After dropping the rear axle I found some rot on the lower quarter panels (I could’ve sworn I took pics of the rot but I was unable to find them). I was already in the middle of a cut & fold on my other XJ’s quarter panels, where the rot was much worse.

I don’t know if I prefer the look of cut and folded quarters, but when they rot, you don’t have much of a choice. I’ve found that most of the 97-01 Cherokees I’ve seen in the Northeast have quarter panel rot. I figured this would be my best option before it got much worse.

There wasn’t much clean metal left to fold on the passenger side, so I removed a large portion from the inside pinch seam and made a new piece from 16 ga. sheet metal. The driver’s side wasn’t rotted as badly, so no additional patches were required.

This job took quite a while to make it look right. I had issues blowing through thin areas with the welder. It took lots of welding, cutting and grinding.


Prepped for a patch


Pinch welds from the inside


Bottom view of the patch


The driver’s side went much smoother. I had enough fresh metal left to do a proper cut and fold.

 

Fighting cancer is a tedious pursuit, but necessary for any quality build. However, I doubt that you'd pass on a Southern California Jeep for your next build

 

At this point I just needed to pull the transmission and it would be ready for the 4x4 swap.




Pulling the transmission!


Transmission out!

 

Cool - I've heard of taking off the new parts from one and installing them on another - but this is the first time I've seen it done and you've certainly put some work into preparing the body of #2

 

Getting this far made me realize just how much work this was going to be. I hadn’t even started taking any 4x4 parts off my 2000 yet. And what would I do with the 2000 when I was done? I certainly wasn’t going to convert it to 2WD!

My plan needed to be revised again. I already had a spare transfer case and driveshaft, so why not just buy a front axle and transmission to put in the ‘98?

Furthermore, I certainly didn’t need 2 XJ’s. It made more sense to finish the 2000 and sell it, then reinvest some of the money into the ‘98.

So I paused on the ‘98 and got back into the 2000. The rocker panels were ready to be installed.



Inner rocker installed


Outer rocker test fit


Prepping for paint

 

Fast forward a few months.

I unfortunately didn’t take many pictures of my finishing work on the 2000. There was a lot more cutting, fabricating, welding and POR-15ing done. I made a few trips to the junkyard to get some misc. parts that I couldn’t swap from the ‘98.

The 2000 ended up with the ‘98’s interior and bumpers. I was able to source a cheap, rust-free hatch and driver’s door from central PA.

Before listing it, I detailed it meticulously. The interior was shampooed and the paint was clay-bar’d and waxed.

It sold in June 2021 for $5,000. This cleared some garage space and expanded the budget for the ‘98!


Tying in the new rockers was a lot of work. The rust had spread to parts of the rear wheel well and floor pan. I eventually fabbed a piece to cover the gaping hole shown here. (Again, image quality is lacking because I pulled this from a video).


Bedlining the door bottoms and rear quarter panels.


Ready for a new owner!


I saw a photo of a jeep with chopped bumper caps and I really liked the look. I made an attempt at replicating it here.


I was able to straighten out the 98’s crumpled bumper, threw some bedliner on it and put it on the 2000.


I was particularly proud of how the interior turned out! This was the slate grey interior pulled from the ‘98.




Pressure washing all the seats and carpets restored them to almost new.

 

OK, damn good deal for 5k and I agree with you that the interior turned out great! A wonderful transformation. Next is the '98?

 

Yessir! More to come

 

Dealing with the remainder of the rust on my 2000 reinforced my hatred of corrosion and made me realize I never wanted to patch rust again.

Since I already had my ‘98’s underbody completely disassembled, I thought it would be the perfect time to apply some kind of corrosion resistant coating. I had seen some folks on here using chassis saver on their floor pans, so why not treat the entire underbody?

I hadn’t decided what product to use yet, but I knew I would need to remove the factory coating from the underbody regardless.

What would be the most thorough method to do that?

Sandblasting!

This process took several months.


I bought this pressurized abrasive blaster from Harbor Freight and paired it with a deadman valve. The most limiting factor of its effectiveness was my air compressor. Sandblasting requires a high flow rate.


The larger areas were hit with polycarbide and flap wheels.




The entire underbody, including wheel wells and rockers were blasted.






The floor pan needed a little reworking from the bottom. I used a steel based epoxy to fill some pores I couldn’t fill with the welder.










Done!

 

Patience yields the reward of knowing it was done right!

 

Great work going after the underside like that. I just finished the same job. Check out my thread it might be helpful.

 

I decided on using POR-15 rust encapsulator because I had success with it in the past.

I read some mixed reviews on POR-15 for clean metal. Some folks claimed it peeled off after being applied, to which others argued the reason for that is that the surface wasn’t prepped properly.

Prior to applying the encapsulator, the surface has to be degreased and then treated with their Metal Prep product. I bought a kit that came with a gallon of encapsulator, a gallon of degreaser concentrate, and a gallon of metal prep.

I wish I had taken more pictures of this process, but I will post what I have.



Metal prep stage before applying POR-15. This is essential to getting it to adhere to the clean metal.


I started with everything between the two frame rails.
There are 2 coats here.




I used this stuff for inside the rear frame rails, inside the rockers and the rear shock crossmember. It has a spherical tip at the end of the tube. Worked really well.

I ran out and took some more photos of the underbody in the middle of writing this post. I still feel that the pictures don’t do it justice. It looks even better in person.

This was a very involved and detailed process!


All 4 door bottoms treated


Including the inside of the door bottoms! It was tricky to sandblast in here, and even worse vacuuming out all the abrasive particles.




I top-coated the outsides of the frame rails and wheel wells with POR-15 Top Coat and then 3M Rubberized Undercoating. Some spots currently need another coat of the undercoating.


Don’t mind my dirty fingerprints on the frame rails from sliding in and out from under the Jeep


I fabbed some 16 ga. patches in place of the lower control arm mounts. I removed the mounts with an air chisel and it tore up the bottom of the rail, so the patches were necessary to cover that mess.




With fresh paint it’s hard to tell that the passenger floor pan was replaced







The rockers are the most susceptible area to rust, so I made sure to treat them thoroughly.


I more recently reinstalled the fuel tank.

 

Black always looks GREAT on an undercarriage and protecting your metal is a job worth the time

 

Next were the floors!






I also seam-sealed the weld seams on the floor pan.


Original floor pan plugs glued back in, weighed down while the sealer cures





I had trouble finding a plug for the passenger rear floor. The original one was long gone, and I couldn’t find any decent direct replacements in the junkyard or online.

I ended up ordering a pack of 1.5” diameter rubber plugs from McMaster Carr. Problem solved!




Perfect fit

 

Great that you found a plug! Were the hooks for the floor mats covered up with the Dynanat? Will you need the tie-downs in back?