LabRat

So my first XJ was a 99 sport that was beautiful, but I was a dumb kid and traded it for a riced out Honda Del Sol, I wanted to be fast and furious. Well now that I'm older and somewhat wiser I realized how much I missed the old Xj. Therefore I went out and got this beauty 2 years ago, from a guy off good old craigslist for 700$. It was in pretty rough condition engine and cosmetic wise. The guy thought it had a blown head gasket but upon ripping everything apart I found out that it had two, TWO broken rings on the 6th cylinder piston. Which had left there mark on the cylinder wall.

Day I brought her home, had to trailer her from Idaho Springs to Denver.


Engine Pulled and broken down somewhat. I don't think the previous owner EVER changed the oil.



Gouge in the 6th cylinder.




Well long story short I did a full rebuild on the engine, got it bored over 20 with bigger pistons machined the crank, new cam shaft lifters all the good stuff.



Painted the block grabber green.


Threw it back in the heep.



Once I had her on the road I remembered how much light comes through these things, and peoples wandering eyes. So I ordered some window tint and tinted the back windows.

Before


After


Okay so now fast forward to this last March (2012). I trimmed the fenders, bought some 33's for 100$ from a member off colorado4x4 and bought 5 crager black window d's, I know everyone has them but I like and thats all that matters.

I also painted it...WWII Olive Drab, paint from Gillespie Coatings, only way to go if your going to do Olive Drab. Some people think paint prep is tedious and boring, I find it completely relaxing....not.

Pre-Spray


Finished


And bigger tires on, sorry its not a better picture only one I have from then.


In October I decided it was time to jack it up!!!! So I started planning and looking at parts.


Originally I planned on doing a 3.5" lift so I wouldn't have to worry about control arms, SYE kit ect. Well I saved up some money since I wanted to order everything at the same time. I was going to get everything from Rusty's offroad, I got on my computer and started choosing my parts. When I got to leaf springs something caught my eye.....they had their 6.5" leafs on sale for the same price as the 3.5" leafs I was just about to order.

Now any sensible person would say, "that's a pretty good deal, but in the long run I'm going to be spending more money on other parts to lift my XJ that much, and why would I need my XJ to be that high any way, that's a ridiculous amount of lift."

I didn't.

I ordered Rusty's 6.5" leafs, some rear shocks and nothing else. I wasn't ready to see the amount of $ I was about to spend on lifting my Jeep...

So over Nov-December 2012 I lifted the back.



Old stock leafs vs new Rusty's 6.5" pack


Back Done, I also made some new hard lines for the rear brakes, the stock ones were in poor condition, and home-brewed bar pin eliminators out of the old rear sway bar mounts. Lowered the Tcase 1.5" and shimmed the rear axle 2 degrees until I get a SYE and cv driveshaft around tax time.





Beginning of December I got myself some early xmas presents, to myself . Ordered some Rubicon Express 7.5" coils and Rusty's shocks for the front.


After Xmas I ordered some creeper joints and bungs from trail gear.

The man in brown dropped them off this Wednesday.

Can anyone take a guess at what I'm going to do with these????

coloradowheeler

Where in Denver?!!!

docmedpros

subscribed, love the color and like the bar pin eliminator idea, definitely doing that

docmedpros

also if you don't mind me asking what was the bottom dollar after boring the engine and new internals?

LabRat

SE of Denver, actually technically in Parker, I should change that haha.

LabRat

I paid a total of about 650$ all said and done for the complete rebuild. I did all work myself except for the machining, head rebuild and connecting the piston rods to the pistons. I think it was 350$ for the machine work, valve lapping and 300$ for the rebuild kit that came with new camshaft, timing chain, all oversized bearings, pistons, piston rings, all gaskets, new high capacity oil pump, lifters everything.

Domaas

looks like a good start, and i love the color.

Im guessing the joints are for some home brew long arms?

docmedpros

ok not bad at all, and i'm thinking the joints either long arm upgrade or custom steering set up

adamk

Those would be for control arms...either long arms or lower arms

Domaas

just build long arms now, instead of lowers, then regrete doing, and bulid long arm again.

Hookem1

Looks good!!! Looking forward to seeing more!

LabRat

Ding ding ding. We have a winner. The joints are for homemade long arms! Ordering the Dom tube next week. Building the mounts to the unibody this weekend, hopefully they will be complete in the next two weeks.

Domaas

right on, well im subbed to watch the progress.

Dino's 99XJ

Can't wait to see this beast! sub'd

concretecowboy

Great start. Looks like what I plan to do once I get mine back. Keep up the progress.