Blue87XJ

Got this Jeep (My first jeep ever) a little over a year ago from a few kids who beat the crap out of it. Any ways 500$ for a running and driving jeep that came with a spare set off 33" mickeys on 17" procomps is always a killer deal!
I had to do some work to make it street worthy tho. I started out with putting front sway bar back on and front 4x4 drive shaft on after replacing a U-joint.

Heres what it looked like when I first got it.

Blue87XJ

Over the last 12 months or so I got some new parts put into it
Heres a list of new parts:

- New front brake pads
- New battery
- New U-joints for rear drive shaft
- New Track bar bushings (trying to fix death wobble)
- New fluid for transmission, transfer case, front and rear diffs.
- New pinion seal and yoke (F'd it up when the rear drive shaft broke off)
- New steering damper (helped with some of the death wobble)
- New tires (fixed the death wobble) Goodyear Wrangler Dura Trac's 285/75R16
- New thermostat (Trying to get my jeep to get hotter than 150*(didn't work))
- Another new battery for my second isolated battery setup
- Built myself a crossmember and got new transmission mounts
- Installed a new clutch and slave
- New crank shaft position sensor
- got me a new 9k badland winch from HF yeah HF and started fabbin up a winch bumper

Blue87XJ

Added cup holders. they are from a marine company and I just hole sawed a hole and fitted them in. super simple and they dont take up leg room or block the E-brake.

Blue87XJ

One of the first things I had to do was remove the idiodic roof rack the kids made from a bed frame especially since I needed the space to haul a couch to my new apartment



Also had my new boss give me a 4k lbs Warn winch. dont really know what to use it for but I got it haha

Blue87XJ

Cant help but to laugh when I see this picture
(this was found in the parking lot of my apartment building)

Blue87XJ

Got a killer deal on my new Goodyear Wrangler Dura Trac 285/75R16
guy from discount tires bought a sled deck for his truck from the trailer shop I work at and offered to hook me up with tires so I took him up on it. checked at swabs and a local tire shop and the guy at discount tires saved me 3-400$. got a set of 4 mounted and installed for a little over $900 and goodyear was doing a rebate so I got 40$ back! LOVE THE TIRES SO FAR. they only have about 2-400 miles on them but they are great off road in the snow.

Blue87XJ

Cut front of the front fender
before



removed caps



And Cut



Then I removed the front bumper

Blue87XJ

Got my new winch and unboxed it. even got a wireless controller.







Got my winch and the metal to build my front bumper all for less than 300$

heres the start
made support brackets and then the winch plate bracket.





I wanted my bumper to not stick out and take away any approach angle so I had to make room for the winch to sit under the grill and radiator.



then I welded up the winch plate, painted it up, and mounted my winch

Blue87XJ

Started cutting out and welding up the actual bumper but had to put it to the side so I could fix my transmission mount.
Heres the bumper so far



and heres what happened to my transmission mount...



cant see it too super well thanks to the crappy pictures my oldschool iphone 3g takes... but its the rubber looking parts thats split in half in the middle of the pics.

Blue87XJ

No dang parts store could get me the right trans mount for some reason so I was force to make my own since I needed my jeep drivable before the weekend was over. its my DD, my only vehicle.
any ways to make my own trans mounts I got some polyurethane chevy trans mounts (two of them fit nearly perfect on the BA10 transmission) and me and my buddy made me a new simple crossmember. just used thick plate metal and thick walled square tube.
gained me at least an inch of clearance, I just hope my drive line angle isn't too bad.
Ill get pics posted when I can.

anyways turns out the trans mount wasn't the cause of all my issues.
The main reason I decided to replace the trans mount was because of all the jerking and clanking I was experiencing when taking off from a stop. after making the trans mount and crossmember I went for a drive and was still experiencing the same symptoms and I was still noticing that the clutch pedal was feeling different. it was falling to the floor nearly an inch when id let off the gas while in gear.
So I went back to the shop and climbed underneath for a visual over the transmission and notice a rather large gap where the bell housing was separating from the transmission. My buddy helped me drop the transmission where I discovered that there is some nuts that hold the bell house onto the transmission studs that were about half way backed off the studs. and I figured while I had the transmission off id just go ahead and have a new clutch with throwout bearing and slave installed. also had to replace the crank shaft position sensor since the old one had half of its wires melted. Idk how it was even still working...
but I got it all together and drivable just in time for work ... huray for me... lol
Had work my butt off thru my weekend just to finish up in time to start another week of working. But it is good to have the jeep working again.
I just need to start getting use to the extra vibration from the new stiffer transmission mount. Hope it works out and doesn't break haha

stang65

looks like youre making nice progress on it. have you checked the rear driveline ujoints lately and the ubolts on the rear end?

Blue87XJ

Yea when I finished putting the tranny back in I greased up every zert I could find from front to back and the U-joints were replaced when I put the rear driveshaft back on after it fell off from some of the rear U-bolt strap bolts breaking.
But I never have checked out the rear axle U bolts. I have been noticing a little play/ clank sound from the rear end when I'm accellerating hard or when im costing down hill and let off the brake I can feel a little shift. might be u bolts? ya think?

Thanks for checking out my project and any advice or info or suggestions are always welcome (but keep in mind, I try my best to not half a$$ things when I can help it ). I am very new at ALL of this. have never done any mechanical work or metal working before this year BUT im fully onboard with it! I love the hole Jeep thing. The sayings true... "its a jeep thing you wouldn't understand" (or however it goes lol) Until you own one then IT ALL MAKES SENSE

Blue87XJ

Heres the transmission mount and crossmember pic

Blue87XJ

Did a little more on my bumper.
I think its coming out pretty good for someone who has absolutely no experience fabin' let alone building or constructing. I mean when I started this build I was cutting each individual piece with a angle grinder with cut off wheel,
even tho the shop has a plasma cutter. Today I learned how to use the thing which made my cuts WAY faster lol I know im a noob

Heres the progress tho so far

No4x4Yet

The the front bumper! Im wanna on building a similar style winch bumper myself. Im not a fan of the bumper hanging off the front of the jeep.

I dont like the poly bushings you used on the trans. Unless you have poly engine mounts the trans mount are gonna be a lot stiffer. The engine will torque and rotate under load but the trans mount wont allow the same flex. Those forces are now in the the engine and trans casing. I dunno if the jeep has enough power to break anything but Ive seen it happen on mustangs.