Battle

The lady got me a Roadkill Garage sticker for Christmas that says "Don't Get it Right, Just Get it Running" so that's what I've been trying to do - I'm for the moment ignoring most of the rust, the front control arms, the driveline vibrations, and the body/door issues and just trying to get it to have functioning brakes and fresh tires so I can get it to pass inspection and be my winter Jeep again (the last time I remember, the heat works in this thing and it currently does not in my other Jeep).

I got the front brakes put back on some crusty axles and have rebuilt the passenger-side drum brake already. I had to install a new brake line for the driver side and then ran out of time to finish the last drum rebuild (why I keep doing this instead of swapping over to discs is unknown).







I promise to one day soon fix all the body/rust issues but for now, I just want to drive it again for a season.

Corky

Looks good !! Nothing wrong with doing what you need to get it up and running again.. I love to watch Frieburger, Finnagan and Dulcich get them running just to take them out and break them...

Battle

Whelp - I did it - I didn't get it completely right but I did get it running! Got the last drum brake rebuilt, bled the brakes, threw on the new tires, dropped in a fresh battery, and changed out the oil. It's amazing what all those things can do to mask all the other little problems this has haha!







This little Jeep is just awesome! It's such a "feel good" machine and makes me happy - even though it still has issues and the rust is way worse than I really want to admit. There is no rot per say, but there's flaky metal almost everywhere underneath now and the rear quarter panels will need to be replaced. I think the rocker panels will need to be replaced too. I think I may just buy some of the replacement panels this year so I can have them just in case they go out of production if I wait too long.

I really want a shop that's closer to me, i.e. in my backyard (I have to drive about 20-30 mins to get to mine) and with enough house power to get a decent welder now that I feel comfortable enough to MIG and Stick my way to glory... ish. Until then, I'm basking in the basic simplicity of a mostly stock XJ with good working heat haha.

Oh, I couldn't leave without sharing the other "feel good" vehicle in our fleet. These two can cure depression:





Now, talk about magnificence!



For anyone that cares to know, it's a 1988 Mercedes-Benz 560SL (R107) that my lady bought herself in the summer. It's her fair-weather daily driver.

Corky

That's a good looking model... It appears to be in great shape... I bet she enjoys cruising in that during the summer...

Battle

Been going all-out on this thing since the last update. After it got its tires, brakes, and battery, I brought it back home so I could work on it after work (I work from home) and on weekends easier. I wanted to make sure it would pass state inspection because it needed to be re-registered (you have to pass state inspection here in NC before you can renew) and I'm getting too old to rock expired registration. The Jeep was definitely going to fail for its tires and brakes, but it was also going to fail because the rear license plate light and third brake light didn't work... little did I know they didn't work because of this:



This obviously turned into "a thing" as I'm sure it has for numerous other XJ owners. First, I decided to just cut out all the broken wires and butt-splice them back together, just to test if this was the only break in the harness. After confirming that to be the case, I bought high-quality insulated butt splices from McMasterCarr and various high-quality, appropriately gauged wire with tracer colors, and made a new section of wiring harness to take the place of the extra long, folded up factory stuff. I did not do the "cross over" fix and just routed the harness the way the factory did it. My original boots were ripped up so I managed to track down a good set off a guy from bookface. Paired that with a new hatch seal and viola - everything in the back hatch works again!


^^^ A sampling of how I did the final harness fix - shown here is the defogger harness, the general measurements of each replacement, and the butt splices

^^^ My guide for the new harness section if I ever need to repair it.

Once those issues were taken care of, I had the front windshield and windshield replaced due to it leaking (the resulting rust wasn't terrible and the windshield guy did a great job cleaning and sealing/painting the rusty parts of the frame), swapped out the Rampage headlights for Hella H4s (one of my Rampages got a crack and would fog up), put in new wiper blades, refreshed the K&N drop-in filter, reconnected the horns, and bam - passed inspection with flying colors!


^^^ Hella on the left, Rampage on the right

With all that taken care off, all that was left was some fresh AC refrigerant and a used Yakima roof box and ol' RJ was ready for its big vacation out to the Outer Banks!





The Jeep ran great for the entire trip! The lady and I even brought our cats with us - we had the back all setup with soft blankets and secure spots for them to rest out in the open, which meant the person driving really really really had to concentrate on being super safe and smooth but when loaded down with stuff, this thing is a slow but smooth creampuff! The cats traveled better in this than any other vehicle I've had them travel in.

On the beach, the Jeep is perfect just as it was the last time I took it out on the soft sand. It can do fine in high range 1st and 2nd gear, but I preferred driving in low range 4th and 5th. On the last day, getting out of the beach was the biggest challenge as the sand was getting really hot and soft/deep on the exit/entrance ramps (we saw a newer RAV4 stuck trying to leave) - but nothing that third gear low range and a little right foot couldn't deal with!

I think the next big job will be fixing the door hinges/gap. The new windshield and seal definitely helped cut down on wind noise, but the door gap still doesn't help.

Battle

Here's a little EOY update on ol' RJ. Since the last post, I...

Fixed & upgraded the stereo. The headunit - a used factory CD/Tape combo unit (the original stereo was just a tape and the tape player died) - started cutting in and out. Everything functioned, it just wouldn't play sound. Either there was a broken speaker wire or the headunit was just going dead. I bought a rebuilt factory headunit (same CD/tape/fader combo) with an aftermarket bluetooth hookup installed off eBay, and some Kicker speakers for the front and rear. There were no damaged wires and now I have a fully functioning stereo system again (CDs, tapes, radio, and bluetooth all with a factory-fresh look).


I don't like that I replaced USA-made originals with some Chinese-made speakers, but I like having music again. I think the original speakers are probably fine - I may add them back in one day just because. Probably on a future July 4th.




Sometime in September, the voltage gauge dropped to 9 and the Check Gauges light came on during a pretty heavy rain storm. When it stayed that way after the rain passed, I realized I have a bad alternator. Tested it and yep - bad. After fighting with the parts store with parts that didn't fit at first and then finding the right "new" alternator, I finally got it all replaced and still no charging...

After chasing down the wiring, I came across the aftermarket fuse blown and the plastic case melted.





Got some advice from a dude on bookface and installed a new fuse in the "factory position" where the old fuseable link was - tucked right by the fuse box. All is well again and charging!




I then almost immediately threw it to the wolves to go rescue the lady's grandmother's old Triumph from the garage it's been sitting in since 1991. That was fun! We had to move it a mile or so down the road to a storage unit so the estate could be cleared. I didn't really want to do this, but... I used the Jeep to flat tow the Triumph! It did incredibly well - even managed to "bang shift it" into low range (I was maybe going 1/2 a mile an hour) to pull the Triumph up the gravel incline into the storage unit parking lot haha.



Oh, and did I mention the Triumph was 500 miles away from us?

The Jeep's been putting in work this year! After that trip, the lady and I went to the OBX with the cats again. Similar setup as earlier this year - threw the "dirty stuff" in the roof box (tools, recovery gear, camping stuff, etc.) and keep the inside wide open for living stuff. It worked really well - the Jeep likes the added weight and rides so much better - the driveline vibrations are much less pronounced. I'm also getting better at doing my job from the passenger seat.



Took it out on the beach a bunch this time - spent a couple of days exploring Kill Devil Hills, running up and down the 5-6 mile stretch of beach. The Jeep crushed it! It's such a good beach buggy - you can go fast and it soaks it up, it can carve around dunes with ease, and has enough power to get out of the soft stuff.







The beach was mostly easy driving as long as pressures were around 15 psi. There was one point where I wanted to try 20 psi and almost instantly regretted it - I realized I could not stop unless I was in a good stopping point or I would get stuck in the soft/wet stuff. While crossing a particularly sketchy section of beach, the Jeep started bogging down while in 4th gear low range. I downshifted to 3rd and gave it a boot-full - rpms shot right up to 4k and I could feel the momentum building back up but it still wasn't easy - I had to stay in it for a good bit until we hit harder sand. Once settled, the lady looked at me and said "you were sh*ting bricks for a moment there, weren't you?"

I was, actually. I seriously thought it was going down for a moment but man, this thing always surprises me! I'd rather deal with 15 psi on the roads in between the beach access points than 20 psi on the beach.

It's going to need ball joints sooner than later, and u-joints most likely. Plus, I've had to adjust the parking brake three times since I rebuilt the brakes - I'm getting kind of over it and would really like to disk brake swap it.

One day...