You got it.


K

 

Dremmel tool to expand the axle hole, also had to dremel the holes for the studs to fit through. Backing plates slid on, bolted them down with generous amounts of lock tight. Snugged up the brake lines after reforming them by hand. Installed the rotors, mounted the calipers, and put the rear back together. Wham! Disc brakes!



I took the rotors off again later and cleaned them up with a drill and a wire brush.

Here is a top shot showing the hard line and soft line union.



Here is the YJ brake line installed.



All that's left now is to install the new hard line from the prop valve to the rear end, re mount the drive shaft, shocks, reinstall the differential components, and bleed.

This may happen next week sometime, depends on when the stealership gets the parts I am missing in. Also going to work on the parking brake cables during the week. Got plans for the weekend, so I'm out of here!



K

 

The Jeep is back together. I got the brake line and c-clip from the stealership, and installing it was plug and play. Got an $8 bleed kit from AutoZone, and a big can of brake fluid.

I was able to use my existing parking brake lines with a cable lock. Was a pain in the *** to trim the spring, but it works great so far.

I am holding off on installing the lockers. I had kept the spider gears from the powertrax install, so put them back in the rear. I'll ride the road for a week or so to make sure the brakes are ok. When I decide to install the lockers, I want them to stay in place for a long time.

The test drive was fine, and I think there is less roll to the body at stop lights. Also reverse stops feel nice and tight. I was unable to lockup the tires, but I was staying around 40mph. It stopped fine other than that.

I may upgrade to the ZJ prop valve at some point, but right now it's $50 I can keep in my pocket.

While I was under the Jeep I noticed a bit of oil seeping out of the oil pan gasket. I took to it with a wrench and tightened up all the bolts and nuts. Hopefully it's not the rear main. Cleaned it up with some pinesol, will check it again in a week and see if the seep is still there.


K

 

Discs done. Holding off on prop valve.

Done.

Done. When in 2Hi it's invisible. The ratcheting sound through turns is barely audible.

Done. Also installed the Powertrax N-Slip Locker.

Starting on that tonight.

Done.

Done. 60s Epoxy worked fine on the plastic supports.

Weekend maybe.

Another week or so out.

New todo: Drop the oil pan and replace the gasket. Also check rear main seal. Maybe another week or two. not even 1000 miles on the current oil.

Install transfer case skid. Found one on ebay for $60 + shipping. It's on order, so next few weeks throw that on.



K

 

I'm sure you probably already knew, but make sure you hook up that diff vent tube before going through any water or youll be pulling that diff cover back off again. Gears don't like water lol

 

The diff breather I extended to the front with some nylon tubing from home depot (it's out of the pictures). Attached all the breathers together with T connectors to a fuel filter that sits slightly above the brake canister. Got that idea from that Australian dude with all the write-ups.

Tonight I got carried away with the steam cleaner and pulled off the side trim. Took about 2.5 hours to peel off all the gunk. Scratched up the sides a bit, but looks pretty slick.

Also replaced the two upstream O2 sensors, hoping to get better mileage.

Gas tank skid was just too much to tackle after all that.

Thanks for checking the build out!



K

 

Ah very smart! I knew exactly what you were talking about as soon as you said "that Australian dude with all the write-ups".

Can't wait to the see the rest of your progress

 

let me know how the lockers worked out for you. i also have a 2001 xj with some mods but still ridding around with open diffs . been debating between lockers or LS seeing that it is my dd.

 

Finally after weeks of too busy to work on anything, in the past two days I have installed the TC skid and the gas tank skid. The gas tank skid was tricky, and I'm not 100% sure how it will hold up. I tested it with a floor jack, but will have to see how well it does offroad.

While installing the TC skid I decided to tweak the drop on my crossmember. Found that I could eliminate the 1" tc drop and solve most vibrations with about 5-6 MM drop.





Yep, the Jeep is off the ground suspended by the gas tank skid.


K

 

So far the Richmond Gear lockers are just fine on pavement in 2Hi. The front end will ratchet in turns.

Driving in 4Hi with the lockers would be a disaster on pavement.

I'm a bit worried how 4Hi will be in snow and ice too.

4Hi on gravel roads and dirt makes for tight steering, however I was able to maneuver fine.

I'll have more to say after some offroading, and will post it here.

Locked rear and a quality LSD in the front is probably the best setup for a daily driven Jeep, but LSD's are usually more expensive than lunchbox lockers. YMMV


K

 

well wont have to worry about 4wd on pavement no snow or ice around here. but i think ima take your advice on the locked rear and lsd front... id rather spend the extra and have a quite ride on the road cept for the little chirp from the rear being locked on corners

 

Thanks to the smart people on this forum, I understand that the XJ tie rod is only slightly better than rolled tin foil, so I upgraded that with the ZJ one.

ES3096 Tie rod end
DS1312 Long tie Rod
ES2079S Adjustment Sleeve

Installation is plug and play. Didn't have to raise the Jeep, so made readjusting the tie rod to fit the alignment easy. I ended up flipping the rod so that the adjustment sleeve is on the driver side. New ZJ rod on top, factory XJ rod on bottom.



Here it is on the Jeep. I figure the side with the grease needle went to the driver side steering link since it gets the most movement. The sealed side connects to the drag link.



Also frustrated with the driver side factory fog, so I replaced it with one from ebay. When I took it off and inspected it, it looked like this.



No wonder it didn't work.


Coming up next few days is pulling the dash apart so I can replace the gauge cluster wiring harnesses. This "no bus" and locked up gauges is irritating.


K

 

Since I bought the Jeep the A/C has been ineffective at cooling. I brought it in to have a r-134a probe detect where the leak was, and sure enough it was the evaporator buried in the dash.

So, this past weekend a buddy came over and we unbolted the dash, dropped the steering column, and removed the hvac box. Used some of my climbing gear to tie the dash up and out of the way so we could maneuver the box out. Only broke two plastic fittings, but the evaporator was replaced without killing all the insulating foam. Also replaced the accumulator dryer. The job took about 4 hours, and I spent another couple of minutes replacing the turn signal flasher relay, and the viscous radiator fan.

No pictures this time, in a hurry to get the work done.

Today I will take the Jeep to our shop and vacuum test it. Pending results, fill that sucker up and have some cold air!

I'm running a constant 210 after changing the fan at stop lights. May still switch over to electric fans, but there sure isn't much room under there to work with. Maybe 2 10" fans at 1000 CFM would fit, but would that cool it enough at stop lights?



K

 

huh I dont see any issue with that fog light...I bet the other side is almost as good

 

Had a leak at the thermostat housing, so replaced the skanked up gasket with a new Felpro one. Should have replaced the thermostat too, but completely slipped my mind when I was at AutoZone.

Purchased a ProComp 16" 2500cfm Electric fan with Thermo control switch, a new 195* thermostat, and DANA30/C8.25 Zone Offroad Diff Guards. Going to install all this over the next few weekends and nights off. Will try and turn the electric fan conversion into a writeup and provide pictures. Goal is to gain 1-2 mpg by dropping the clutch fan. Fan and thermo control was $55 + shipping.

Why the 16" fan you may ask. Well, seems to be the popular size on the other writeups, and the smaller dual 10" fan setup I found was actually 12" wide. Too wide to fit two with the OEM aux fan, and too wide to fit 3 without the aux fan. Anything smaller than 10" fan diameter pulls less than 700 cfm per fan, so I am going to give this a try.

Also time to do a radiator flush with some vinegar to remove the skanked up debris and scale. Noticed some skank in the coolant bucket when I changed the thermostat gasket.

Debating changing the waterpump too. It's probably the original, but so far my temp stays pretty solid around the 205-210 range even with the A/C on.

Should be some Jeep "****" to look at when I get this started over the weekend.




K