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Then along comes the donor, a 2000's chevy tahoe. The 5.3, 4l60e trans, engine bay harness, pcm and gas tank are the relevant bits. Motor had been replaced with a ~150k mile unit only months before the PO had an accident and clearly totalled.
All said and done after selling parts/scrap i have zero $$ into the drivetrain, id have to check my notes but I may have actually made money in the end from this.
To make things easier, though its not exactly cheap i went with this set of motor mounts, pretty sure they are still made by Flop Shop but BJs was seemingly my only way to get them...
As luck would have it, I stumbled upon this deal, 2 sets of factory bucket seats w/the center console ($400 for all of it). Now not only do it get to resolve the seating situation in the Cherokee, but also the Jtruck hiding in the garage as well
Dont mind the plywood textured floor, its only hiding the future floor pan repairs i haven't made yet.
Slow going over here... other things needed to get done over the weekend soo i managed to get just a couple little things out of the way.
power steering lines - check! Factory 83 pressured line has this goofy arch but the fittings are tight and the lines arent rubbing anything
Alternator bracket and assy on and serpentine belt isntalled... i know - thrilling
radiator installed and plumbed minus the overflow tank which im torn on retaining the original or getting one of those cheapy Amazon ones because theyre smaller... Im going to try the factory clutch fan setup and makeup a shroud for it, worst case scenario I default to e-fans but this stuff was free soo guess which setup wins
Yes little fella, you get to hang out in the garage for a while
This weekend kicked off with manuevering this thing into the garage.
Quickly got to work and drilled some new mounting holes in the factory crossmember with this custom "from the floor milwaukee drill press". Its a 2 man operation for sure.
This was honestly a surprise - the XJ tank fits very nicely with factory XJ straps and a couple new holes to the environment.
Other things like installing factory FSJ coolant temp and oil pressure sensors were checked off the list. Also slid a universal trans cooler in front of the radiator.
The bulk items that remain on my immediate list are fuel lines, Wiring shenanigans and a once over on all the fluids.
Tackling the fuel system setup i realized I needed to change my fuel rail setup. This 5.3 has a return system and I want the return-less setup soo a quick trip to the junkyard and I scored 2 of these cross over tubes(2 projects-2 tubes). To my dismay though it turns out I need the fuel rails as well. Return rails have 2 ports while the return-less have only 1 port - don't it figure.
Going with the corvette filter/regulator warrants the return-less fuel rail setup. This install went without issue. Using only the finest evil energy AN fittings and some Duralast HP fuel line.
Finished off the afternoon with some sloppy LS harness placement. Wired the starter solenoid to fire off the FSJ harness, still need to find and wire the fuel pump through the LS harness and then make some power and grounds. I'm very wiring deficient soo I'm puzzled on the whole FSJ switched power from column and how that powers the LS harness???
Also ordered some pieces and parts to do the fuel filler.
Picture doesn't show much progress from the last one but i got all the power and ground wires setup from battery engine and chassis. Rough routing on the pcm power and keyed wires along with the fuel pump. This thing cranks and will sputter - not as much sputter as i had hoped to hear this weekend but a little progress is better than not.
At this point I still need to have the vats disabled and a few other things with the pcm aoo this is where it waits.
Sye kit for the tcase is showing a tracking number soo there will be that little rebuild once it shows up.
If you dont get VATs disabled, it will only fire for a split second and then die. I would also recommend checking your fuel psi manually as those filter/regulators are normally bad out of the box. I would honestly ditch it and go back to the regulated style fuel rail.
If you dont get VATs disabled, it will only fire for a split second and then die. I would also recommend checking your fuel psi manually as those filter/regulators are normally bad out of the box. I would honestly ditch it and go back to the regulated style fuel rail.
Oh no worries im well aware of the need for Vats delete. That's why when I found it to only sputter I figured at this point that needs to happen regardless and id rather wait till after thats out of the way before I start potentially diagnosing a runability issue.
I planned on keeping the return rails setup around soo I appreciate the insight on the potential complications for the vette filter/regulator setup. I suppose I'll see how this setup responds and at worst case I can always swap back and add another 10' of hose and a couple more AN fittings to the mix
Going to install and wire in the obd2 port, started cleaning up some of the wiring but it needs looming. Going to shave on this factory fuse block mount to get it mounting closer to the fenderwell. As far as placement goes roughly how you see the pcm and fuse block is where they will be. Utilizing the factory overflow tank for convenience.
Plenty More things to get done but its definitely motivating to hear this engine run!
Hunting season has disrupted my progress some but we're still chugging along...
While hunting down the fuse box parts i noticed a grand wagoneer in the you wrench yard and made a point for another visit to nab the trans tunnel cover and trans crossmember. Didn't consider it initially but while I was there i came to the decision the front D44 would look better as my spare than still under the crush destined jeep.
It was a fight but in the end - I win!
I got home to tackle the exhaust as I had only planned to cobble something together quick and call it a day... Well the reality of how troublesome this driver manifold really was going to be set in. The options were to replace them with cheapo amazon manifolds or modify this factory one (passenger side is non issue).
Turns out chopping the flange off and changing the angle/clocking it is a bit more commonplace than I had anticipated.
Multiple cuts and test fits later...
Going to weld this up this week and potentially get back to a hackjob exhaust this weekend.
Trying to utilize the factory 2-1 collector from the donor Tahoe is proving to be more of a challenge than I care to put more effort into. Its bulky and its bends are making even throwing this junkyard thing together less than enjoyable.
While i did make an amazon order for a generic 2-1 collector and some 45° pie cut pieces im rather skeptical to its useability even though i dont even have it in hand yet...
Soo in preparation for the disappointment I went ahead and drafted up my own pote till custom 2-1 collector
Not throwing myself under the jeep again until next weekend at the soonest soo that all i have for now.
Doing the Dirty. 83 Cherokee LS Swap
