Basslicks

Replaced the belt today. Upgraded to the Gatorback belt. My wife is driving my jeep around until I save up enough to buy her another car. Last thing I want is for her to be broke down on the side of the road. Also decided to replace the thermostat while I was at it. I knew there had to be something up with the t-stat that was in it, 'cause the Jeep would never get to operating temps. Sure enough, pulled out the old stat, PO put in a 160* thermostat. Replaced with a 195* and it reached operating temps within 7 minutes of idling in the driveway. FINALLY! Stupid thing has been running in open loop for the last 4 years. No wonder it runs so rich all the time.






THEN, when I crawled under the jeep, I discovered a crack in the exhaust manifold right above the collector. Perfect.





None of my maintenance issues compare to this little green monster. A friend of mine lent this to me to drive around while my wife has my Jeep. '92 Jeep Cherokee Country. The motor runs perfect and it has an ax15 in it. Tranny is in good shape, but the clutch needs to be adjusted. The windshield leaks so the carpet is moldy and won't dry out for crap. The suspension works great though and the motor is so quiet you can hardly hear it run. OH, and it's got electrical issues to work out. If I was KEEPING this jeep, I'd pull the carpet and the headliner and figure out what was going on. Probably still will regardless, but gotta have time to do it.

mattphillips90

whats your plans on the 4wd conversion? It may be a little ways off but if youre trying to find axles, once I do my axle swaps on the newer jeep Id just give you my old ones if you wanna come from florida to nc haha

Basslicks

lol... well, what a coincidence, my 4wd swap just happens to be a ways off to. I love NC, so I might take you up on that brosef! It's been forever since I've been to Boone. Seriously like 12 years.

mattphillips90

Wordddd. Well who knows where Ill be living soon. Maybe back at the coast

Freakn

Nice thread, you run the same sort of build schedule I do.

Curious about the "Running Rich with Open Loop", I haven't heard that if your running cool your running rich with fuel. Is that your theory or is there tech behind that comment?

Basslicks

Right on man. Need to meet up and wheel either way.

Yup.

"The computer uses the oxygen sensor’s input to regulate the fuel mixture, which is referred to as the fuel "feedback control loop." The computer takes its cues from the O2 sensor and responds by changing the fuel mixture. This produces a corresponding change in the O2 sensor reading. This is referred to as "closed loop" operation because the computer is using the O2 sensor’s input to regulate the fuel mixture. The result is a constant flip-flop back and forth from rich to lean which allows the catalytic converter to operate at peak efficiency while keeping the average overall fuel mixture in proper balance to minimize emissions. It’s a complicated setup but it works.

When no signal is received from the O2 sensor, as is the case when a cold engine is first started (or the 02 sensor fails), the computer orders a fixed (unchanging) rich fuel mixture. This is referred to as "open loop" operation because no input is used from the O2 sensor to regulate the fuel mixture. If the engine fails to go into closed loop when the O2 sensor reaches operating temperature, or drops out of closed loop because the O2 sensor’s signal is lost, the engine will run too rich causing an increase in fuel consumption and emissions. A bad coolant sensor can also prevent the system from going into closed loop because the computer also considers engine coolant temperature when deciding whether or not to go into closed loop"

from http://www.obdii.com/articles/Unders...n_Sensors.html under the "loops" heading. The page is for OBDii, but the way loops works is true for OBDi and OBDii

Basslicks

Ok, so I've been slacking at updating this thread.

Haven't accomplished a whole lot, but I did manage to fix a couple of issues I had discovered with the suspension and exhaust.

Shortened up the rear bumper to make my own home-made stubby. Didn't get a chance to weld end caps onto the end of it because I only had enough steel to do one. Figured that was kinda pointless so for the time-being, both ends are open (anyone know a good inexpensive place in Ocala for steel?).



While I was at it, I reinstalled the hitch and took the overload leafs out of the leaf pack. The rear end actually articulates now that there's not a 1/2" thick piece of flat steel in the pack. Lost 1/2" of "lift" due to loosing the thickness of that leaf, but it's really not all that noticeable.



Also secured the tailpipe to keep it from hanging down. If you click back a page (Or two if you're on mobile) you can see a picture that looks like my exhaust pipe is about to touch the curb... well I temporarily fixed that with a cheapy exhaust fix from the parts store.



Nice and tight tucked up under the hitch now



Clever yank-neck (my dad is from Michigan, my mom is from Georgia... Yankee/Redneck, yeah I know... terrible joke) engineering inspired me to sandwich the exhaust hanger rubber/fiber strap between the "frame" and the rear of the hitch. Keeps the tailpipe nice and tight while still allowing slack for torque flex

Basslicks

Ended up picking up a new muffler for a song. Traded a replica sword from Lord of the Rings for it. Thrush Turbo muffler, 2.5" center in/offset out. Same company makes the dynomax muffler that came on the jeep when I bought it. It's really not a bad sounding muffler for 30 bucks and it's really nice to be able to hear conversation and music inside the cab when you're moving now.

Thrush Turbo sitting on top of Dynomax Super Turbo


They sound pretty similar... I have a video on my channel called "jeep donuts" that will give you a pretty good idea of what the Dynomax muffler sounded like if you're curious.

The "bushings" at the ends of the muffler are tac-welded in place so that you can adjust the overall length for custom installations (at least that's what it says on the box). Well, I didn't want these to end up leaking, so I went around them and welded them all the way up on both ends. Gave me a chance to get some torch time in. I'm pretty please with how they turned out.









mmmm penetration








It would appear as though someone took the original exhaust bracket that attaches to the transmission crossmember and modified it... and not very well either. They hacked off the right edge and welded a small stud to the pipe and then bracket... which broke in half under the stress.

OEM mount... what it's supposed to look like:


I don't have a pic of what the hacked up mess looked like, but here's what I fabbed up to keep the pipe off the crossmember:









Originally when I re-did the exhaust, I clamped the muffler into place because I wanted to the flexibility of being able to remove it if need-be. That lasted about long enough for my wife to take the jeep down her mom's dirt road to her house and the forward clamp gave way and the jeep was louder than it was before. She told me about this right as I was about to go to bed that night, so I had to get up at 4am the next morning to weld it up... no prob, I was actually kind of excited to do it. Welding to the light of a cell phone LED was pretty challenging though.

I couldn't be more pleased with how it turned out though. The welds are strong and there's no leaks whatsoever.



It's still clamped in the rear, but there's plenty more "meat" for the clamp to hold to back there so I'm not so worried about it. My welds don't look perfect, but they look much better than they did before.

Basslicks

lol... man that bracket looks like crap. Hey, it's holding up well though.

Couple of driveway shots in all its lifted glory





Shot of where we started for comparison:



Well, the threads on the upper shock stud (for lack of better term, don't quite know what to call it) were stripped when I got the lift (again, it's used) so at some point after going over a speedbump or cycling the suspension, the nut came off the stud and made the driver's side front all.... boingy.

Just what I needed. I couldn't afford new shocks, and at that point I was so broke I couldn't even afford a tap and die set to fix it.

I took a pair of vice grips and that's what held the upper shock in place for about 3 weeks.

Finally got the tap and die set... but remembered that my brother in law sold the hydraulic jack we both share because it was on its way out and neither one of us knew how to rebuild the piston. So I got creative on how to jack up the front end to take the upper portion of the shock loose to work on it.

I stacked some tires up on the passenger side and drove on up. Worked perfectly. Didn't take any shots of it, but I did take a couple of shots of me flexing the rear after I drove forward over it after I was done.

Spoiler alert!
Non-gratuitous poser driveway-flex shots:






And the before:

Basslicks

Posting this just to save for my own info. Use it if you'd like, ignore it if you don't even care

westran2002

Inspiring build! Your XJ is what mine hopes to be when it gets older! Slow and steady wins the race!

Basslicks

Well thanks, friend. They all start from something.

Basslicks

Well, as some of you may be aware, I've been borrowing someone else's Jeep because my wife's been driving mine... figured it was only right seeing as I was dumb enough to let her van get taken away. Don't worry, we're on a budget now. All bills get paid before their due date, we have money in savings, and we're about a thousand away from getting her the car she wants (by the way, those of you who pray, we have our eye on a couple of 300m's at a good price... fingers crossed they'll still be around in a few weeks).

Moving on...

Ladies and Gentlemen, if you'll direct your attention to the green XJ on the left of this picture:



Nice lookin' XJ, right?

This is a 1993 Cherokee Country.
-4.0 L6
-AX15 transmission
-2wd
-C8.25 (27 spline) rear axle
268k miles and still running STRONG

This is a Jeep that I've been borrowing from someone for a few months while I save up for my wife's car.

DISCLAIMER: In NO WAY am I being ungrateful for this kind woman allowing to borrow her extra vehicle for such a long-term. I'm very blessed that she entrusted me long enough to drive around her vehicle while my wife drove MY jeep around until I could find her something else. I'm merely posting this on here as a PRIME EXAMPLE of people A) Not knowing how much their vehicle is actually WORTH, and B) Wanting way more than what it's worth REGARDLESS of whether they know what it's worth or not.

The goods:
-4.0 L6
-AX15
-The seats are in good shape

Yup... it ends there.

The Bads:
-it's 2wd (I was thinking about transferring all my crap over to this one and converting IT instead because the floors haven't rusted out yet and it's a 5 spd).
-The windshield leaks (according to the owner)
-The vent windows leak (from what I've WITNESSED)
-The roof (probably) leaks (probably from the visor that's been up there long enough to fade with the OEM Jeep paint)
-The carpet is trashed from having water stand in it... smells terrible and is moldy and dirty looking... total loss there.
-The Interior lights don't work. I put a fuse in the location on the panel to get them to work and nearly burnt the Jeep down. Smoke started pouring out from the headliner and the radio came on (with the key OFF). Pulled the popped and melted fuse OUT before everything would turn off (not supposed to happen)
-Windows work even with the key in the OFF position.
-One of the window motors don't work at all.
-Power door locks don't work
-The crappy tinting that was on the windows separated from the adhesive, so now all that's left on the windows is the clear adhesive film that's distorting the view from every window.
-The windshield wipers cycle for a couple of minutes when you turn the Jeep on.
-The drums need to be replaced from sitting for so long. They're rust warped.
-The suspension is sagging (of course).
-It's infested with roaches (in case you weren't aware, roaches LOVE moisture)
-The factory AC doesn't work (just needs a compressor - everything else works)
-The clutch was, according to the owner, recently replaced but apparently either not bled correctly, or out of adjustment because the friction point is about a half an inch off the floor.
-Cruise control also doesn't work.
-Headlights overheat after about 10 minutes of high-beam use and shut off... yes, highs and lows... completely off.

By my estimation, I would probably have to put in AT LEAST a thousand dollars just to get it into the running condition that mine is in. Not worth it at all unless I could get it for a song. BUT, I'd be willing to pay a little more for it because she let me borrow it for so long.

Kelly Blue Book puts the value of this Jeep at $960 with the condition it's in, the factory options that are EQUIPPED though not WORKING, and the mileage on the vehicle.




The MOST you'd get for it if it was in EXCELLENT condition is $1518




SO, was thinkin' she would probably ask for like 12, I'd counter her with 8 and if we possibly landed on 1k, I'd be okay with it.

Nope.... I thought my jaw was going to hit the floor when she said "$3,000"







I politely told her it was a little out of my price range and handed her the keys. I just couldn't fathom where she came up with that figure, but judging by the fact that she didn't probe me for an offer, I got the feeling we were waaaaay out of each other's ballparks.

Anyway... just had to tell that to someone.

Battle

LOL! Your rig looks awesome - no need to get another 2wd. You should makes yours a prerunner/Jeepspeed rig.

I've always wanted to drive a 300M Special. I don't know why I like them, but I do.

cleenrob

lol i had a similar experiance. i looked in to a super cleen 92country a while back, pwr windows/locks, imaculate interieor, but 370k and wanted 4k. granted it was in good shape but theres no way. haha