tssguy123

So, I don't really think this is necessary... but I want all of my pictures in one place.

I picked this XJ up in December of 2012.



Ignore the fat kid, not me.

It had a Thule roof rack and ~176k miles. 2 door, 2 wheel drive. I made the huge mistake of buying the first XJ I looked at. I figured I'd never need 4 wheel drive and that I don't drive people around enough to warrant a 4 door. Wrong on both counts.

Furthermore, when we were looking at it.. the hatch wouldn't hold itself open. No big deal right?



Wrong. The world's best welder got ahold of it.

Thankfully, though... everything was fine mechanically for the most part. Ran strong, no CEL.

Daytime picture:



Another thing I didn't notice. The front clip seemed pretty beat up. It looked like it was melted. Maybe parked in front of a campfire or something? Both headlight bezels were broken and being held on by electrical tape.



Just goes to show you how worthless AutoCheck really is...



Being a typical 17 year old, I took the price difference between what I bought the XJ for ($2300) and sold my old car for ($3500) and put in a new radio as well as 4 speakers. I didn't get the full $1,200 since my dad took $500 to pay for my insurance. Fair enough.

tssguy123

The mirrors looked like this:



I've never seen anyone else who has mirrors like this... my guess is that they were chrome and then painted badly...

So...

tssguy123

At this point, I was looking really hard for a gauge cluster with a tach... since I had this:



Couldn't find one, but I ordered some LEDs.







and got this really lame sticker (my last name is Wolf.)

tssguy123

The interior was pretty clean, at least..





and I finally figured out what this thing was made for...

tssguy123

Then I bought some Eccos from Will and removed my doors (thanks to Will for saving my ***) in the same day.





Messed up the fender...

tssguy123

Getting a bit of a squeak when I first start it up if I have the AC on...



went to go replace it and... PO epoxied the breather hose from the valve cover to the airbox on. So, that'll have to wait.

tssguy123

Station wagon.



I like this picture.

tssguy123

So, I came back from college this weekend and my family kept telling me that my broken grille was ugly as hell... so they offered to drive me to pull-a-part and buy me whatever I picked up. Awesome.



Got all of this!



Starting to dismantle the front clip.



Masking it off.



Swapped over the "message center" cover and cleaned out the cluster. This mod increased my top speed by 5mph!



New grill/bezel (unfortunately, only found one good bezel. Gonna order a brand new one for the left side.) installed and bumper painted.



Put on some ****ty lights.

Aaaaaand daylight picture:




One thing I noticed last night when I was doing the bumper/clip/lights. Something is messed up in my front end. It's been wrecked at some point... I used the holes that are on the stock bumper to decide where to put the light brackets... on one side, the bracket could go MUCH further back than the other. Also, the passenger bumper end-cap is broken off and hanging on by a thread. It's really hard to notice unless you're really looking for it.. but it's there.

tssguy123

That brings it up to date. I inevitably missed something... but nothing really important has been done so far.

My plans for the future are a 3" lift, 31s (POSSIBLY 33s), BW Flat Flares, 4wd swap, and a front locker.

Need to find a job first though.

94XjSport94

Nice!! Been there done a lot of these things haha

tssguy123

Not going to waste any more money until I get started buying lift parts. I'm planning on going to Jeepfest next year and I want to be in a very different place by then.

PocketsEmpty

Nice work so far! That is one clean Jeep. You shoulda pulled a front axle, transfer case, transmission, shift lever and linkage assembly while on that offer with your parents! haha

tssguy123

Hahaha! I might have, but I dunno... Pull a part charges $200 for a front axle. and I feel guilty as hell taking so much money from my parents lately. It's like any time I mention being broke they give me like 150 bucks. Plus, I feel like I might be able to do a bit better than that if I just keep an eye on CL. And I feel like I'm probably gonna end up buying a donor for the swap. Maybe.

It is pretty clean as a whole, but it's easy to convince myself otherwise when I start nitpicking on the small things/****ed up PO things. I just need to remember that it's as old as I am.

94XjSport94

I got a front axle with brakes, shocks, control arms, steering, track bar, steering box, front driveshaft, crossmember and a bunch of bolts for $130. All stock stuff but still.

tssguy123

Not an hour after I made that post about feeling guilty I get out of the shower and see this...