Hey all, newbie here and to the Jeep scene. A little background first I suppose.

I bought my '95 ZJ last month for the low low price of $1,000.

She has a solid body with just a little rust/rot right where the rear drivers side door meets the wheel well and a small amount along the bottom of the tailgate.

So far so good, she runs and drives good. Runs a bit rough and has a check engine light on, just have to hit Autozone for a scan and tune up parts.

Thanks to 98xj_John I'll be getting the exhaust welded up once we can get a day worked out for that. The PO did some half-a**ed clamp crap to get a new Cat in there and I wound up losing whatever wrong piece he had on there for a tailpipe

Bought a new tailpipe, doesn't fit because of the crap work done to the exhaust already (pics tomorrow if I can)

And that gets us up to date!

 

So, as far as plans go, this is a daily driven suburban enviroment vehicle for me. Once I get comfortable that nothings going to fall apart or die on me I may look into more heavy duty builds and get her of road. But for the time being I'm focusing on appearance and performance.

First thing I did was put on a roof rack.

Nothing incredible but it's just fine for what I'll use it for, my kids bicycle, pocket bike and camping gear if I can get a camping trip worked out this summer.

Next month I'll be starting on a fiberglass front bumper along the lines of the one from Iceland Offroad.


I have a decent amount of Fiberglass cloth and some mesh from another fiberglass project I had planned that fell through(sold the car). If it works out as planned I'll do a how to on that. Maybe even a rear bumper too.

Future plans:
lift
light bar
CAI
Body work(rust)



I could use a little advice on the lift though. Never done any suspension work, but a budget boost seems pretty straight forward and I'm only looking for about 3". (<-- what she said)

Would I be better off with a BB kit, front>rear swap or some combo in between? Advice, criticism etc all appreciated, can't wait to get going on some real work on this thing!

 

So, I've been trying to find a good write-up on a f >R swap to no avail. Anyone have a good link? I'm just not sure of what parts exactly I'd need to get from a doner vehicle and there's currently about 4-5 ZJ's at the junkyard that I could potentially grab parts from.

That includes a few V8's, I hear that the V8's front springs will grant me a bit more height?

Plus I'm looking at a Rubicon Express 2" BB kit, could that be combined with coils from a doner for 2.5-3"?

 

Scratch that last post, finally found a couple threads between forums talking about the front to rear spring swap.

So it looks like I'll be pulling the fronts from a V8 ZJ then ordering front 3-3.5" springs for the I6, .75" spacers and replacing the shocks all around.

If I'm leaving anything out or just wrong please someone chime in, I mainly started a build thread to keep the dumb questions to one place and document what I'm doing with it in one thread. So help please!? lol

 

Looks good! I like the bumper!

 

Thanks, but thats just what I'm using as a model haha.

I'll be pulling the bumper next week and mocking up a plug out of cardboard to shape the new bumper, then start cutting and laying fiberglass. Hope to get it all done by the 25th of May.

I'll also be making a custom cupholder since the stock ones are too small for my water bottle.

And finally, I have about 4 emails out to folks about getting some JK wheels and Wrangler wheels all with newer tires. My current ones that came on it are essentially Balogna skins.

Plenty of pics of next weeks work, promise!

 

Just got a deal on 5 Liberty wheels and tires, $80 with decent tread left. Did a quick search and found that they do in fact use the same bolt pattern! So I'll be picking those up on Sunday when I get back home.

Might be getting a new CD player too, current one doesn't work and I only get sound out of 1 speaker so I'll be rewiring all of those and possibly running wire in anticipation of an amp and a power inverter in the rear. Already have both of those, just need to run wires.


And finally, those stupid chrome strips are coming off the wheel wells. Probably using one or two to make my cupholder for the drivers side.

 

On the off chance anyone actually reads this(lol, yeah right), here's where I'm at with my ZJ.

Life got in the way and hasn't allotted the time to make a bumper yet, but it's still in the plan.

The deal with the JK wheels fell through, gonna get some JY tires to get me by for summer so I can save for good tires and maybe a BB/ F>R swap by autumn.

I did manage to do this:

Got a Boss Audio receiver brand new, in box on Craigslist for $40

That lead to me fixing this while I was playing with wires:


A bunch were pinched and cut so I replaced a few sections, capped off ones that were cut with crimps or E-tape once crimps were gone and the end result was this:

I tried to cover where the door and frame pinch the wires mostly, better than it was though an it'll last until I get a new boot to cover it.

Has anyone done a grounding kit on a ZJ? I have an abundance of 0 Gauge amp power wire and figured those 17 year old grounds could probably use replacing.

Anyone know all of the engine bay, etc ground points?

 

Looks like a pretty solid start and vision here. Looking forward to seeing the outcome!

 

Thanks man!

Working on a very limited(non existent if you ask the wife xD) budget so progress will be slow, mostly alot of homework and research atm.

I need my exhaust welded up pretty badly so I made a deal with the wife, if a shop wants more to weld it than Harbor Freight wants for a welder I'm buying a welder and doing it! So that will help grease the wheels of progress!

 

i,m subscribed to this build thread lol

 

looks like a great start, even if the shop wants less to weld it than if you bought a welder, I would still buy the welder and do it yourself, because then you have the welder if you ever want to make side bars, roof rack, roll cages, etc (give a man a fish, feed him for a day, teach a man to fish, feed him for life)

 

+1

 

Well, hope you aren't expecting much more than noob questions and infrequent minor updates! lol

 

That's the plan, but to swing it I need a quote from the shop to convince the lil woman haha. Plus I haven't welded in about 8 years and looks like a cheap-o flux core is all I can afford atm