Thought it might be interesting to do a rebuild from the UK.
Some parts will differ because of the location, some will like it, some will not, and hopefully some bits might even be interesting, and please excuse if I use the wrong terms for things.

Undertaking this kind of vehicle build over here isn’t quite as straight forward, parts are not to hard to get hold of, but obviously more expensive, and the availability of scrap / donor vehicles is clearly less.

 

First a little bit of history.

I have run an XJ since 2001, a 1994 4.0L Limited, I’ve had the all the usual problems, some that might be peculiar to the UK, CPS failure, rust, belt tensioner failure, electrical gremlins, rust, exhaust manifold breaking, rust, engine mounting cooked by leaking exhaust manifold, rust, sagging suspension, and did I mention rust.

Unfortunately, after major battles with corrosion I had decided that this year would be her last, although she would not die completely.
My XJ at sometime in its life had suffered a severe shunt in the rear, although most of the impact had been taken by the substantial tow bar system the consequences of this had caused its general demise.

I have always found that chassis-less vehicles suffer once they have been involved in a crash, all of the structural points that are spot welded, from that moment on appear to deteriorate, boot floor to U channel, inner rear wheel arches to boot floor, inner rear corner panels, roof rear corner panels, door centre pillar to roof, floors to U channel, floors to sills, etc., all of them corroded.
Also the front windscreen which on mine had been fitted at some time by Bodgit and Scarper, was not bonded correctly, severely weakening the surround which over the years eventually cracked and corroded virtually the whole way across the top.
So every year I would sweep it into a pile and weld it back together for its yearly inspection (our MOT), however it was time to admit defeat.

 

The project.

I have been looking for a facelift model in reasonable condition that had problems (to keep it cheap) most people over here are easily frightened by Jeep faults.
I was also on the look out for an older XJ around the same year as mine that was being scrapped with an LPG conversion, LPG is quite big over here and vehicles that are converted fetch good money, so I needed one at the end of its life to make it cheaper (you will find I like that word).

The plan was to build one out of two whilst I still had the use of mine, until it’s MOT and road tax expired at the end of July 2011.

I eventually found a 99 Classic 4.0L with a multi point LPG/Petrol dual fuel conversion, with an advertised “engine fault”,.
The owner was completely non mechanical so determining what the fault was didn’t happen. I just had to borrow a vehicle (didn’t trust the old girl) and trailer and drive the 560 miles to Scotland and back, buy it, get it home, and find out, which is what I did.

 

What will be done


Rear Axle Refurb – including finding a solution to side float.
Front Axle Refurb
Brake Overhaul – including new copper brake lines.
Suspension Refurb – including a lift, not sure how high, don’t need to go rock climbing, but will help with the floods.
Steering Overhaul – including steering box refurb, and home made adjustable track bar.
Check and re-install LPG system – nice system, but installation has been carried out by Bodgit and Scarper.
Fuel system overhaul – the original tank is removed and its replacement and installation is bad, another B & S job.
Gearbox removal check, clean and refit – including new cooler hoses, and radiator bypass.
Engine rebuild – was going to rebuild the 99 engine (more on that), but now it will be my 94 HO, with the 99 inlet, new air intake, and exhaust system.
Cooling System overhaul – twin electric fan set up, plus removal of AC (believe me, you do not need it over here, its just a big heavy passenger).
Interior upgrade – 99 Classic is cloth, so change to Limited leather with electric seats, with heaters.
Electrical overhaul – including adding additional functions to the lights, conversion to LED, and a Bluetooth stereo, plus a few more bits and pieces.
Colour change – from silver/grey to diamond black metallic (BMW Colour)
Plus may be a few other bits and pieces.

All this will be done by myself, in my garage, with mostly basic tools

 

The journey home

 

So we got it home and the engine has been a little hungry, its eaten a piston and part of the block.
Judging by the amount of rust stained water that has been sprayed about I would guess that it has had head gasket problems, that haven’t been sorted, it has then had hydraulic combustion and smashed a piston, so its finished.

So here are some before photo’s












Engine photo’s showing gas valves and injection system.

 

Engine and Transmission pulled out.
Engine is goosed, so I took off all of parts I might use again and took it to the dump, some of it is probably baked bean tins or even a KIA by now.



Stripped all the interior out, using the seats in my 94 (with a little modification), as I will be fitting the electric leather seats out of the 94 into the 99 plus I will add seat heaters.


At this point I feel I am now at the start of the rebuild, the body work looks quite good apart from the left side door and sill which have been pushed in, if the side bar hadn’t been fitted it would have been a lot worse.
Inside and underneath this is in a different league to my old 94, and considering they are only 5 years apart and this one spent its life near the coast its quite surprising just how rust free it is.

 

Next job was to drop both the gas and petrol tank out because they looked quite corroded, as I was also going to rebuild the rear axle and suspension, all of this was dropped out as well.



So rear end completely out.

 

When I dropped the gas and petrol tank out, I started having concerns about the installation, the equipment is good but who installed it, and how is the problem.

The installation was carried out in 2001 and would have cost in the region of £1800.00 to £2000.00 so not cheap.

There are a lot of different types of systems but I will try to explain the installation first

The cheapest is to retain the full sized petrol tank, and put the gas tank behind the rear seat, most of these use an 80Ltr tank like mine but it uses a lot of space and you don’t get the use of folding the seats.
The next installation retains the full sized petrol tank, but has a tyre shaped tank between 45 – 50Ltrs which replaces the spare wheel, nice use of space but you either loose the spare or carry it on the back.
The most expensive in all ways is how mine was done, the installation is a newly fabricated petrol tank, which by the way has been manufactured with the pump/sender in the wrong place (more to follow) which is mounted from the boot floor, and the lip at the back, behind the bumper.
The 80Ltr gas tank is then held up by 2 straps from the petrol tank to the standard threaded bar that hang down from the underneath.

One problem I have with my installation is all of these mounting points are metal to metal, the gas tank is just pulled up and back into the petrol tank, and therefore has just been rubbing and vibrating away.

 

Now the new petrol tank is bolted to the thin boot floor, to try and compensate, they put a strengthening strip in to spread the load.
However, Bodgit & Scarper (obviously the company that fitted this) decided not to bother cleaning off the sound deadening, or even measuring, all they have done is laid a strip of steel in the back, scratched around a bit, and then blobbed some weld on.

It’s not even straight.

 

Looks like you have your work cut out for you... Nice to see a build from across the pond

 

Someone put your steering wheel on the wrong side
How deep does the flooding get over there?

 

Thanks for that, most will be pretty standard stuff, but when your dealing with 2 ECU's and two injection systems, with not the most reliable electrical system, it might be interesting.

 

Lucky for me who ever moved the steering wheel, moved the pedals as well

 

We don't get the type of floods that appear on the news, but pretty much everytime it rains hard roads flood where I live, which is the Yorkshire Dales.

It runs off the moors and gets trapped in the low parts of the roads which can end up over 4ft deep, but maybe only 20 ft across, also the main A road (just a two laner)I use floods regularly 1 - 2ft.



View behind our house