I spent all day long cleaning pistons. I thought I was gonna have them in by now but I wanted to make sure everything was perfect. My hands are torn to hell but I'm very happy with the final results of the day. Here's a pic of one of the pistons before any cleaning:



And after all the hard work:



I used a copper wire brush to clean it up along with using a broken ring to clean the ring groves. I'm anxious to get them all set in soon. I also picked up a ring compressor from my grandpa. Oh and here's a pic of the new piston with rings installed



The final pistons ready to go in:



Can't wait to get things moving back together! hope everyone is enjoying the build thread. I'm trying to take plenty of pics of everything as I go on. Let me know what yall think!

 

Noah, as always, great work! Wanna hit the trails after you get it back together?

 

Sure! It'll need some good trail rides once I get it back together to make sure it's running good. Maybe we can make a trip to interlake or somewhere. I bet we can talk Bmkerner into going too

 

Well just another update... I honed all the cylinders again and made sure they're perfect. Go figure when I was putting the rings on the cylinders, I realized that O'Reilly's didn't give me enough oil spacer rings so I called them and got another one on order. I also pressed the wrist pin onto the new piston. So once I get the final oil spacer ring I will be throwing the new pistons and everything in. School is killin me right now and making it extremely difficult to finish this project quickly.

 

haha ya man im def down to make a trip to interlake, just let me know ahead of time. Was trying to go with 90XJkid to Redbird but been having to work and college is kicking my *** lol but The XJ is looking good !

 

Thanks again! Well today I got all the pistons and rings installed. Everything is going back together great without any problems. I'm using AssemblyLube on the bearings and using engine oil in a squirt can for the pistons and rings. Everything is all torqued down and once I clean the head up I'll be putting it back on as well and slowly getting the jeep back together. Sorry for the slow progress, this is my junior year of mechanical engineering, im working, and trying to squeeze a small social life into only 168 hours a week. I'll get pictures soon to show off the nice set of pistons all installed and cleaned up! Thanks for all the views guys I appreciate it

 

Welp, I got some time tonight away from school and homework. School has been kickin my butt so far. Just kinda a cool example of my junior project. I'm testing volumetric flow rate, uncertainty, and fuel spray position and location of a fuel injector. It's pretty interesting project thus far and much more in depth than I thought it would be at first. Hope you guys appreciate lots of hard work and hours trying to get it going. still don't have the injector running correctly yet but should be soon:

Basically the whole system:



Collection vessel with the fuel injector at the top:



Lines running down to measuring tubes to be able to measure spray position and location:



Okay sorry for going off topic but here's what I got done tonight on the jeep. Slowly over the last couple days I have cleaned the head and the engine block perfectly. I don't have any pictures of it but I also replaced all the valve seals. The old valve seals weren't very bad but I went ahead and did them to sleep better at night. Here's a pic of the head and the block all ready to mesh together:









Then I threw the head back in with the help of my father. That cast iron head is heavy. TIP: screw a bolt in a rocker arm hole with a washer to be able to get a good grip in the rear of the jeep to be able to place the head perfectly on top of the block. Then I torqued everything down:





And here she sits tonight. I have a paper to finalize tonight so I made sure I had time to finish that. But hopefully soon I'll put the rockers in and have the valve cover on soon!



Thanks again for everyone checking out the jeep and if anyone is needing any help with something I have covered msg me or post on here. This site is to help people and I enjoy helping out as much as I can. To all those people out there that have their XJs running keep driving and appreciate every mile in a jeep

 

Look at you getting your learn on.... Impressive injector test setup! You will look back on college one day and say, "It sucked, but I'd do it again". College is easy in the scheme of life.

 

Just started up the Jeep today! It ran better than ever. I am going to break the moto in using the "MotoMan" Technique. It's a somewhat aggresive break in. I'll get some pics of it soon driving! I'm pumped

 

 

Okay here's some pics of the running Jeep with the fresh rebuild:







Pulling outta the shop for the first time:









I've been needing to replace one of the coolant lines so I also did that, you can see how at the corner it was starting to chip away. It looked like it would leave me stranded somewhere if I let it be any longer.



New hose $12



After driving it a bit, no leaks, no drips, no weird smells, everything ran great. It's a great feeling rebuilding an engine and realizing you did everything right. I'm anxious to get some more miles outta the XJ and hopefully if I get time I'm going to fabricate a tube front and rear bumper, replace all the trim, and fix little things here and there. I'm just glad shes running again!

 

I NEED black wheels bad... looking into the black soft 8 cragar wheels. I hate the chrome so much but I love the tires

 

Looks good!

 

Thanks man! I drove the XJ to school today! It feels so good to produce quality work that operates correctly. I have roughly 60 miles driven so far. Theoretically, the rings have already seated and started producing a lacquer finish on the cylinder walls. The break-in was simple and made sure it received plenty of low to high rpm tests. Not one hiccup or problem. I am checking fluids every time I drive it. So far so good.

Future plans:
Rebuild brake master cylinder
Black wheels
Possibly fab some tube bumpers on it to match the styling of the roof rack

At this point I am looking to sell it once I am confident the motor is in perfect working order. If anyone is interested you may PM me. I hate to sell it but I'm looking for a full sized truck. down the road I would like to make another XJ my DD with a 3" lift on 31s. Even if I sell it I will still be on here checking out everyone's jeeps!

 

Well the XJ is for sale. I'm waiting on BMKerner to possibly buy my XJ back. I found a crew cab chevy 3500 that's super nice condition that would be an awesome truck to lift. We'll see... Jeep is still doing great and I guarantee I'm gonna miss it. I'll be rebuilding the brakes before I sell it to someone and I should post the progress on that soon too.