Let the money spending begin
 

I recently picked up a 1998 XJ Sport, I knew it would need some work, but it didn't seem too bad. Well I just went through the "needs to be repaired/fixed" on it, and it isn't too bad for a $400 buy.

1. Flexplate, the noise it was making is why I got it for $400
2. Rotors and pads
3. Rear shoes
4. Drivers side cylinder
5. Patch work front fenders, rusted out ahead of the wheels
6. Rocker panels
7. Rear quarters
8. Frame patch drivers side behind the LCA
9. Tie rod and ends. It is bent up about 3"

I was expecting the all the brakes to need replacing, but the drums and shoes look almost new, aside from the DS shoes being soaked in brake fluid. The front had new pads put on old grooved and excessively worn rotors Why do people do that, the rotors are well beyond tolerances yet ruining new pads for the sake of saving $50, come on:wallbash:.

The fenders I can easily fix by cutting out the bad and brazing in some body steel. If I decide I want to keep the bumper corners I will only have to make 2 90° bends. Loose the front bumper and make a new one I only have to make 1 90° bend. I knew I would be repairing them when I bought it, I could see the poor bondo job.

I also knew about the rockers when I bought it. PS was not repaired and the last 6-8 inches was missing, but the inner was good. I suspected the same thing on the DS, and I was right. Lots of bondo and RTV to fill in the missing steel:confused:.

I was hoping I could save the quarters, but they are too far gone and rusted out in front of the wheel too. If it had been only behind the wheels I would have just did a sort of cut and fold like repair. Problem is that the rust in the back goes up just a little too high and the inside is rotted too. I can patch up the inside, but the quarter is too far gone for my skills so there is another $200 to add to the repairs:icon_redface:

All and all not too bad, a little more work and expense than I would like, but still a dirt cheap XJ when done. I will be starting the work in a week or two, step one get it fixed and ready for some mods.

I know :worthless: I am charging up the battery on my camera right now and should have some pictures of the damage later today after I do some yard work. In the mean time this is what it looked like in the for sale ad.

Attachment 323119

Attachment 323120

Attachment 323121

Not to shabby, you could make some cash for repairs by sellin the roof rack...lol
What kind of miles do you have on it?

The roof rack is already gone, it was pretty light weight and I don't think the welds would have lasted too long. I may weld up something a little more substantial in the future, whats a few more dollars in materials.

It is a Canadain Jeep so it doesn't have miles, it has Kilometers:p 300,094 of them. that works out to a hair under 186,470 miles.

I just finished taking pictures of the rust that was hiding under the flares and bumper corners. I just need to equalize them and upload them to my PB account before posting here.

So here are the pictures of the neglect and poor repairs

Starting off at the front PS fender

Attachment 323102

Not too bad and easily patched

PS rocker panel

Attachment 323103

No patching this, but rockers are cheap enough so no biggy.

PS quarter, behind the wheel

Attachment 323104

Not to bad in front of the wheel but the quarter is falling apart past the body line and the lip of the fender is spongy too.

DS quarter panel

Attachment 323105

About the same as the PS, but the real problem is in the next picture

Attachment 323106

Not a lot of good metal to attach to up here. you can see where I stabbed a screw driver through the rocker. I didn't take a picture of the back side, but that is where all the RTV is.

DS fender

Attachment 323107

Yes that is a new factory flare mount, and all the others are rotting. Once again not to bad and easy to fix. I figure I may need 1/2 a sheet of body steel to do the body work, and that includes the places where I am going to have to scab in some backing material so I have something to weld the quarters to, and patching up the inner fenders in the back. I am also planning on making my own flares so I will probably buy a full sheet and have plenty to spare.

And last but not least the frame rot.

Attachment 323108

With all the other rust it is surprising that this is the only bad spot on the frame, and I was poking and beating the frame all over once I found this spot. What it looks like happened was one of the previous owners crunched in that spot and pealed away the undercoating. about 1/2" in front of the hole the frame is solid and in between the rust hole and the factory hole towards the back it is solid. The inside of the frame is solid on the side and about 1/4 underneath. On the out side the rot goes up about 1/4" and then it is solid again.

Attachment 323109

If I cut out everything inside the red circle I should be back to good solid metal and I will just weld in a 10 gauge patch, then plate over top of it.

Now that I know exactly what I have to work with I can start gathering parts and tools to do the work. First and foremost about 2 square feet of 10 gauge steel to fix the frame. Then I will order the brake parts i need to give me 4 good stoppers. At the same time I will order my rockers and quarters so I have them on hand to do the work. I already have my replacement flexplate in hand, but don't want to fart around with that till the body work is done.

I will also need to get the MIG conversion for my Century 100 wire feed welder. According to the chart inside the door it wont do body steel on flux core. I could just borrow my brothers torches and buy some tanks so I could braze in the panels, but it is only about $50 more to convert to MIG and buy a tank of CO2. I think I would get more use out of a MIG setup than a brazing setup.

Next work in progress picture will be about a week and a half. It will take that long for the things I order to come in and for me to have time to do anything with them:p

So I started to try and find parts to get this project underway, apparently Canadian parts suppliers don't think our quarter panels rust out or get damaged. It took 2 days of searching and calling before I found a place that would get in the panels for me, but they wanted $237 per panel:eek: That aint going to happen when I can get them both from Andy's Autosport for $150 cheaper shipped to my door.

Another option would be to make friends with someone that lives near Waddington NY and has a boat. I could have the panels shipped there for less and meet them on the water to do an exchange:p Or I could just break down and get my Enhanced Drivers License and have them shipped to a drop point in Ogdensberg or Massena NY and go pick them up myself. I am more inclined to just have them shipped to my door or pick them up myself.

Instead of doing all of that you should just replace the rocker panels with 2x4" rectangular tube steel. They're far stronger, 1/4 the price the easier to install.

While that is an option for the rockers, it doesn't fix the rotted quarter panels. I can get rocker panels for $50 each and the last I checked 2X4 3/16 was more than that. Prices change though and I have a call in for a quote. Once I hear back from the local supplier I will make up my mind on the rockers.

Update

Just got the quote on 2X6x3/16 and prices have come down a bit, enough to make it a viable option for the rockers. $139.96+ tax for a 12' section. The steel is closer to home than the store for the rocker panels so the fuel savings make up the extra $40, and I can pick up the steel to do the frame repair from the same place. I am going to have to look into how to do it and make up my minded before next payday:p

The quarter panels appear that they could be taken care of with a simple "Cut and fold".

http://www.jeepforum.com/forum/f11/c...t-way-1007865/

It is not just the lower rear that is rotted. On the passenger side the upper part of the wheel opening is rotted out and on the drivers side the dogleg is pretty much reddish brown sponge. I know cutting the fenders is an option, but I don't plan on throwing big tires on it and I have to keep it street legal:icon_sad:

Yup, pretty much made up my mind and will be going with the 2X6X3/16 rocker panel/rock sliders. Only thing left to verify is if it would be a legal rocker repair here. It would really suck to put the money into it do all the work only to fail the safety because of it.

I will check out if it will pass the safety check tomorrow and if it will and I can get 3 or 4 days of no rain weather in a row I will start cutting out the bad and cleaning up the good metal so I can be ready to weld in the new pieces right away.

Today I am going to break out a roll of painters tape and try figure out if I have enough good steel to fold the rears of the quarters and if I can just trim back the wheel openings to get past the rust. That $500, once you add in the exchange taxes and duties, for a pair of quarter panels is a little steep:o Considering I would still need to add in the cost of a set of flares, I would be looking at close to $1000:(

If I have enough good steel to weld some sheet metal to so I could use a set of Bushwacker cutout flares I am down to about a $400 fix for the rear, and $200 for the front flares.

Option three is a set of TJ rear flares, and a lot of cutting. Going to have to do some searching to see if anyone has a how to thread on using TJ flares and how much cutting they did to make them work.


*update*
OK this is frustrating, I know I have about 6 rolls of painters tape kicking around here and I can't find a single one of them, or my angle grinder:dunno: I know that as soon as I go out and buy more tape the other 6 rolls will miraculously show up all in one place that I have already looked:confused1: The angle grinder, well that I will finally have to clean out the garage to find :o I know it is in there but it has been over a year since I last used it and it has been buried under other things, like parts for the Stealth, Christmas decorations, and just about everything else that didn't have a place to go at the time:oops: Maybe I will get lucky find the tape and grinder today and be able to start the marking and cutting tomorrow:sad:

Looking at the positive side of cleaning the garage, I will be able to get to the lathe, belt grinder and band saw. All three could come in handy while restoring my XJ to road legal condition:thumbup:

OK while cleaning the garage I have found two partial rolls of tape, not enough to do the job, and my angle grinder. The grinder wasn't even buried, it was just in a cabinet I couldn't get to because of Christmas decorations being in front of it. I have a good start on the garage so I am going to finish that before I start working on the Jeep. I may actually line the forge I started two years ago before my last elbow surgery:o I got it all welded up and the burner made, then winter hit and it got put on the back burner till spring. Then I had elbow surgery that spring and forgot all about it. Maybe getting that done will inspire me to start making knives again.

I took a break from cleaning the garage and did a little 60 grit grinding on the rusty quarters. Looks like they are not as bad as I thought. If I cut out everything that is red in these pictures I am back to good metal. Keep in mind this is just a quick rough PhotoShop edit of the old pictures. There are a couple spots on the PS wheel opening that I will have to cut a little deeper and butt weld some small patches to keep things even. This means that I wont have to order quarters and pay through the nose for them. I will have to open up the wheel arches to the first lip, above the spot welds, but I can fix that up and figure out something for flares later.

Drivers side dogleg
Attachment 322935

drivers side rear cut and fold
Attachment 322936

Passenger side cut and fold
Attachment 322937

I just sprayed the spots I sanded down with flat black Tremclad to keep it from rusting more. I figure I will start cutting and welding in body steel in about two weeks, I need to order the MIG conversion kit for my wire feed welder to be able to do 22g steel and it will take 5-10 days to get here. I can however start working on the rockers on Tuesday, I don't need MIG for that, just multiple passes to get good penetration on the 3/16" steel:icon_cheesygrin:

Oh I got a quote on frame stiffeners from Staang, $215 shipped. Looks like I will be buying them in the near future:thumbup:

Today I did a bit more grinding to show just how much steel I need to remove to get back to full thickness. Then I taped out what needs to go bye bye on the quarters.

On the drivers side I will end up opening the wheel arches 1.5" all around, then after fixing up the inner fender rust welding the two pieces together. Everything 1.5" below the normal fold line will be sacrificed to the rust gods, then I will weld in new steel to make the fold and box in that area. Working with new steel to box in the fold should make it easier since I can get everything shaped out side the car and just weld it into place.

Attachment 322914

on the passenger side, the wheel arch will get the same 1.5" expansion and similar work done to the inner fender, then the seam welded. The rear section is rotted a little further up so I will only have about an inch of good steel to work with below the fold line, but once again completing the modified cut and fold should be fairly painless.

Attachment 322915

The reason for having to cut the wheel openings up so high is on the passenger side there is a small section of rot that goes up almost that high. you can sort of see where i am talking about just above the tire. I will have to do a little rebuilding at the rear of the PS and front of the DS as well, indicated by the jumps in the tape lines. They are not just there because I have shaky hands:p