Bluelight

When I bought the Jeep, it had a ball mount with a 2.5" drop rusted into the receiver socket. Too low to use with my trailer, so I yanked it out. With it out of the way, I was able to put in a new ball mount with a 3/4" rise and a 2" ball to match my trailer.

Bluelight

FedEx guy dropped off a new lower shift boot. Followed the guide in this thread.

When I removed the center console, I found a pile of rodent droppings, a pile of seeds, and strangely enough, a pile of loose body screws that it had rounded up and collected. Collected the screws and let the shop vac handle the rest. Put the lower shift boot on. It is slightly larger than the original. I put it in neutral and looked to see which screw hole was the closest to lining up. Was the front one, so I put in the first screw. Than drilled new holes for the other 3 and screwed them down. Reassembled the center console, than ran the shop vac through the rest of the interior.

I also tested the freeze protection of the coolant. It was a little weak after the heater core flush, and was a little low, so I added some straight antifreeze to help improve the freeze protection.

Bluelight

First off today was another check of the antifreeze strength. Still too weak, so I added a bit more straight antifreeze to the system.

Next was oil. I filled it with gas yesterday, and when I checked the oil, I noticed it was about a quart low. I thought "no biggie, I have some at home". Got home to find I had lots of oil, but no spare quart of 5w30. Went to the store and bought two quarts. One to pour in and one to keep in the vehicle just in case.

Later, I got some garage time. First project was to finish with the winterizing. Most important at this point was the pigtail. Since the bumper was somewhat bent up, and there wasn't the normal gap between the bumper and grill, I couldn't use the typical short round cord. I managed to track down a 3 foot 3-plug cord that used a flat cord that would fit in the gap. Removed the header panel and fished the cord through. Closed it all up and was able to plug in the block heater and oil pan heater.

Next was the battery blanket. The cord was just too short to reach from the blanket to the pigtail, so I needed to lengthen it. I salvaged the cord off the old battery blanket, and used that to add a foot to the existing cord. I cut the end off the existing cord an spliced them together, using staggered, weatherproof butt connectors. Wrapped some tape around the splice job and zip tied it in place so it couldn't fall into the fan or belts. Plugged it in and tucked all the cords down in front of the air box.

Final project of the evening was cleaning up wiring. This thing was full of old wiring from things previous owners had installed. First off, there was fog light wiring. I pulled out a wire that went from under the dash to under the front bumper. Probably a switch wire. Than I pulled a crossover wire that might have carried power from the right light to the left. After that I moved inside. There was a mass of wires going from the drivers side kick panel to under the back seat area. Some of these were lock wires from an old alarm system, and I'm guessing others might have been amp wiring for a sound system. Some of the wires hung under the dash. One, I had wrapped around the steering column but would often get my foot tangled climbing in our out. The last photo shows all the wires I removed this evening.

Bluelight

After finding a very informative thread last night, I pulled the passenger side kick panel off and found reason why my radio reception was crap. The shell that held the connection together had split, and the spring popped the connection apart. Removed the spring, put it back together and wrapped some tape around it.

Today I pulled out the alarm lock wiring that went to the front right door, vacuumed up the stuff the rodents had stashed behind the kick panel, put it back together and took a run to town, enjoying clear radio reception the whole way.

Bluelight

Made another attempt at an aftermarket radio. This time I used the factory mounting bracket that came with the junkyard factory radio. Only two holes on the bracket lined up with mounting holes on the radio, and the radio is a little narrower than the original unit, leaving a little bow in the bracket. However, it did fit. Since only two screws were holding the radio to the bracket, I used the rear support strap supplied with the radio. With all was assembled, the faceplate was nearly flush with the dash trim. Unfortunately that makes the faceplate difficult to remove and install.

The stereo is an inexpensive Jensen Cd/Mp3 radio. It has a line in, and can play mp3s off of a flash drive. Not terribly fancy, but should do the job.

The cuts in the dash trim around the radio are from the previous owner.

Bluelight

Got tired of having to hit the starter with a hammer to make it start, so I put in a new starter this evening. It's not a hard job. There's only 4 nuts/bolts. The tricky thing is they are 4 different sizes. 8 MM, 13 MM, 14 MM and 15 MM. Also checked the oil, and tested the coolant strength. Good to -30. Unfortunately not good enough yet.

To improve the heating, I zip tied a piece of cardboard over the grill as a cold front

Bluelight

Scored a better piece of cardboard from work today, so I made an improved cold front.

Bluelight

Picked up some good used snow tires. Cooper Weather Master ST P205/75R15 mounted to a set of Jeep 15x6 rims I had on hand. They are a size smaller than the regular tires, but the price was right, so they are good enough. I had two old snow tires from my '99 that I had in on the back, along with two regular tires in the front. I hadn't intended to drive it much during the winter, so that was good enough, but with my '99 OOS right now, I needed better tires. The difference was immediately noticeable, at a fraction of the price of new tires.

Bluelight

I had noticed it seems to be leaking oil around the oil filler cap. The CCV components are new, but I tested them anyway and they are working as they should. The old cap was bent underneath, so I picked up a new cap to see if that helps seal things up the way they should be.

Bluelight

It's mentioned on here repeatedly when one buys a used Jeep that one should go through and replace all the fluids, not knowing what they really are or how old they are. It took a while but I finally got around to changing the transmission oil in the Heep. I went with synthetic 10w30 motor oil because it was the only suitable oil that I could find that I could be sure was yellow metal safe. I was torn between Mobil 1 and Pennzoil Platinum. The Pennzoil won out first on price and second because it came in a standard mouth bottle instead of the wide mouth that Mobil uses. I figured without pesky drive shafts and skid plates in the way (the one time I'm glad it's a 2wd) it should be easy to get the oil into the fill hole. My plan was to use the nozzle top from a bottle of hypoid oil, which is why a wide mouth bottle wouldn't work. Unfortunately after squirting the first half-quart in, I discovered there wasn't enough room to tip the bottle in a way to get the whole quart in without some sort of short hose. In the end I had to use the old trick of pulling the gear shift and pouring the oil down the top of the gearbox. Kind of a pain to pull and replace the whole center console to do it, but I had to do what I had to do. The old oil was pretty black, but didn't look like it was full of dissolved synchro, so that's a good sign.

Bluelight

I didn't have the most confidence in the front brakes. The pads looked good enough, but the rotors had some deep grooves in them, and one had a hole in it. They were also noisy. Today it got shiny new rotors and new pads.

Bluelight

When I originally got this Jeep, it was missing the fan shroud and electric fan. The standard cooling did not include an electric fan, but it was included with air conditioning or HD cooling package, so most 4.0 XJs, including this one, came with them anyway. Since I don't have HD cooling and had removed the air conditioning (a move I've regretted the past several days), I didn't see a need to replace the electric fan. However, I did want to find a fan shroud at the very least, and ideally a better fan clutch.

Over the weekend, I ordered a 272310 fan clutch from NAPA, and today after work, I went to the JY and picked up a fan shroud. Got the shroud and clutch installed when I got home. Fan is noisier, but definitely moving more air.

Bluelight

Finally broke down and did a cluster swap. Picked up a full cluster out of a '96 XJ at the salvage yard. Also picked up new oil pressure and coolant temperature senders.

First off, I swapped out the oil pressure sender. It was easy to get at and came out with no trouble. I fired it up with the new sender and old cluster to see the oil light dimly glow with the engine running.

Next off, I pulled the old cluster and cleaned up the new one. I checked the new one and all the bulbs were good. I moved the bulb from the LOW WASHER light to the UPSHIFT light, since the donor vehicle was an automatic and had no upshift bulb. I also swapped the indicator light covers since they were different. The 5th light on my Jeep was labeled MAINT REQD, while the 5th light on the JY Jeep was labeled GEN. The new odometer reads 68,017 miles less than the old one.

Finally installed the new cluster. Perfect fit as expected, and after a short test drive, I could see it was working as it should. The only thing that didn't work was the coolant temp gauge, since I hadn't replaced that sender yet. Still nice to be able to have a tach, trip odometer, oil pressure and temperature gauges.

Bluelight

Been having trouble starting it. Nothing too major, but the starter would hesitate, and when it did start, the clock would reset itself to 12:00. Than one day, after a trip to the store, it just clicked. Fortunately, there was enough of a slope to the parking lot that I was able to push it, hop in and pop the clutch. Made it home, but the battery didn't take any charger on the way home. Put a charger on the battery for about 22 hours, but that didn't do it either.

Decided I had to break down and get a new battery. Picked up a new Interstate Mega Tron II Group 34 battery. Ended up putting the new battery in the '99 XJ, and putting it's 3 year old battery in here. Was a little confused at first. The old battery was a Group 34, but all the battery guides said it was a group 58. Discovered a group 34 fit because one side of the battery tray had been sawed off, and the clamp was missing.

Had a little trouble after changing the battery. Started it once, and it stared it fine, but killed the clock again. Tried to start it again, and I'd just get one click and lose all electrical power. Jiggled battery connections gave me my lights back, until I tried to start it again. I hadn't reamed the clamps or cleaned the posts of this used battery, so I had connection issues. The + post got hot just powering the park lights. Cleaned the connections and life was good again.

Found a heater hose support under the old battery