header arrived yesterday.

Also ordered some more parts today. A nice sale at 4wheelparts.com so I ended up with 4 Skyjacker Hydro shocks, Pro Comp full 3" rear leafs and 3" front coils and a set of new u-bolts for around $480 shipped. I'm sure I could have saved money going the junkyard route, but I was getting frustrated with the search and I think that new leafs will be better than junkyard ones anyway. $120 per wheel for I hope the correct parts isn't too terrible. I'm sure some people will bash my choices, others will praise them. Oh well

I'm also going to order a high-flow cat, magnaflow magnapack and tailpipe here in the near future.

That pretty much wraps up the big purchases, besides tires or wheels and tires, but for now I spent more money than I'm sure my wife will appreciate. I will get all that stuff put on and see how it is before dropping another $600-$1000 on rubber.

Here's some website pics...

 

good call on the full leaf packs

 

Woohoo! Drove Rusty to work today. Let's just say nobody is mistaking this thing for riding like Lexus. I may have a couple of loose fillings in my teeth after that ride.

I'm HOPING that it's just easy stuff to fix. I know the tires are all sorts of shot, so maybe with some new meats and a balance that would take care of a lot of the vibrations. The PO also said that it's toed out a bit, so that probably isn't helping, and the steering wheel is about 45 degrees off when I track down the road, so I'll do some research into the home "alignment" since I think the only thing we really need to worry about is toe at this point. I think the steering wheel is easy to adjust too, but I'll have to google it.

 

Iirc it's 1/8" toe in, easy to set with the tie rod ends...unless the threads are rusted to crap.

There is also an adjuster sleeve on the drag link right by the pitman arm. Adjust there to recenter steering wheel.

 

Gee, what are the odds of that on my rig? LOL

This mornings new parts ordered were the blower motor resistor and a rear left bumper end-cap to replace one that got boogered up.

I want to order some stuff from mudfrog, but he's not responding to PMs and the email link on his website didn't work over the weekend.

 

Start soaking in blaster early!

I haven't heard from or seen anything from Mudfrog in awhile. His high flow cats were talked about often awhile back.

 

Bah. Ran up to Wally World at lunch and while I was there I grabbed a new 13" rear wiper but of course I didn't look at it and it's J-hook only. Figures. I will see if it fits on my wife's car or I'll take it back.

So far driving it the oil pressure seems fine and the coolant temp seems fine as well, but that is assuming that the sensors are working. There's some clunking sometimes when I hit bumps and it FEELS like it's under my feet. Not worried about it yet, when I pull it all apart to lift it I'll look around and see what else is broke.

 

FINALLY had a Craigslist score! Someone had 4 rims and 31x10.5x15 tires listed and I drove about an hour to get them. The rims are basically plain black steel ones that I was really close to buying something similar for $220 the other day, but the wife said no. He said that they're 3.75" backspacing, which is about what I was after anyway.

I haven't looked at the rims all closely yet, but they're in really good shape from as far as I've seen, and there is little to no rust on them. The tires are basically junk though, but I'll take a closer look at them but I don't think that they're any better than the junk tires I have on there now. As a kicker, he threw in a 5th rim/tire combo and that one matches the 4 rims I have on the Jeep now, minus all the rust though.

Here's the sweet part. He gave all 5 rims and tires to me for $100.

I ripped this pic off of Craigslist before he deleted it. The rim is really dusty in the picture. I will try to get them cleaned up a bit and some other pictures taken.

It was dark out, but he had this tweaked out little Suzuki Samurai in the driveway that he said he put a 1.6l VW turbo diesel in. Said it pulls like a beast and gets 40mpg. lol

 

Same rims on my XJ now. Wife stole my other ones.

 

Not much to report lately, but I've driven Rusty to work every day so far this week. There's something clunking underneath when I hit bumps, but I will do some more investigating when I start ripping it apart to put the lift on, although I really have no idea when I will have time to work on it and when the weather will cooperate since I don't have a garage. I received my rebuilt injectors from someone on the board here, and the APN Manifold is sitting in my dining room along with a new rear bumper cap from ebay. Still waiting on the intake manifold to come in. Exhaust stuff from Performance-Curve should be delivered tomorrow.

The Jeep shakes pretty good on the highway, but I think it's a combination of things. The PO told me that he hasn't had the tires balanced since he had them put on when they were new and seeing as these tires are almost bald, it's been a while. There's also an oddball tire on one of the corners that he said was never balanced. He said that it's also toed out a bit so I think the combination of bad tires, bad balance and bad toe is making it not like highway speed.

I expect the Jeep to be out of commission for a while as I get stuff installed, that's why I've been driving it this week so I can get used to it's quirks and see if my fixes actually fixed stuff.

 

Ugh. Started ripping the rear passenger side suspension apart. The front leaf eye was cracked, so I'm glad that I ordered new leafs. After some cussing, I got the leaf off, but the front bushing is seized to the bolt and I haven't been able to get it out yet. I may end up going the Sawzall route and just getting new bolts, but I have to go to the store to get some more blades as my last one is dull as a popcorn fart. I haven't even tried to loosen the upper shocks yet as I assume those are just going to snap off because nothing else has really gone right thus far. Crawling around under the Jeep I can't help but wonder if the thing is even too rusty to salvage. I may end up having to custom fabricate the entire floor as I'm not sure pans will be enough. One step at a time I guess. Baby is napping, so I probably don't have much more time to play. I can't find the camera, so I can't get a picture yet.

Oh, I THINK the clunking sound was the exhaust. I think all of the hangars are rusted off and it's just laying on the cross member.

 

3 sawzall blades later and I finally got the exhaust off. Broke the flange bolts, but that's fine and probably easier that way. Couldn't get either oxygen sensor out so I disconnected them and I'll drag them to work and try to get them off there. Looks like my down pipe is plenty crushed too, so why not replace it seeing as I've replaced just about everything else. Thought I could get away with not having the spend that $70 or whatever. Oh well. Haven't bothered trying to get the rear suspension further apart since apparently 4wheelparts STILL hasn't shipped my stuff. Supposed to be warmer this weekend anyway.

Here's some fun down pipe pictures!

 

Yay! Brown Santa showed up today with oodles of parts! Got my coils, shocks, leaf springs and u-bolts and also got my 99+ intake.

I was surprised to see degree shims on the leaf springs, but I'm not going to complain. I still want to get some rust brushed off and something covering it before I start to put stuff back together, and with the weather being as cold as it has been lately, I haven't wanted to do any painting outside. Oh how I wish I still had a garage.

On to the pics!

 

Very cool!!

I got my rust bucket running... ish. Vacuum leak, but runs.

We'll have to get together soon.

 

Hopefully it's warm enough this weekend when I can get some stuff sprayed up and maybe get some parts back on the Jeep. Trick or Treating and a gymnastics meet on Saturday will pretty much shoot Saturday. Perhaps I should look for a kerosene heater