mattthomas78

Thanks for the words of encouragement!! Yeah the last motor I rebuilt was on an 80cc Honda dirt bike when I was about 16 with the help of my dad... That was 19 years ago now and I'm out of practice!

My friend you can do anything you put your mind to!! If I can figure this stuff out anyone can because I'm not that smart! Thank you for your kind words!!

Now that you mention it, it does seem to make a grinding sound most of the time until I pull it down into 4Low... For $8. bucks it's worth giving it a shot!! Thank you for the heads up!!

mattthomas78

Well not much to report at the moment, the only things I've done to my XJ in the last few days is install both window motors on the drivers side... I fixed the parking/turn signal lights on the passenger side grill, had to go to the local JY and find some new plugs that weren't all corroded up.... Oh and installed a new tensioner pulley since the old one was making lots of squealing noises when I first cranked it up in the mornings...

Other than that I haven't done much of anything else... I'll be out of town on a job for about a week starting Monday and when I get back I plan on pulling the carpet and seats and having them cleaned while I repair the hole in the passenger floorboard...

Stay tuned, more to come!!

mattthomas78

Well my week didn't go as planned guys... I have to go to Europe for 1.5-2 months for a job and so I've been so busy trying to get everything together needed for my trip I wasn't able to get anything done on it this week... =/ But hopefully when I get back I'll have a couple dollars saved up that I can put into a lift and some tires along with getting the cancer spot properly repaired...

Sorry to drag this out but I gotta to pay the bills too...

mattthomas78

A buddy of mine that has been watching my place for me sent me a couple pictures today of some goodies I ordered right before I found out I had to come over to Europe on this job... Well this is what is waiting for me when I get home...

If anyone is thinking about replacing their floor pans I would suggest ordering them ASAP from c2cfabrication.com because they are on sale for $37.49 per pan until Sept. 30th 2013. They've also got LOTS of XJ parts and from what I've seen elsewhere they're at pretty good prices too!!

mattthomas78

P.S. If you ever have to go to the country of Slovenia for a job, well I think you get the picture. I took this photo on my only day off thus far. It is of Bled Slovenia. There is a castle in the distance on a cliff overlooking an old church on a small island in the middle of lake Bled.

mattthomas78

Ok people's I just got home from Europe about an hour ago and decided to crank up the XJ which is when I noticed the floor board on the passenger side has standing water in it =/ .... Can anyone tell me where to look for a possible leak? This whole summer we got a good bit of rain but I never noticed the floorboards full of water until now... I will have to get that fixed before I replace the floor pan...

Any help will be greatly appreciated!

rmoore1031

Start with testing to see if the windshield and windows have good seals. Use a garden hose or car wash. Another common place is the fuse panel by the brake pedal. But I'm not sure if the 97+ have a fuse panel there.

mattthomas78

Awesome thanks for the info! I'll go give that a try.

KingsColor

Just read up on the build, looking good man! I want to eventually rebuild the engine in my XJ but I have a 350 SBC for my 2500 that I need to tackle before! haha

I'll definitely keep up with the build and watch your progess. That's a beautiful picture by the way

mattthomas78

Thanks man!! I've got a lot left to do on this bad boy. Hopefully I'll get some of it done before I go back out of town.

Just rebuild both engines at the same time! :P

mattthomas78

There appears to be two places it's leaking into the passenger floorboard. I believe it's leaking in from the windshield and the blower motor under the dash... The windshield seal has a small hole in the top corner and the windshield is busted anyway so I'll probably be replacing that sooner then I had hoped.... The one around the blower motor is going to be a little cheaper to repair... I'll bend a little bit of metal in the engine compartment differently from its current configuration and it should shed the water in another direction... I'll take a few shots to post later as we are having a fun filled day of freezing rain at the moment.... =/

mattthomas78

And so it begins... A shot of the top corner of passenger side windshield where there is a small gap between the seal and the A pillar followed by a couple shots of the firewall where I bent the metal to act as a gutter...

mattthomas78

Alright guys / girls here is what I am dealing with in the floorboard.... Kind of an ugly site.....

mattthomas78

As you can see I've been busy cutting and removing the cancer spots from the floorboard... Weapons of choice for cutting the spot welds? Hammer and chisel!

mattthomas78

And now it's time to install the new floor pans!! :P