I got the rear disc swap all buttoned up tonight. It went pretty smooth. I didn't break anything and didn't even threaten to sell it. Pulling the wheel studs through was kinda a PITA. Had to run to the Do-It-Center for some grinding wheels to bore out the center of the backing plates (I have the 8.25). Other than that everything was really easy. I wore gloves today, so I didn't get many progress pictures. It 16 degrees here right now, and as you know, I cut both hands yesterday. Here's a picture of the first side completed:



I zip-tied the parking brake cables up for now. It's all ready to be hooked up as soon as I buy the '03 Liberty cable. I was needing to stay on budget and had major time constraints.

RESULTS?!?

I've heard people say that the disc set up is no better than the factory drums if they in good working order. I've heard people say the disc conversion had amazing performance results. To me, the results were amazing. I hate to use the saying, but it really does feel like a different vehicle. You guys have seen pictures of the drums, so I was already on bad rears. The swap is worth the $300 in my book to never have to mess with drum brakes again.

UPDATE

Well it's the morning of Day 3 on the disc conversion. I took her out for a good test drive. Stopped a couple times to check for brake leaks, diff leaks, and to check the lugs. Everything looks fine. Success. Money and time well spent.

 

Dude, LOVE the rig! I literally spent like 3 hours over the last couple days reading through every post.

Zombie theme is the way to go! I plan on doing something along these lines. I've got the lift sitting at home, just need this Michigan weather to warm up so I can get it underneath the XJ. Is this group and the decals still available.

I can do my best to cover Detroit, but if a zombie apocalypse happens here, there are gonna be A LOT of those F'ers around and I don't have much in artillery.

 

Haha thanks man. The group is still going strong!

 

Until today, I had done basically nothing to the Zombie Jeep since the ZJ rear disc brake swap.

I've grown tired of the zombie decals. So today, I removed them. It was cool before there were 100 other zombie rigs in town. I live in a town of 25,000 people and there are 3 Zombie themed XJ's and an absolutely obsurd F-150 that is the same color combo as my Jeep. Time to do something different.

On the topic of strange of you to remove, I also took the roof rack off. Mainly because it was squeaking, driving me insane. One of the clamp bolts stripped out so I couldn't make it stop. It also needs some touch up paint.

The Jeep looks reeaaalllyyyy weird.




Well all that take'n stuff off, figure I better add something. What better to do with a Zombie Jeep but to feast on some spare ZJ parts?

I run the Ohio Jeep Parts for Sale or Trade page on facebook. A guy about an hour away was parting out a '96 ZJ with black leather power and heated seats. I scored the fronts for $60. This was awesome timing because my driver side seat frame had broken.

I did some quick research before I committed to buy and seen they were basically bolt-in once you swapped the brackets. Once I flipped the seats over I noticed it was either going to be a fab job (no welder), or I was going to have to improvise. The problem was, the motors for up/down and tilt are built into the rails and brackets. They were much different than my manual XJ rails and brackets.




I grabbed a beer and jumped online and finally found that the WJ seats are the direct swap. The ZJ seats are only a direct swap if you had factory power seats in your XJ. Most people fab brackets to use power ZJ seats in a manual seat XJ.

I decided to remove the ZJ mounts, rails, and motors from the seat. Unhooking the harnesses from the motors, rather than the harness and motors from the seat. I removed the circuit box that was mounted to the power ZJ rails and fastened them back under the ZJ seat. This way I still had the complete electrical system intact, other than the tilt/slide motors.

I also removed the rails and mounts from the XJ seat.




Here's your new/old rails and brackets:




Find the (+) and (-) on the main harness that had connected to the ZJ. Access the wires to send power to the seat switches and the remaining motors which control recline and lumbar. I think I can also get the seat heaters to work. I will need to buy a couple switches, as the ZJ switches are on the dash or console (I believe?).





Not too hard of a job. It took some improvising. These seats are 2x as comfortable as the XJ seats. I have manual forward to back with the same manual handle as the XJ seat had, power lumbar, and power recline. Possibly heat. But no up/down or tilt without fab skills.




I'll get better pics in the daylight tomorrow.

 

 

I did my first real driving with the new seats today. I believe this may be my favorite XJ mod. They are sosuperf*ckingcomfortable. For the price and install time it has the best pleasure-to-price score of anything I've ever done.

 

I like that seat upgrade. I was going to ask what happens to all the zombie trucks when the fad wears off, but you took care of that!

 

A few weeks ago I bought a set of Kenwood 10" subs in a bandpass box at a yard sale for $10. Not knowing if they worked, I bought them home and hooked them up to an old 240W amp I scored last year for $1.

They worked great. I drove around with them for a few days, but they were just too loud and took up too much space. I don't listen to music a whole lot when I drive. When I do, I like to have a little more lows than what the 5 1/4" speakers provide.

I listed the speakers and amp for sale on facebook and found a buyer for $80. While talking to the guy he tells me he is upgrading from a single 8" in a pod. We agree on a deal to swap speakers and he kicks in $40.

I brought the pod home and noticed there was really no way to make it fit in my rear cubby hole. I decided I would make my own "pod".




Before all the sound quality purists jump on my back, I know it's not a true sealed enclosure. I'm not looking to bumpity bump so I can impress all the porch monkeys. I just want something to provide a little more on the low end. I don't crank my music up to 100 and I'm not trying to rattle windows.

Took my template to dad and had him cut it out of pressed wood.




Cut up my old spare tire cover to give me matching material.




Used spray adhesive to put the fabric on.




Nuts, bolts, rubber washers, and foam weatherstripping to secure it to the cubby hole.




$5.35 for hardware brings the total cost of the project: +$23.65

 

Very nice, Do what you can with what you got, my kind of mods

 

Appreciate that. I'd rather hear a story about how much someone saved, rather than how much they spent.

 

Well my light bar came in. Its a 480W, 50" curved LED flood/spot combo. Seems pretty nice. I mocked it up the other night because I was curious as to how bright it would be.




I used the $100 I got out of the roof rack to buy this. Regular price was $235 and it was on-sale for $165. So I only had to throw in an extra $65. Since I bought the rack for about $45, I ended up with a $235 light bar for approximately $110.

Not wanting to spend $75 to $175 on mounting brackets, or be ghetto and drill my roof, I decided I'd try to make my own brackets. I did some research and chose the drip-rail style over the A-pillar style. Not a fan of drilling 6 holes in the Jeep, and I don't want it in-front of the windshield.

I went to the fab place and bought a 2x2 sheet of 14g steel for $18. Likely way too much material but I wanted enough that I could start over if I messed up. This is where I'm at now:



I have nothing but a grinder, a drill, a vice, a hammer, and some stubborn determination, so we will see how it goes.

 

Is there a Harbor Freight near you?
Pick up a $20 SawZaw it'll help when you want to cut those brackets out.

Otherwise you can do it with the grinder on problem. Just buy a lot of cut off discs.

 

Yea, we just got a HF here a couple
months ago. I'm going to grab some cut off wheels for my 4.5" grinder tomorrow morning and try to get them cut out before work.

 

I ended up getting everything cut out and mounted up today. I even had time to wire everything up. I'm going to refine the brackets and paint after a few miles of testing. Overall they seem really rigid. It only took me a few hours to make them and install the lights. Total cost: $19.89

 

Top Notch!