XJlimitedx99

Post-trip, I was able to spend some quality time with the Jeep for a couple weeks and got into some cool stuff. At this point, I had about a month left before I moved out of my parent's house so I couldn't do my usual thing of completely tearing into the Jeep in the driveway for the summer. Instead, I continued to work towards my goal of cleaning up under the hood and tying up loose ends all around.

I have a good amount of wiring that I've done on the Jeep that I'm not especially proud of (mostly from several years ago). My habits have changed for the better and I have had the motivation to re-do much of what I had done previously. The first thing I did was rewire my amber fogs in the bumper and moved the relay into the factory fuse and relay box (more on this after)!



I also hard-mounted my ANL fuse block to the fender next to the battery, instead of having it floating freely. I also need to do this for my amplifier wire and I will put conduit over these wires to hide them a bit. Second picture is pool noodle stuffed into the hole next to the fender to keep the crap out. Anybody know why this hole is here?





My next plan of action is to continue moving fuses and relays into the PDC. Before I did that, I relocated my coolant bottle to get it out of the way. I'm hoping to use the area for a winch solenoid at some point. The new bottle is much smaller but seems to work just fine. The new bottle is Dorman 603-001. The coolant level with this bottle full equates to the OEM bottle about halfway between full and add. There is definitely less room for expansion at the top but I have driven the Jeep for several hours and have had no overflow.



To get the bottle in this position I have to rotate the transmission line fitting from the radiator down slightly as well as trim this small piece off of the hood latch mount:



I may end up relocating the bottle in the future. I want to install a York 210 belt driven compression in place of the OEM airbox and I think the bottle will interfere with the pulley on the compressor. Time will tell.

While I was in the area (of the PCM) I decided to wire up an extended idle switch. This was honestly the easiest mod I've ever done. Just ground pin A13! Instead of splicing in at the PCM, I did so closer to the firewall. I cut open the loom and dug out the gray wire just to find there are two gray wires in this loom! Cut them both open to test for continuity to A13 to make sure I had the correct one then ran in into the cab to my switch panel.



Boom! 1000 rpm idle on demand. Cool.

Here's something I should have given some attention to a long time ago:



At least it looks like its been working.. I told myself that most of the dirt was probably from driving in the dusty conditions up north but truthfully this is the first time I had taken the filter out since I installed the cowl intake.

Got a filter cleaning kit and took care of that:



That's better. I swear the Jeep feels more powerful after that.

I was able to get a day of wheelin in with a good friend of mine who's about to have a daughter. Today is actually his girlfriend's due date! We ran a rugged road. Took us the better part of 30 minutes to make it like ~200 ft. I completely caved in both of my rocker panels. Oh well! Hopefully can get those replaced with box steel eventually. This is the only picture we have from that day:



It was on this trail that I had a bit of an epiphany. I should not build my Dana 30. While I was twisted up in the rocks with my steering fully cut trying to bump over stuff with my open diffs and 3.55 gears I was nervous I'd pop a u-joint or break something as is. I cannot picture a locked and geared 30 holding up to this stuff on 35's. When I got home I posted all of my Dana 30 and 8.25 parts for sale. That was tough because I've been collecting these parts to build my stock axles for like 3 years but I think it was the correct call. I sold my d30 gears, WJ swap parts, d30 chromoly shafts, and anything else I had for my axle builds.

I began researching what I want to do for axles. I really don't think I need wontons, especially since I was a few paychecks away from polishing my stock turds. I'm thinking a 44/9 combo might be the ticket, but then I started researching what I should do as far as building those. I might leave them kinda stock and stick with 35's or I might build them a bit for 37's. One of the biggest decisions is 15" or 17" wheels, because that really dictates the tire size.

The only reason I'm even considering building for 37's is because the Dana 44 and Dana 30 use the same u-joint, and I kinda don't trust it to hold up. I'm thinking I could do RCV's, but then the r+p would be the weak spot. There is a guy on pirate who sells bearing kits to retrofit Dana 50 gears into the 44 housings. The only thing I'm unsure of with that is if the bearings get proper oil if used on the road rather than a dedicated wheeler. To match the RCV's, I was looking into doing a 44/60 hybrid with 60 outers. That would net big brakes, big ball joints, and some big richard energy. I guess it could even be a 44/50 hybrid.

Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself. All of this was a lot of speculation and early research. I haven't done enough of my homework yet. I need to put axle builds on hold for awhile anyway. I just moved, I'm starting a new job next week, and I have other projects which I am going to prioritize, such as a winch, OBA, and 2x6 rockers.

XJlimitedx99

Back on topic, I spent the next week playing in my PDC. The first circuit I messed with was my aux fan. I wanted to replace the maxi relay with a mini relay as well as add a fan override switch. From factory, the aux fan circuit is the only relayed circuit with a 40 A fuse. While digging through PDC's in the junkyard to scavenge parts, I noticed that other models use 30 A fuses and mini fuses for the aux fan circuit. I replaced my 40 A fuse with a 30 A and let the fan cycle on/off with the AC for 15 minutes or so. The fuse didn't blow so I decided I could replace the maxi relay with a mini. The idea of doing so is to make more room in my PDC for other circuits. As I posted from last summer, the blocks in the PDC are modular such that the 2 maxi relay block can be replaced with a 4 mini relay block.

To accomplish this task meant cutting and splicing. Oh boy! It very much consisted of cutting off the maxi relay connectors and splicing in mini relay connectors (which I scavenged from junkyard PDC's).

Sounds easy enough, but it took some doing. These next 3 photos show some of the struggles I went through, where I spliced in the wrong type of connectors and had to immediately cut them off..







This photo shows the difference in the connectors, with mini relay on the left and maxi relay on the right:



and here is one of many splices I did:



Some of the circuits were very easy (fuel pump and starter relays) because the wires I took served the same purpose in the Jeep I pulled them out of but they used a mini relay instead of a maxi:

One of the biggest challenges doing this is not breaking the small plastic tabs that hold the connectors in. Careful Spongebob..

I had the hardest time wrapping my head around how to do the fan override switch. Took me like 5 tries to correctly make this diagram before actually doing it. Its simple once I finally did it correctly. I wanted to use one relay with two triggers (PDC and manual switch) but I could not figure out how to do it without back-feeding voltage to the PDC, so I followed BlueRidgeMark's idea, with the only difference that I'm switching ground rather than power.



And that filled my switch panel! I had to label the switches because I had 3 defrost buttons and I couldn't remember which was which lol.



The middle maxi relay block can directly be replaced with the mini relay block:



But the maxi block on the end has an alignment ridge that does not match the mini relay block I had:



So I removed it:



And this is my final result as of right now:



I am yet to move my headlight circuits into the box but at this point I was a week from my move and needed to focus my attention elsewhere.

Final order of business for the Jeep was to fix my leaking oil pan. I was getting a small puddle from the front of the pan after driving:





Can't have that in the driveway/garage at my apartment. I dropped the pan in like an hour with the intent of looking for any evidence that the front crank seal, timing cover gasket, or anything other than the oil pan gasket was the culprit. I also was considering doing a rear main seal and oil pump while everything was down. However, after I dropped the pan I saw no evidence of other issues. I called the parts store and they had a Felpro gasket in stock. I ran down to grab it and had everything back together in another couple hours. Filled it with some of this good stuff:



Let it sit for a bit, then let it idle in the driveway for about 20 minutes. No leaks. Took it for a hot lap around town and parked it over the cardboard again. No leaks!



I started to clean up and pack things up for my move. About an hour later I came out to find this:



Dang. You hate to see it. I said screw it, I tried. At this point I needed to stop Jeeping and start moving.

A week or so later I drove the Jeep about 1.5 hours to my apartment in North Walpole, NH. Threw a piece of cardboard under it to keep the driveway clean and got a pleasant surprise. No drips after sitting overnight! I hope it stays like that. Cardboard is still dry several days later.

So, that's where I'm at now. I start my new job next week. I'm still getting the apartment setup and haven't even touched the garage yet. Gunna have to spent some time getting that stuff ready and getting settled in before jumping back into projects. I'm super stoked though. Can't wait to see what's to come.

TeXJ

awesome update! and congrats on the new job!

XJlimitedx99

Thanks! I was supposed to start tomorrow but HR dragged their feet a bit and couldn’t schedule my pre-employment screening until this week so they pushed my start date back to next Monday. Score! I really needed this extra week to get myself together before starting my career.

thetastelingers

Good luck with your new job!

unidentifiedbomb

Have you looked into JK44s?

TeXJ

What do they usually go for? Do they "bolt-in"?

XJlimitedx99

Not enough to be able to concisely describe the pros/cons. I have seen people go on and on about how they're outrageously expensive though.

thetastelingers

A friend just sold his Rubicon set for $3500 if that gives you any indication.

unidentifiedbomb

They seem to be a better swap than the waggy 44s with some extra width but very costly. I like the idea

XJlimitedx99

Had a day in the garage to get everything setup. I gotta say I'm pretty happy with the space I have and how everything turned out!





So I got to work on continuing what I've been up to. I moved my headlight relays into my PDC. This was easy peasy because the headlights were already on relays with my Putco harness. I just clipped the connectors off the end of the harness and extended them into the relay box.

Here's what it looks like with all of relays changed to mini relays and moved into the PDC. There are 3 additional relays in the box that were not there from the factory (high beam, low beam, fan override).





And here it is before I started changing it, just for a reminder:



I still need to go through and run the wires neatly around the engine bay and also have a junction block I am going to epoxy to the side of the PDC (like Bleepin Jeep did) so I will have plug and play spots for a few more accessories. I'm hoping to fill every hole in the box. One thing that I did was move one of the 20 A mini fuses to a maxi fuse spot. I actually tied it into the low beam fuse, but only because the mini fuse circuit also had to do with the headlights. I want to move a couple more of the 20 A mini fuses over to maxi fuses because the mini fuses come in much more useful amperage ratings for the accessories I will be adding compared to the maxi fuses.

mikebravo

I like the shop and the bike. Jeep looks good too

thetastelingers

Head over to Garagejournal.com for LOTS of good ideas on what to do with your garage.
I've been over there for years and you'll waste a lot of time looking at other peoples galleries getting ideas to make your garage work for you.

SatiricalHen

A little late to the axle discussion, but my 30 and 8.25 have held up pretty well to 35s with the only issue I've had being u-joints which is the reason I don't like the idea of a regular 44. I recently did the IRO almost alloy and I'm hoping that will keep the caps in and keep these u joints alive for a while. I'm looking at doing Toyota 8" axles or JK44 whichever I find for a good deal first. The Toyota axles are 30 spline throughput and the rear can be had out of a Tacoma or 4Runner with 4.30 gears and an elocker. Just put leaf spring perches and shock mounts and good to go. The front would have to be a Tacoma width rock assault housing or similar. Which isn't terribly expensive when you factor in how much it would be to build 2 axles instead of just one. But for the front you take another 4.30 elocker diff and stick it in the front and you have matching gears and front and rear lockers and could even grab a spare diff to bring on trips. Then you just get a solid front axle from early Toyota's and take the locking hubs, brakes, knuckles and all that crap. It sounds like a lot, but in the long run it's a cheap way to go and they provide a ton of clearance.

TeXJ

Couldn't you have spot welded the ujoint caps on?