It's definitely brighter and makes it look newish, old XJ gauges will never look new because of the way the lighting works, its a diffuse pattern vs newer style backlight gauges. Basically the bulb shines beside and slightly in front of the gauge, the gauges are open to negative space on each side and the light sort of bleeds over from the bulbs. I will say this though, the white LED's illuminate everything on the gauges, including 20+ years of dust inside the cluster

I like the interior LED's though, much brighter when I get in to go to work at 5:30 in the morning. Just wish my reverse bulb LED's I bought were as bright as the interior ones.

White LED's are just a cleaner more natural light IMO, no yellow tint from incandescent.

 

I have a mound of parts waiting to go in now:
Lift Kit - 3" AAL from Zone
Steering Components - Tie Rods, Adjuster
Front Suspension - Trackbar, Ball Joints, Swaybar end links
Rear Suspension - Energy Suspension Black Poly Leaf Spring and Shackle Bushings

I mounted and started wiring my auxiliary reverse lights to my roof rack and realized I don't wanna drill another hole in my roof if I don't have too. So I'm gonna rewire with a trailer bundle and connector, 4 wire 14 gauge wire bundle and a 4 pin waterproof trailer plug.

Taking the wife to Tahoe this weekend because our other plans fell through. Might start lift install next weekend, and yes I will include pictures.

Edit: Ordered Rough Country Shackle Relocation Brackets, should hopefully arrive before this weekend. Gonna get some stock YJ brake lines, from the parts store so I don't stretch mine out after the lift. All said and done we should be sitting around 4 inchs or so when all done in the rear, gonna need to get 1 inch spacers for the front to level it out probably

 

This week needs to be over already, the wrenching itch is really bugging me.

 

So I think I finally tracked down my coolant leak, noticed some dried coolant around the thermostat housing the other night. So last night I went about replacing the housing gasket and thermostat, and found out that my belt adjuster on the power steering pump is seized.

Loosened locking bolts on back, loosened pivot bolt on front and turned the adjuster bolt, bolt goes in and out but the pump never pivots like its supposed to. EDIT: I feel like an idiot, I forgot about the bolt underneath the pulley.........

After multiple minutes of effort I was finally able to pivot the pump about 1/2 inch, enough to deflect the belt far enough to get the bottom housing bolt out, whoever designed that part is an idiot.

 

I can understand that feeling!

 

So all the evenings this last week of sitting out in the cold ish weather working on stuff for the Jeep, finally caught up with me. I'm very sick with a nasty head/chest cold and can barely breath. So suffice to say the lift did not get installed today. I hate being sick.

One of those days though I did get around to recovering my visors and overhead console.

 

Felt a little better today and the weather was great, sunny and 75. Pulled my header panel apart and ran a new harness for my fog lights. New relay and fuse, thicker gauge wire than stock. Lights are much brighter.

Cheap plastic header panel was already coming apart at the thread inserts, had to superglue them back in place. Hopefully the weather and my health stay good, lift should go in this weekend. Gonna spray all my bolts down with blaster this week. Shouldn't have too much issue though, Jeep has only ever been in Cali and they don't salt the roads here. Barely any rust on the undercarriage.

 

Glad you're feeling a little better. Visors look good. I should address mine one day. You might just be my inspiration lol

 

Thanks brother it's appreciated, the wife is glad I'm feeling better too, she hates taking care of me, lol. The visors are super easy to do, peel the old **** off and clean them. Split them open and glue on new fabric. My local Joann fabrics had black headliner fabric in stock, it's normally like 15 a yard but they have 50% off coupons online. Grabbed 4 yards, gonna use the majority of it to redo the headliner. It's slick stuff too, low density foam backed and it looks like it's nylon or neoprene, it stretches so you can do curves and bends easy.

The overhead console was actually fun to do, I got kinda carried away with the glue gun though. I just used generic spray adhesive, comes in a green can works like 3M super 77 or 90.

For the visors you can really use any fabric, I choose the headliner fabric cause I wanted it all to match, and I'm kinda digging the black and tan interior I've got going on. If the wind dies down I'm gonna do the headliner some night after work and I'll put more pics up.

Soaking my suspension bolts in blaster every day when I get home, should be doing the lift this weekend.

 

The Lift install began at 10am on Saturday, its still not finished.

Installed my 3" add-a-leafs and new poly bushings, with 1" Shackles and RC Shackle Relocation Brackets. Rear lift looks to be about 7-8 inches................. hopefully it will settle around the 4-5 range, if not I need longer shocks, i did bar pin eliminators but that only gave me an inch. Did a 1" TCase drop with some grade 8 flat washers, 10 per bolt nets an inch of drop. Will be doing hack n tap SYE and CV shaft once I have the money.

Front Suspension is 3" lift coils, probably gonna add 1" or 1.5" coil spacers to even it out with the rear once it settles. Going to do control arm drop brackets for the front once I'm sitting around 4.5-5", and grab a double shear trackbar.

Still to do on the rear, torque all rear leaf bolts, torque axle bolts, trim axle bolts, bleed new rear brake line, torque lug nuts.

Still to do on front, install shocks, torque all front end bolts, install longer front brake lines, bleed front brakes, install wheels and torque bolts.

 

Looks awesome so far. Excited to see more

 

I need new bump stops.

 

Finished the Lift install last night, so glad it's done for now. Ended up coming out at around 6-7 in the rear and 4 in the front. Should hopefully settle out around 3.5-4.5 f-r and I'll just measure and use an appropriate sized Coil Spacer to level it out. Raked forward pretty badly right now and my headlights are only illuminating like 15 feet in front of the Jeep. How long does it take these things to settle usually? Took it for a long test drive on varying road types/conditions, no death wobble, no bump steer, but I do have mild driveline vibrations on accel and decel.

I originally used the front hole for my shackles on the relocation brackets, but when I took it for a test drive the first time it was super stiff. Got it back and noticed the shackle angle was almost flat with the leaf spring, moved it back a hole and its almost a perfect 45 deg now. Also had to cut about a foot of tailpipe off because my shackle bolt was trying to eat it. Also had to modify the shackles I bought as they where giving too much lift and I was reaching the shock travel limit. They had 2 holes for 1 and 2 inch lift adjustment, there was enough metal to make a 3rd set of holes another inch in and then I clearanced the backplate so the spring eye could rotate and not gouge on the excess metal.

Built sway bar disconnects for the front, my year Cherokee came with 2 different size sway bar links depending on options, 7 or 8 inch. My Jeep had the 7 originally, so I picked up a set of the 8 inch ones and used all-thread and barrel nuts to extend them out another inch or 2. Put clevis pins and washers on the bottom for disconnects, need to figure out a way to undo the top so I can fully disconnect it. Maybe wing nuts, but I'd be worried about them coming undone.

Since installing the lift my steering wheel when driving straight is rotated 90 deg to towards the passenger side. I know I can adjust it at the sleeve on the drag link but which way rotates it back to the drivers in or out? EDIT: Nevermind found bleepin jeeps video about adjusting it.

Also need to adjust my e-brake cable, had to spin the adjuster all the way out to get my leafs installed, it was putting tension on the axle and not allowing enough droop to set the leafs on the seats.

TL/DR I finished my lift install and am only having minor issues. I'll post some more daytime pics tonight.

 

Got my steering wheel adjusted pretty close to center, its like a few deg off to one side but it tracks straight. I think I need longer shocks in the rear though, when the suspension unloads the shocks are limiting the travel, I'm hoping when the add-a-leafs settle in it will get better. Just afraid I'm gonna damage the shocks by having them at travel limit all the time.

 

So its been raining for like 3 days here and I can't get any Jeep work done, too damn cold. Started developing a metallic clunk coming from passenger side rear, only happens on rough roads or bumps. I need to go back through and re-torque all my bolts, I think I've got a loose ubolt.