took more than just the morning, but here goes...
I didn't have any sheet steel, but my brother had a sheet of stainless sheet metal for me to use...my first time welding stainless, and while it's not pretty, it will do the job.

the front seat bracket was completely rusted out, so I made a new one. and got rid of the welded nut idea in favor of studs.


some of the inner rocker was rusted out, so I cut that out and plated new stuff in...

painted and bedlined...


Air bag computer mount welded back in, and computer bolted up.

passenger side. it was in pretty nice shape. also re-ran the amp wires nicely.


vinyl modified for the 97+ variances, and installed.



called it quits after that, and tossed the driver's seat back in so I could drive it home. I'll finish up the interior tomorrow, and start working on the sub box.

 

finished it today. installed the 242 shifter in it, now need to hook up the shift linkages.
the 2 door specific trim on the lower door frame was broken. I had some original 85 2dr ones in black, they work OK. just hard to find the right parts for 2 doors.

d/s with original floor mat. ordering the nice rubber jeep ones this week


p/s

rear floor

rear seat..

dash.

 

The rear springs were sagging so bad that I couldn't put ANY extra weight in the xj without riding on what was left of the bumpstops, and I'm not quite ready to lift it...so...bandaid time.



those helper springs were on an mj that got scrapped out years ago. thought i'd never use them, and forgot I even had them until I accidently stumbled upon them. brought the arch back 150 percent...rear now sits high enough to give it a rake. I'll be throwing air shocks in as well, once I have a whole day to spend getting rid of all of the booger welds the PO's mechanic put on them to hold them in when they broke off. would have done it today, except it started snowing...i won't work under a dripping wet vehicle.

last night, I got sick of my rear endcaps and bumper looking like ***, so I picked up some chrysler match duplicolor paint...here's the result.




all I did was scotch brite everything, then tape off the body/remove the tail lights so I could paint. I haven't put clear down yet, because I'm counting on a few days sun fading to bring the color to a perfect fade. unfortunately, instead of sun, we got snow. will probably have to redo it but oh well.

 

Looks nice, love the rig. I have an 89 2dr

 

Does tht muffler sound good? Deep?

 

It sounds awesome with a tailpipe. Sounds factory at idle but with a very deep throaty growl under acceleration, and no done at cruise. With a turndown, it has an unimaginable drone that I cannot stand

 

Wish i have the skill and patient....great work!

Looking at the pic below, can you recall if you can access the crossmember weld nuts with a drill without removing the seat bracket?

 

You can access some of them without removing the bracket. I used vice gros and a torch to get the broken bolts out

 

Thank you.

Keep up the great work!

 

Thanks! I just washed it today, and the paint still looks good. took two days for the jeep to be absolutely covered in salt. man I hate WI in the winter...sand would be way better.

 

a local guy does upholstery on the side, and has a 2dr xj that he plows with.

got to talking to him, he does ALOT of industrial seats. meaning rip proof tear proof and waterproof on all manner of equipment. my front seats are shot, and it seems I'm always getting dirty doing something or another...which is my justification for swapping in the vinyl "carpet", and why I want seats I can pretty much wipe clean and not worry about.

so, got him to do a quick "mock-up" seat for me to determine if I want to go this route, or go with leather. i'm going this route, but with green thread to match the jeep.






I'm going to pad up a set of my seats with the lumbars adjusted for me, add more padding to the side bolsters, and have him do a real nice job on the fronts. he'll also do the rear seat, once I add headrests to it.