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Hey y'all, it's been FOREVER since I added anything to this thread. So here's a little update. Jeep is still truckin', just needs some exhaust work since I've neglected that part of it almost entirely (besides the header). I've put about 15k miles on it since purchase, and it's made several trips to the Jersey shore pulling my jetski and three 600+ mile trips to North Carolina pulling fully loaded U-haul trailers. It's not the ideal tow vehicle, but it gets it done.
Here's some pics of brake work I did this summer. The way the XJ knuckles are designed with the pads sliding on them eventually causes grooves to form in the metal. Eventually this causes the inner pad (or both) to get stuck and not want to engage. Luckily for us, the knuckles are forged steel, not iron, so they can easily be welded and reshaped. I did both sides top and bottom. See pics:
The pads and rotors were shot from not wearing properly (despite being fairly new), so I replaced those. I also bought new calipers because mine were crappy and the pistons were nearly seized in their bores.
Also remember that crappy maroon door that I painted to somewhat match the rest of the paint? Well I found a guy on craigslist parting out one the same color and bought the drivers side door haha.
Also during this time we moved to North Carolina and I planned on using the Jeep to haul all our crap down there. All said and done I made 3 trips from NJ to NC using the Jeep to pull an 8' x 12' enclosed Uhaul trailer. The trailer itself weighs 1700 lbs dry, and can take ~3300 lbs of payload. Most of it was furniture, but the third trip I loaded up all the tools, engine lift, parts, jacks, toolboxes, etc. from my garage in there. I for sure maxed out the payload capacity, if not going over. The XJ pulled it, but it was a long slow trip haha. Knowing that I was going to be towing alot, I installed an oil cooler that I grabbed from a Ford Escape in the junkyard. I used some L brackets and mounted it to the front frame behind the grille. I'll have to grab shots of the hose routing, but I used an adapter kit so I didn't have to saw off any of my existing fittings where it normally goes in/out of the radiator tank. It's sort of hard to see because it's black and the AC condenser is also black, but it's there.
Here's a shot of it towing the U-haul trailer, somewhere near DC I think. It made the rear sag some, but not too bad. It would have never done it without the new leaf springs. The only time it was iffy was hard braking and when the trailer was empty it sways like crazy above 65 mph. Fully loaded you can do 70-75 if it's not too windy. Also tell me how my XJ gets 17 mpg normal driving, and I got 16 mpg with the loaded trailer and no AC running. With AC it went down to ~13 mpg.
hard to tell, but it's squatting a couple inches in this pic
trailer is empty in this pic, no squat. also that's still the old door
I'll grab some pics when I get the new muffler and tailpipe. I also plan on adding a flex pipe near the front so it doesn't crack my header. Since buying the XJ a few years ago, every single exhaust mount/hanger has broken or rusted away. I've temporarily welded them back together for now.
This is my first Jeep ever, a 2000 Cherokee 4.0/auto, and I'm pretty stoked about it . It's pretty clean for having 202k miles and rod knock, but hey I only paid $550 for it.
Anyway, I didn't feel like doing a full rebuild on the knocking motor, so I just bought a good used one to swap in. I found a 1996 Grand Cherokee engine with ~150k miles on it for $300 fully assembled. The guy had a video of it running before it was pulled with the gauge cluster showing mileage, no CEL, good oil pressure, etc. I decided to at least clean it up, pull the head off and freshen things up a bit.
I should have taken more pics as I went, so some steps are missing, but here we go:
Engine bay shot with 85% of the stuff holding the current engine in removed (intake, exhaust, entire front end, fan, alternator/AC, etc.). You can see I have the annoying Cali emissions option, so I have 2 precats in addition to the main cat under the car.
Engine removed! Sitting on my garage floor.
One thing to note, the two upper bellhousing bolts are star (Torx) shaped, not standard hex bolts. I don't have a pic, but the socket you need to remove it is an E12 inverted torx bit that looks like this:
Also, those two bolts sit so close to the firewall that I had to attach my hoist and lower the engine to access them. Therefore both motor mounts and their brackets had to come off the engine. After that it was smooth sailing, remember to have a jack under the trans to stop it from dropping:
And here's a pic of the 96 GC engine, with most of the accessory parts already stripped off the long block (you can see them on the floor by the hoist). Notice the distributor? This will be swapped for the cam synchronizer/position sensor assembly from my 2000 engine.
Before removing the head I powerwashed the engine to get all the grime/mud off of it. I then removed the head, scraped all of the old head gasket material off both the block and the head, and started disassembling the head.
Here's a shot of the valvetrain removed and numbered 1-12 front to back. I basically kept them like this until I reassembled it.
At this point I removed all the valve stem seals, spark plugs, and cleaned the combustion chambers/valve seats with a brass wire brush. Then I thoroughly cleaned the whole head in my parts washer. Next, I polished all 12 valves with a wire wheel and then painstakingly lapped each of them into their seats with lapping compound. This ensures that the valve and seat are a matched pair and creates a better seal. I've also found that after 100-150k miles exhaust valves tend to get pitted and won't seal as well. I regret not taking pics of this part.
But anyway, are you ready to see this sexy engine after I put most of it back together?
I'll admit, I might have a slight addiction to painting engine parts...
But I like the finished product, complete with new ebay header:
In order to swap the cam position sensor and synchronizer assembly over (in the above pic), I set both engines at top dead center for cylinder #1, removed the distributor from the 96 engine, and dropped in the synchronizer in it's place. There's a hole in the base of the synchronizer where you can stick a pin through to keep the internal part lined up so you shouldn't have to mess with timing too much. Here's a link to the little procedure for this: https://www.cherokeeforum.com/f67/20...208553/index2/
Hey t.mcginley.jr Great thread! Love the pics, descriptions, and detail! I am just now starting on my XJ journey and felt I was thorough. You, my friend have some amazing attention to detail. The three best qualities of your approach are; 1) Budget minded, 2) don't sacrifice quality, and 3) it's built to use and drive not to rub against rocks.
Hope to start sharing some of my own posts very soon. The Jeep I bought already has a small lift and the same grey color. Right now just getting everything clean so I know what I'm dealing with.
Hey t.mcginley.jr Great thread! Love the pics, descriptions, and detail! I am just now starting on my XJ journey and felt I was thorough. You, my friend have some amazing attention to detail. The three best qualities of your approach are; 1) Budget minded, 2) don't sacrifice quality, and 3) it's built to use and drive not to rub against rocks.
Hope to start sharing some of my own posts very soon. The Jeep I bought already has a small lift and the same grey color. Right now just getting everything clean so I know what I'm dealing with.
Thanks bud! Yea my XJ is a work horse for sure. This is a pic from the other day, pulled about 5 or 6 loads of yard debris to the local dump, last load was about 1500 lbs.
It's not perfect by any means, but it sure gets the job done!
Pulled off my drums again last night. I had to beat them on with a hammer and I know that isn't right. Everything is installed correctly, I think the parts store shoes were just not right so I ordered a set of Wagner shoes from Rockauto.
Also took pics of my new bump stops. Here's what was left of the old ones:
The rubber probably fell off years ago.
I bought two 4.1" bump stops from Quadratec, because I'm an idiot sometimes and didn't realize they were for lifted XJ's. 2.9" is the stock size. So I did what any reasonable person would do and took a hacksaw to them
You can see the tack welds on the back since the stock bolt broke off.
Cut off about an inch of rubber, there's still plenty on there though:
there are two different size diameters that they sell for shoe sets. Did the new shoes line up the same length with the old ones?
Did anyone message you with an update? I would love to find one myself since it is the ONLY DAMN PART in the exhaust you can't find in 2.5"!!!!
Hey guys, been a while. I still get email alerts when people respond to this threat. What part of the exhaust are you looking for?
I still have the XJ, it has about ~20k miles on the 96' engine and no issues. I will probably be getting rid of it soon though, since I just bought an 07 Sierra 2500hd. I'd love to keep the jeep but it just doesn't have the wheelbase for towing.
Hey guys, been a while. I still get email alerts when people respond to this threat. What part of the exhaust are you looking for?
I still have the XJ, it has about ~20k miles on the 96' engine and no issues. I will probably be getting rid of it soon though, since I just bought an 07 Sierra 2500hd. I'd love to keep the jeep but it just doesn't have the wheelbase for towing.
Just read this thread - what a great story. I have a 96 that needs a new engine. But reading this, I'd rather buy yours and get rid of the 96!!
One of the best write-ups iv seen especially with going down your own path as far as the cali emissions stuff,I'm glad I found your thread there isn't alot of documentation on pre 99 to 2000-2001 engine swaps without giving into the 0331 and precat situation
I'm currently swapping a 97 into a 2000
I have a question as far as your 02 sensors being on cylinder 1 and cylinder 6, i spent the last 2 days and have canceled 2 different orders not knowing quite sure what header to get and why all header manufactures put all 3 cylinders on each bank, then I stumbled across this thread and a youtube video that did the same thing as you did with the upstream 02 sensors on their 1500$ aftermarket exhaust system they are selling 😯 and it got me me wondering.
What are the differences between only running the upstream 02 sensor on one cylinder per bank vs the 3 as a collective on each bank? Is it more accurate fuel trim or just a way to diagnose problems easier?
Bumping this old thread as I am about to do something very similar.
My 01 bit the dirt on cyl 2 and I just picked up a 95. As far as I can tell the only difference is the older 7120 head and the single pattern cam.
Im wondering if this could/would cause issues. I would like to add power and already plan to go ahead replace the head gasket while it's out, so Im not above replacing the cam.
So correct me if I an wrong.
Your running a 1995 engine with the 1995 single pattern stock camshaft in a in a 2000 using the OEM ECM in the 2000.
If this is correct, did the ECM have any issues with the older single pattern cam shaft? ie. bad idle, stumble when accelerating, turning on the MIL, or anything else that could be attributed to the old cam/new computer working together?
Thanks and sorry for bumping this old thread.
Finished the passenger side floor, painted over the plate I welded in with Rustoleum Rust Reformer and then that same silver paint I used in the engine bay. Underneath I also welded in a piece of rebar for support:
A little hard to see with the undercoating on it, but the rebar is the rod looking thing. Welds look ****ty but they're solid.
Side note, this heat shield wasn't even on my truck! I happened to be at the junkyard getting some door hinge pieces when I saw this on every other XJ. So I snagged a good condition one for mine.
Stops the floor from getting too hot with the muffler right there.
Reinstalled the passenger seat and then took out the driver side seat to find this
More rust, and the seat bracket bolt is broken off in there. This happened before I even owned it.
Not as bad as the other side, but annoying.
Drilled that crap out in short order, going to grind the rust down, paint and replace the bolt with this (old kind on left, new on right):
On a separate note, I bought some gray paint and painted the bumper ends, but I'm thinking I need a shade or two darker. What do you guys think?
I've noticed lately that rust is one of the most common things on an XJ, biggest issue we run into here in the jeep community is the fact that alot of people but XJ's so they can take them into the river.
Also here's a crappy pic of how it connects to the header once installed on the car:
That's the view between the oil pan (bottom of pic) and frame.
You have a very nise clean project going, i have a 1995 cherokee my self to restore, working on it now, what i think you might want to know is one, these engines have an heateing problem which part of the problem is the exhaust manifold is right under the intake an very close to it causeing an over heat problem, i saw where another man wraped the intire exhaust from head cleare to the cat because the heat further back came up thru the floor an wraping exaust helped stop this an enterfering with in take, i am wraping mine, another problem is the rear main seal is bad about leaking at bout 150k miles or so, so you might want to replace this while out, you can do this with motor in car but need to take a lot of things loose up front just to get oil pan down to get to it, an most are putting in a high presser oil pump while down at this point, these up grades i am making to mine also. the door actuator locks are not working on mine cause they are jamed up with dry hard greese, as i am looking for cleaneing instructions an a reaseymbly diagram , i took one apart an with a diagram ton put back to gether , i can clean them up [all 4] an save my self bout $450 .just thought you might like to know cause you are doing such a excelent rebuild, resteration,.
11-23-2019, 08:07 PM
. It's pretty clean for having 202k miles and rod knock, but hey I only paid $550 for it.
