep person, this 4.0 is a superior engine and just the whole package is easy to work on so far and hasn’t batted an eye at the places I’ve asked it to go and that’s on a slightly neglected newly resurrected stock 30 year old model, I cant imagine what this was like new

 

Soooo.... the speedometer cable was definitely the worst part but it’s back together.

It works. I still want to check it at night to make sure I have no bulbs to change. If I do.... it probably won’t happen for a little bit. Should have checked that first but I like to live on the edge.


Thankfully this wasn’t as hard as it could have been. I’m pretty excited to have a tach with fairly minimal work. I lost 6,000 miles (this one reads 215,000) but I’ll probably be the last owner so no worries.

 

 

+1!!
GREAT photos of some beautiful country to.
That gauge cluster upgrade was my first mod. Gained 40K miles. No big deal.

 

Thanks, thankfully I live in a city where this scenery is only an hour or two drive away.



I like the way the new cluster looks and it lights up so it was a win. Definitely not a waste of 30$ and an hour.

 

Thought I'd give you a heads up on a potential problem IF your dome and cargo lights still work. Replace the OEM bulbs with LED's. The OEM's will melt the rear cargo switch and will also damage the bulb holders and lenses. Mine went all at once before I was made aware of the issue.

 

Thanks for the heads up. I tore out the sad excuse for a headliner and am planning on removing the stock lights and wiring up led strips running along the molding and am eventually planning to line the roof with dynamat or some equivalent. They didn’t work when I got it...

Magnet flashlight is my dome light for now

 

Think I made a newbie to Jeep mistake. May not have tightened belt enough when I changed the idler pulley or I tightened the pulley too much. Got rid of the noise for a week and a half but now it’s back. Looks like the belt is slipping on the fan as well. Gonna change the belt for the first time and the idler again to make sure and check my balancer while I’m at it and probably get a gauge for the belt so there is no question. I should have changed the belt in the first place anyway. If I can find out how to post video of my symptoms I will but in the meantime here are mountains

 

Ok here we go again, I’m gonna change out this idler pulley and install a new belt this time. Also gonna check my other pulleys and get a look at that balancer to see if I have any future projects. My krt2 tool won’t be in until tomorrow but hopefully by then I’ll be in the hills camping so I’m gonna try to “feel” it. I’m also wondering if I may have messed up alignment on ps pump so I’ll check all that as well.