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I'm going to attempt to do a build thread for my '99 XJ. There's a lot to catch up on as I've owned this thing for two years now. The catch up posts are going to be organized thematically for now. Once we're up to date, it'll be a more normal chronological build thread.
In October 2018 I picked up an XJ for a winter beater, which reignited my love of the model. Shortly after, a coworker caught wind of my love for my new Jeep and tried to sell me his. It was a '99 2wd base model he had purchased for a road trip challenge - fly somewhere with friends, buy cheap running cars with issues, and limp them back home. He wanted $1300 and it had been for sale for months. After a week of his pestering, I threw him a lowball of $700. At first he turned it down, then two weeks later he told me to come pick up my Jeep. So I did.
Here they are in December 2018, just after the Red '99 came home. Red, aka "Captain Crunch", has served as an ongoing project to keep me wrenching on something other than my track car during the summer. Green, aka "Jerry" has been my winter driver, and a great life lesson teacher. I will never again buy a rusty vehicle.
My goal with this build is to make a comfortable, reliable restomod type Jeep that can serve as a backcountry explorer or daily driver. I believe the cool kids and instagram crowd refer to this as an overlander. In the street car world, people like to call the basic ethos OEM+. Basically, modify your car/Jeep in a way that it wouldn't look out of place on a dealer lot. In keeping with that, there will be a lot of upgrades sourced from higher trim XJs, and from other vehicles.
Red Pros:
Rust free, accident free. Even the windshield looks to be original with Mopar markings and a boat launch access sticker from 2003.
AC and cruise control work, but it's otherwise a base model. Manual wind up windows even!
Mopar 5,000lb hitch
Red cons:
2wd
ABSOLUTELY FILTHY. I've found huge amounts of loose tobacco, dog hair, flossing tools, root beer stains and caps, oil stains, etc etc. Without a doubt the most disgusting car I've ever owned or ridden in. The engine bay is a mess of oil, dirt, grime, rusty coolant stains, etc.
253k miles and the mechanical parts definitely show it.
Cracked head/head gasket. It overheated crossing the Appalachians, has very brown coolant, and cranked over way too quickly to have good compression. The valve cover was sealed with what appears to be bathroom caulk.
The first project was a ZJ rear disc brake swap, just to get something going I got the backing plates, calipers, and the proportioning valve from the junkyard. All the other wear parts were sourced new.
First I sandblasted the brackets.
The pads wear divots into the brackets on these types of brakes. To fix it, I baked the uprights in an oven at 500*F, welded up the worn area, let them slowly cool off in the oven, and ground down the bead back to level. The backing plates were then painted and cured in the oven.
I went ahead and rebuilt the calipers before swapping.
I welded on these tabs to hold the ZJ brake soft lines in place on the axle.
New longer wheel studs.
Hmmm… this won't work.
The XJ parking brake cables were adapted to the ZJ brakes by using these pieces from Flop Shop Offroad. They sell them for Ford 8.8 swaps, but work fine for the ZJ setup. I had to file open the slots a bit, but they fit well after that. Of course, they still got sandblasted and painted.
No more drum brakes! Well, no more hydraulic drums.
Of course this was super high up on the priority list, but it took some time to source the parts I wanted.
While in Florida for work in early 2019, I picked up a 4x4 AW4, NP242, shifter linkage, and front driveshaft from an unknown mileage 2000 for $300. I passed on numerous NP231s, I really wanted the full time system.
Later that year, another coworker offered me the chance to come pick over his totaled '99 before it went to the scrapyard. You're looking at the ideal tow vehicle!
From that I got the NP242 -> C8.25 driveshaft and '99 NP242 engine wiring harness that I needed, a high pinion front D30, along with some other bits. At this point, I have everything needed for a seamless factory style install, even the little interior light wiring for the 4x4 shifter bezel.
First to go in was the transmission, transfer case, and rear driveshaft in the summer of 2019. Not really much to say here; if you can remove and install a transmission, you can do a 4x4 swap. Obviously I'm lacking a driveable front axle, but I did confirm that low range worked.
Prepping the front axle. I wire wheeled most of it, then sandblasted the harder to reach areas…
… before painting it semi gloss black. The uprights, brakes, and diff cover will be dealt with later. We're just verifying functionality.
Out with this junk.
In with the HPD30
While changing the diff oil, I cleaned up the diff cover.
The last thing I added is probably the most important - the sticker! Everyone knows it is a 4wd now.
Last edited by OptionXIII; Feb 8, 2021 at 06:56 PM.
How did I fix those rusty front uprights and brakes? I tossed them out and got some WJ uprights and brakes from the junkyard. I like to do my chassis parts hunting in the Richmond VA area, where my parents still live and salted roads are almost unheard of.
I wanted to keep things pretty straightforward with a minimum of fabrication and design decisions. No custom crossover steering, no heim joints, no fuss. If I want to go down that road later, the door is still open.
You need 16" wheels at minimum to fit the WJ brakes without playing with offset. I found a decent deal on a set of five Ultrastars off of a 5.9 Limited ZJ. XJ Icons would have been my preference, but these are nice too.
My friend has a CNC machine, so I had him cut out some 0.25" spacers of our own design. The hub you see is one of the old 2wd wheel hubs that I knocked apart and degreased to use as an alignment tool.
Here are the uprights after the spacers were welded on and painted.
The WJ tie rod end locations are 1" lower. A ZJ pitman arm is a 0.75" drop compared to an XJ arm. A 1" pitman arm drop would be perfect for preventing bumpsteer, but this will get me most of the benefit and at $25 its hard to argue with. Unfortunately, its hard to find reliable info on what pitmarn arms drop how far. Seems like a pretty crucial measurement the aftermarket isn't keen to provide.
With the welding done, we're ready to reassemble. I put new Dana WJ ball joints in the axle, new Timken hubs on the uprights, new axle u-joints, rebuilt the WJ calipers, and had my friend use his CNC again to redrill the WJ rotors to the XJ bolt pattern.
Here's the inside view. Note that I used an old ball joint center to keep the WJ drag link taper nice and clean, in case I ever want to convert to crossover high steer.
What the front end looks like, with a preview of some of the other upcoming mods.
My dad's old XJ had the Up Country suspension package, and I really wanted to replicate it. First step is of course, the parts you can see - Skid plates and tow hooks.
The first skid I found was a ZJ gas tank skid. The usual redrilling of mounting holes was required to line up with the XJ nut strip, but I also had to do some trimming to get it to clear the factory tow hitch.
The first transfer case skid I found was for a 231. Only once I got it back to my own Jeep did I learn that it didn't have enough clearance for the lower hanging NP242. Oh well, I sold it for a small profit.
The NP242 and Up Country options are pretty uncommon on their own, much less together. After months of hunting, I gave up on finding a native XJ 242 skid and grabbed a ZJ transfer case skid, which has plenty of clearance. I found it already removed in the yard and test fit it on a nearby XJ to confirm it would work.
This is a DIY nutsert installation tool for the 10mm bolts that are the factory method of attaching the skid. To properly install nutserts, you need to keep the bolt from rotating while still tightening it down. This compresses the nutsert and clamps it on to the backing metal.
An AMC era XJ donated it's front skid plate...
... and this super hard to find rear tow hook. Too bad it won't clear the hitch!
When installing the tow hooks, I found every single speed nut holding on the front bumper was cracked and falling apart. The hardware disintegrated as soon as I removed it. Thankfully, the corner Ace Hardware had the right size in stock.
The front skid plate and tow hooks are mounted! The tow hook brackets are aftermarket and came off from my coworkers scrapped Jeep, but the chrome hooks off the AMC junkyard Jeep. Not visible are the side stabilization brackets that don't come with any aftermarket tow hook kit I've seen, also off the AMC XJ.
To finish it all off, I added a replica Up Country sticker. (feat. the new full size spare!)
Unfortunately, there are still a few more parts that need to be added. The differential will be the hardest addition, but I still need the auxiliary trans cooler as well. The HD radiator probably won't happen unless I run into overheating issues.
Thanks for posting all that.
I am kinda doing the same thing.
I always wondered if I put the TC skid on right cause it seemed to hang low with the 231.
Never really could determine if there were separate TC skids for each TC.
Now I know there is.
I also picked up a factory trailer hitch. I was wondering if it would play nice with my rear tow hooks.
Now I know it won't so I probably won't even try to put it on. Since I don't tow so.....
And I say tow hooks, plural, cause I had a buddy plasma cut and reweld a second one so I could use it on the passenger side.
I to am also very surprised that aftermarket front tow hooks for an XJ don't come with those for 4 extra brackets like my factory ones do.
The ZJ skid hangs a bit low as well, even with a 242 transfer case. I'll probably cut and weld the frame rail leg to bring it a bit closer to the body in the future. If your hitch isn't the 5k rated version, it may still be worth checking to see if it fits. It's simple enough to lift up there and see if it will interfere.
I can't believe my coworker tried to sell this thing without cleaning it better. He insisted that they in fact did do a quick clean, so I shudder at the thought at what it must have been before. Every touch point was covered in a thick layer of filth - the steering wheel, shifter, door handles, radio, etc etc. I couldn't bear to take pictures of that, but you could literally scrape off the filth in chunks.
Anyway, lets dive in to what I did take pictures of.
The seats were covered in a wonderful schmutz that I assume to be some sort of combination of human goo, food droppings, and oil and grease. I didn't bother cleaning these at all, they went straight to the curb as soon as I had replacements. They looked much worse in person, I promise.
Here's what was hiding under the seat. We've got ketchup, fries, flossing tools, root beer bottle caps, used earplugs, headache powder, loose tobacco, and what I believe to be a mat of dog hair. Plus, a lot of small change that keeps dropping the purchase price.
I found some nice WJ cloth seats in the junkyard for less than $15 each. The drivers side bottom foam was a little worse for wear, so I swapped in another one from a passenger side leather seat before leaving the yard. I swapped the XJ seat bases on, and now have fully manual seats. Just how I like it! I may try to find angle adjustable seat bases in the future.
The base model gauges had to go.
I got lucky finding this complete gauge set that only had 1,600 more miles.
Of course, there was the usual sagging headliner thumb tacked into place. I fixed it with some gray fleece and 3M headliner adhesive.
The Florida Jeep also donated an overhead console. I was super excited to get it installed, but I wish I had waited to find one in better shape. The body was damaged, and the wires had been cut and twisted back together. I used a minivan console body to "fix" the broken mounts, but it does require some trimming to be a good fit to the headliner. Plus, I forgot to snag the bracket, so I had to modify a minivan bracket to fit.
No matter, I've found four more in the meantime. I grab every one of these I can when I'm at the junkyard. Half the time I find them someone has destroyed one part, and left another behind. Most have since been sold as complete kits, but I am keeping a spare set of components.
I decided to take out the carpet for a power wash, and was disappointed to find the only real rust on this thing - in the passenger floorpan.
I wire wheeled it to remove the scale, chemically treated the remaining rust, then painted with POR15 and a top coat of Rustoleum. The cherry on top is the Noico 80mil sound deadening. Upgrades, people!
Time for a deep clean! A generous application of purple power, manual scrubbing, and a power washer removed a disgusting amount of dirt and filth. I'd spot cleaned the carpet, but I still wasn't ready for how much more crud was washed out.
The leak that caused the rust came from around the fan motor seal. Since it's not a trivial amount of work to get here, I decided to refresh everything all at once. In went a new evaporator, new copper heater core, and new box seals.
I resealed the inlet duct with a generous helping of windshield urethane in order to permanently eliminate that leak path.
The power mirror switch wasn't reliably working. Unlike the power window models, there are no new power mirror switches available for the manual window base models. I tried disassembling the switch, cleaning it and tightening the contacts, but that did not work for long. Thankfully, the switch guts are shared with other Chrysler models, so I grabbed one out of a Cirrus or something at the junkyard. All I had to do was swap the face and buttons over.
The driver side door check was broken and the door flopped around in a way that would eventually break the hinge and wiring, so I sprung for a new Mopar door check. The cheaper aftermarket versions have terrible reviews!
Another junkyard upgrade was these early model door cubbies I added. I'm pretty happy with the state of the doors, . I've never seen another late model manual windows XJ in person, nor have I ever seen the late model door cubbies. Since the later ones might not clear the window cranks, I'm quite happy with these.
I wanted a full size spare cover, but they're hard to find in the junkyards. This ZJ Orvis full size spare cover came up on Craigslist for a decent price, so I added it to my collection.
Unfortunately, there are still a few more parts that need to be added. The differential will be the hardest addition, but I still need the auxiliary trans cooler as well. The HD radiator probably won't happen unless I run into overheating issues.[/QUOTE]
I saw you got the heater core... If you need help with auxiliary transmission coolers, we have a bunch of options from round bolt on to flat core mount styles.
I'd go with the 2 row all aluminum radiator we sell. 1 3/4 core, all welded, still flexes like the OEM radiator and holds up. for $185.. really worth the expense
Coming to me as a tired RWD, the XJ really needed a lift after the 4wd swap. I decided early on I wanted 2-3" of lift.
The first bits I installed were Moog CC782 springs for a ZJ. These gave me about 1.5" of lift. I had them leftover from a suspension refresh on my green Jeep and figured I'd give them a shot while I had the front apart. The progressive winding really made using spring compressors difficult.
You can also see the brake lines were replaced with YJ brake lines that people recommend for a 3" lift. They fit great.
It had some serious crouch going on with the flat original rear leafs. This won't do.
I bought OME CS033RB leaf springs and removed the third leaf. I pressed in new rubber bushings before install as I'm not a fan of poly bushings.
I had to fight the old worn out bushings a bit, but in terms of XJ leaf spring installs everything went pretty smoothly.
I liked the look at this point, but I had a goal to meet!
Unfortunately, I got massive death wobble on the test drive after hitting a bump at 45 mph. After 250k miles, the stock steering was tired and in need of total replacement anyways.
Continuing with the OEM+ theme, I went ahead and did the V8 ZJ tie rod swap.
Here's the parts list:
Moog DS1238 Drag Link for XJ
Moog DS1312 ZJ V8 Tie Rod (large)
Moog ES3096L Short tie rods x2
Moog ES2079S adjusting sleeves x2
Rough Country #7572 Adjustable Front Track Bar for 1.5"-4.5" lifts.
I painted the bare metal parts before install just for cleanliness.
While I was diagnosing the death wobble, I figured it would be a good time to replace the steering box spacer to protect the chassis a bit better. Look at that - the original is unbroken! There are perks to buying a 2wd. The new spacer also will tie into factory style tow hook brackets. It's just a cheap, unbranded model off eBay.
Still, the wobble persisted.
Next I replaced the lower control arms. For this I used cheap WJ lower control arms after painstakingly cutting down the bushings and the topside of the control arm so it would clear the axle, and the backside to clear the body when in droop. I definitely do not recommend this mod, nor how I clearanced the arms. These will probably be replaced sooner than later.
This fixed the issue. Now, even without a damper installed it has no issue with bumps in the road.
Another Rough Country part went on, their steering damper. I put the sticker toward the back because I'm not one to brag about using cheap parts.
Also in the shot are the new sway bar end links. They're Pro Comp 55597B and fit well for a 3" lift.
I replaced the shocks at all 4 corners with Bilsteins meant for a 2-3" lift. No broken shock bolts here!
While I was happy with it visually, I had told myself I was targeting a higher front lift and wasn't going to stop at 1.5". To remedy this, I bought OME 2934 coils for a V8 ZJ. No pics of the install, sorry.
Below is how it sits now.
By my measurements, I have a 3"lift front, 2.8ish" rear lift. I may want to find a way to lift up the rear another 1/4" or so, as I'm not thrilled with the slight crouch it's got going on.
Hopefully in the future, a Boostwerks Comp Mount and a decent winch will weigh the front end down a bit and it will all settle into a good spot.
While I hadn't driven this thing much, even a quick start and drive could tell you the engine was hurting. I'd never heard a faster cranking 4.0, and the compression tester told me there were huge variations from cylinder to cylinder. Plus the engine bay had suffered from the consequences of massive oil leaks.
It started simple with a coolant flush.
In late summer 2020, I decided the engine needed to be pulled for a teardown and rebuild over the winter. To prep, I gave the engine bay a scrub.
Around Halloween, I finally got the process started.
And its out!
I separated the engine and trans so it could go on the stand.
I took advantage of a warm November day to do a much better clean of the engine bay.
The trans tunnel got some attention as well.
Back to the engine!
The previous owner knew it was leaking, and tried his best to fix it. I'm pretty sure this is bathroom caulk. He made sure to get some on the rockers and valve springs too. The fact that all the torque limiting sleeves are AWOL wasn't helping
Off came the cylinder head, and you can see it's cracked even from here! Whats harder to see is the signs of a warped head causing the gasket to leak between cylinders.
Here's a close up of cylinder 1. Not only is it cracked between the valves, it's also cracked along the axis of the exhaust port. Cylinder 3 was in similar condition. Clearly this thing had a massive overheat, or several.
I knocked out the freeze plugs to see what was hiding in the block. The coolant flushes were just a preview, and I wasn't ready for what I found.
There are old water pump fins in that massive lump of gunk. No wonder it overheated.I continued to tear down the block, and found a scored crankshaft and copper poking through the rod bearings. It was at this point that I gave up on rebuilding this engine. It just had too much abuse and needed too much work to be worthwhile.
And so, the Jeep sat for a month while I decided what to do next…
The green Jeep was getting to the point where it needed more attention. In November, it started to suffer the symptoms of heat soak. It would misfire during extended idles, and run like crap on hot restarts. The exhaust was rusting into three pieces and the tailpipe fell off.
Then it died on me, 4 miles from home in Michigan. I'd started the day in North Carolina, so all in all, a great time and place to have a breakdown.
I spent the next week trying to diagnose why it wouldn't start. Life and Michigan Winters combined made this a difficult process, limiting my time and desire to work outside in the cold, dark, snowy evenings. In my head, I knew the 4.0 was indestructible, so I only investigated electrical issues. I had codes for P0340 (no cam position signal at PCM, no fuel sync), as well as P0351, P0352, and P0353 which are coil 1/2/3 primary circuit faults. I swapped the crank position sensor with a cheap aftermarket, and the one off the red Jeep. No change. I swapped in a new cam position sensor, still no dice. I checked grounds, the ASD relay, and more.
Finally, I had my friend crank it over while I watched the cam position sensor. It never moved. Problem found.
Three teeth were sheared right off of the oil pump drive assembly. That's a distributor to those of you who don't have a coil on plug engine.
I knew I'd be pulling the engine or the oil pan to make sure the distributor teeth hadn't messed anything else up, and I knew I didn't want to go through the effort to put it back together, only to wind up with a still leaky, still rusty old Jeep. The answer became clear to me - I have what I (previously) believed to be a great engine surrounded by a trashy shell, and a great shell in need of an engine. It was time to combine the Jeeps!
So over this past Christmas holiday I ripped the driveline out of the green Jeep, aka "Jerry". It's the second time I've pulled an XJ engine in three months.
Below you'll see what 20 years of oil leaks and Michigan rust look like.
I wire wheeled and brushed the engine, knocked out the freeze plugs,and scrubbed the coolant passages I could reach. Even after two coolant flushes, it still had significant sludge in the back of the block. Not as bad as the other engine, thankfully.
I should have taken pictures of the intermediate step, when I spent an hour scrubbing the block with chemical rust remover. It was 98% bright, shiny cast iron.
Anyway, new freeze plugs went in. The timing cover also got sandblasted and painted.
The head is questionable, which is part of why it is unpainted. I'm not terribly worried about the 0331 cracking, but rust ate into the front of the head near the exhaust flange. Hopefully there is enough material left to form a seal. If not, a reman head will be needed and installed once the engine is running and in the vehicle. But there's enough expenses at this point that I'm not dropping $500 if not needed.
I took the best of each engine to build one good one. The Red Jeep provided its accessory brackets, fuel rail, injectors, valve cover, and miscellaneous hardware and bolts. The Green Jeep provided the long block, transmission, and torque converter.
I tried to replace the whole timing set, but the gear they sent me was this piece of trash. I elected to only replace the chain.
This picture is just to show the valve cover bolts. Based on the thread cleanliness, I'm convinced the valve cover and oil pan have never been off this engine.
The alternator bracket exemplifies a lot of how dirty the Red Jeep engine was. This is before cleaning...
Here it is after a deep clean and back on the block.
Look how nice and rust free this hardware is! It just needed a bath in engine degreaser.
I was happy to find there was nothing at all on the oil pickup screen. I also cut open the oil filter and found perfectly clean filter media. It seems the engine is still in good health after all!
The new oil pan really ties the engine together!
Given how long it had sat, I wanted to pre-oil it.
The old oil pump drive assembly was chucked up on the lathe. I ended up having to press out the steel shaft, it was completely seized in the aluminum housing. No wonder the gear teeth broke off!
The drive gear was removed.
And here it is on the engine, ready for a drill to spin up the oil pump.
Checking the intake/exhaust gasket on the replacement '99 manifold.
And on the '00 head. I ordered a gasket for a '99, but this looks like a really good fit on the smaller port 0331 head.
Hopefully this will hold. Believe it or not, I see silicone used to seal exhaust flanges a lot at work. The head is water cooled, so it shouldn't be too too bad.
The intake manifold was cleaned inside and out.
And here it is, ready to hook up the trans for install.
To summarize, All of the following parts were replaced with new:
Freeze plugs
Valve cover seal
Oil pan and oil pan gasket
Oil filter adapter o-rings
Timing chain and timing chain cover gaskets, including the front main seal
Rear main seal
Distributor
Ignition coil
Water pump gasket (water pump was recently replaced)
PCV valves, grommets, and tubing
Air and oil filters
Exhaust manifold - original '99 was heavily cracked.
Engine mounts
Spark plugs
Trans input seal
Top trans mount E-Torx bolts replaced with hex heads
No pictures of the engine in the bay yet, but it's sitting in there, all hooked up. It ran within two seconds of the first crank!
Last edited by OptionXIII; Feb 13, 2021 at 04:13 PM.
Man the engine cleaned up good! Looks great!
When I get the time and motivation I will be doing pretty much the same thing. Upcountry suspension, ZJ steering, 4wd swap, etc.
Keep it up!
So I left off after having gotten the engine in and running. Honestly, right after that I put the wrenches down for a few weeks. It was a much needed break, and I didn't want to work anymore in the uninsulated garage while it was 15*F outside. Not like there was a rush anyway with salt on the roads.
When March came, so too did warmer weather and salt free roads.
Nice and clean! Yes, it still has the blue painters tape labels on all the wiring.
First drive! I really need to fix the stance on this thing...
The warmer weather was also a green light to swap the interior over. Given how cheap and fragile 90's Chrysler interior plastics are, I wanted to give them the best shot at not completely shattering on removal.
The rear carpet on red was as filthy as anything else. While I had it out to swap, I decided to try removing the factory tar sound deadening with dry ice. I wouldn't recommend it. Just get a scraper and do it the hard way.
I ended up removing only half as it was a good bit of work, and I ran out of the butyl sound deadener. The difference between the tar and the butyl is audible just from rapping your knuckles on the floor.
I put some in the quarter panels as well.
Even the B-pillar was given some attention.
This is the horrible stereo that came in red. You can still see some of the thick goo on the buttons. Thankfully, whoever installed it did a much better job of wiring than they did on the custom surround, and no dash wires were harmed. They used a jumper harness, so all the factory wiring is intact and unmolested.
That is SO MUCH BETTER.
The work is ongoing, but so far I have swapped:
Rear carpet
Factory floor mats
Interior plastic panels and trim pieces
Center console
Steering column and steering wheel
Key cylinders in the hatch, doors, and steering column.
Hatch and drivers door seals
Radio
Turn signal relay (Aftermarket replacement in red was horribly tinny sounding)
Seat belts
All visible dash surfaces
Gauge cluster (I have documented the mileage difference)
It's starting to feel very familiar in Red.
The next project on Red is going to be fixing the massive rattle from the exhaust hitting the crossmember.
As you can see, the bushing is swollen from years of being soaked in oil, which explains why it's not doing a good job of holding up the exhaust.
This bushing seems to be unobtanium. The only way to replace it with factory parts is to replace the whole assembly for over $100. Some people have made their own bushing or modified another to work.
This is the hanger from the 2000 Florida Jeep. It's in much better shape, but the hanger rod is in a slightly different location.
While I will have to do some bending or welding to move the hanger rod, I'd rather go with the round bushing as it is not only still available, but still in use. You'll find the same part number on a 2000 XJ Cherokee and a 2020 Wrangler JL 2.0 turbo. The Wranglers is a different revision and made of silicone rubber, but it is interchangeable.
Last edited by OptionXIII; Mar 9, 2021 at 07:21 AM.
Captain Jerry - '99 Restoration/Modification
