Mine isn't sagging.

 

Doesn't need to be sagging to upgrade.

 

But it doesn't need to be upgraded

 

I've not been feeling so swell as of late, but did get a chance for some more jeep time.



Put the carpet in the rear hatch.





Ported the TB. You can see on the unit on the right how much it tapered in on the bottom.



Blade seems to fit fine. I am not touching the other one yet in case I screw this one up.



Here we can see the 0630 head gasket, 0630/0331 plate, and 0331 gasket. The earlier heads had larger exhaust ports, unless I went aftermarket header, this was my only option.



Exhaust manifolds mounted.



Intake manifold, exhaust manifolds, and cats mounted. I striped out the bolt/u-nut for the one in the foreground



Another angle.



Removed the oil filter adapter.



Bastard is on tight, requires the bar of persuasion, when used with ratchet increases melee damage by a factor of 10 and adds +4 to stamina. Rate of attack is decreased by 2.



Here it is on the bench all apart. I did not find the o-rings in the garage, so on the bench it will sit.



Time to feed some wire for the amp.



I like to use a piece of stiff wire to feed into the passenger compartment.




I like to lube it so it slides through the grommet in the firewall smoothly. I've had grommets in the past come off and into the cab.



Patch cords.



Damn son, it is tight in here.



Doesn't look pretty, but should be effective. Will be stashed under center console.



Power wire will follow this bunch of wires back.




Amp and stuff will go under the back seat here.

That's it for now. Sorry for the blurry pics. Whatever I got is making me shakey. Hoping Sunday my brother will come over and help me wrastle the motor back in and on the mounts and bring his welder.

I also have some tires on order, so the turning point I think is coming soon. I hope so.

 

Welder.









Tires! lt235/75/15. Kinda excited to see what these will do in the snow. I love driving through snow banks

Tomorrow is supposed to warm up to 30 so hoping to get the floor fixed, speaker wire ran, carpet/seats in and start on bushings. I ordered a flex plate today from the parts store. They have nothing on bolts at all in their system so next choice is reuse existing flex plate bolts and tc bolts, or go to dealer. Reading has led me to believe these are TTY bolts.

 

Stellar job on everything man! That's dedication; you out in your garage in 20-30 degree temperatures. Also, where are you located?

 

Minnesota, and more like 10-20 below I have a propane heater, but laying on cardboard on the floor still makes you cold as hell. I think I'm at the point in the project where it is going back together.

 

Found some pics I did not post...







Soldered and heat shinked the harness for the radio. Blue is not needed on factory side so just yanked it out. I use tape just to keep them together. I've got a gas stove with a power burner I use to shrink these down with.

Next up was the cracked tail light.







It doesn't look pretty. I used my friend JB weld. This stuff is awesome. I'ved used it to fix cracks in oil pans, replace broken bolts, fix cracked plastics, and all sorts of stuff. I used an old hotel door key to mix and apply. I keep all of my old gift cards and door cards and use them for things like this.

I might paint over the JB weld, but with the hatch closed it isn't visible so meh.

 

Hole in floor one last night.



Squared up.



This is a lid off of an old battery backup.



This ought to fit the hole.



Mmm sawzall.



Held it up with the floor jack and then hammered the sheet metal around the opening to bring it closer to the sheet metal.



Looks like big bird took a **** in here. Lots and lots of tacks.



Around the perimeter.



Took the grinder over it to make sure I have good penetration

.

Wire wheeled, vacuumed, and some under body coating. This wasn't fully dried yet so I wasn't able to get the carpet in

Instead, let's play with the door speakers...





Door panel and speaker out. Using stiff wire, yep it's hallow



Test mounting the speaker. Stock are 5.25", these are 6.5"



Speaker wire and dead solder iron



Soldered. Luckily I had my old rat shack 25w iron.



Mounted in and screwed down.



Back together.

The driver's side door is pulled apart, there was some rust on the bottom of the door that went under the door panel that I fixed, so that side is not yet complete. I had 1 bolt that broke off for the seats when I took them out. Took that out today. Sun was going down so it was starting to cool down fairly quickly. Since it is supposed to be cold this week, I will save the gas for the single digits.

Slowly making progress...

 

Got the speakers in the front and wires ran to rear.



Carpet going in.



View towards back. Wires are under the carpet there. This area is under the rear seat.



From back towards front.



Front area.



Goofy air duct thing in.



Putting center console in.



It fits!



Driver's seat in.



Driver/pass seat in.



View from back.

I need to get some floor mats now

 

I got a set of Rugged Ridge heavy rubber mats for mine.. one piece rear... money well spent, I love those things. Way better than Husky and others IMO.

 

Just bought a set for the front last night lol. I have weathertechs in the '11 I love. I need some for the '08 but those awesome floor mats are mad money imo.

We are at or below zero until Friday so may not have more movement until then on this project. I have all of the parts I need to get the motor back in. I will need to get new upper/lower rad hose and fluids. I'd like to get a bunch of these bushings replaced prior to getting the motor in for ease of access.

 

I have Weathertechs in the wife's 2012 Sienna and they're great. Expensive but worth it. I never checked on them for the xj, just went with the RR ones.

 

I had spent some more time outside, it is friggin' cold! Right now it is -8 and a feels like temp of -33. Yeah...

I need to get some more LP for the heater.



Dash is together, right now radio is hanging out until i verify it works. New floor mats.




Started doing bushings on control arms.



We don't need no water, let the ************ burn.



Too slow on the cam, that was on fire rolling across the floor.



This is what happens when your light gets too close to the welder. Yeah...



I thought now that I got this roasting, I should protect the new mount above it



Instructions said to remove all old bushing material. I did good?



Putting it back together. This is as far as i got, my toes and fingers were too cold

 

im in on this...

Good work!!!!!!!!!