cars5585

hello all,

I have been lurking on this site for a while now envying everything that I have seen.

To give a little background on my jeep, it is a 2000 2-door 2.5 slow liter.

It was given to me by my father-in-law about 13 months ago with only 75K on the ticker. They never drove it and it was simply taking up space in his driveway. I gladly took it off his hands after the jetta TDI blew the motor. I will never buy a VW product ever again, but that is a different story.

Well here she is with some of the current mods I have done.

cars5585

I washed and waxed and cleaned her all up.

I replaced all the fluids, and mean all the fluids...

Painted the diff covers...

Removed the plastic on the front bumper. It looks alot better in my opinion...

The bumper had been crumpled in the middle but I took it off and was able to sledge it back to close to normal. I think it looks ok.

cars5585

Added mudd flaps...

Replaced the sagging head liner. I painted it black, the factory was tan and I wish I would have just painted it tan but I think it looks ok

cars5585

Added 2" shackles to her rear end to compensate for her sagging butt. I will eventually change her springs out but I dont know what I want to do about a lift and the shackles leveled her out while I am deciding...

cars5585

As most xj's, her plastic fenders and bumpers have become faded over the years. I decided to because of the unseasonably warm weather we have been having to tackle restoring them to new. I have tried black magic and other similar products and even though they look good at first they do not last.
I used a product at lowes called trim and bumper paint. I thought it was ironic that it has an xj on the can.

cars5585

I cleaned all the trim, taped it off and then painted. I think it turned out pretty good. I hope it last for awhile. Here are some pics of the process.

cars5585

Here are some pics of the finished product.

PeterZee

nice job on the fenders and bumpers, nice unit.

djcallao

Nice start. Good luck with your build

cars5585

Thanks for the kind words.

Here is my list of things I plan on doing...
-Roof rack
-Goodyear Wranger Duratrac 235/75/R15's
-Head lights
-Steel Front Bumper


Then sometime down the road once the weak AX-5 transmission gives out I am going to do a engine swap. I am thinking of just a GM small block V8 swap since it has been done before and will most likely be the most cost effective. But that will be a couple years down the road.

XJ98sport

nice 2 door you got there!

Lowrange2

Nice paint. Don't pop the hood and ya got a nice Jeep!

papaj

super clean rig ya got man i want duratracs too they are awesome, hopefully we get some snow soon what a crappy New England winter we have had so far, i want to play!

Byro

Haha, I love how the bumper and trim paint has a Cherokee on it.

leecarr

I love shiny red.