Hey guys,

I usually don't ever find a parts XJ at any of the pick your part yards, definitely never a 97+, and since I drive a 99 this has made me pretty much give up on the LA area junkyards. So this week I'm off work for vacation, and I figure what the hell, I'll go to the yard, only to stumble upon the holy grail, a black 99 sport with all sorts of bells and whistles mine doesn't have, with the only things missing being the front clip and the driver's side door panel. Usually these things are completely picked apart. For all of about $200 and two days of picking (first day was 50% off), I ended up with:

2x clean tail light housings
side markers all around
all grab handles
rear speaker grilles
Full dash, including cluster bezel, vents, and air bag cover
Nice gauge cluster w/o idiot lights
overhead console, bracket, and associated harness (which is plug and play since mine is a 99)
Headliner to match said overhead console
plastic sound bar support
Threshold trim for all 4 doors
2x HID can-buses
Panel that goes under steering column
rear hatch skid panel
factory roof rack
gas door



Really mostly excited about the new headliner, overhead panel, and roof rack. Not going to use the nutserts or anything similar for the rack, I was thinking just cherrymax rivets or some short fasteners through close tolerance holes, sealed up with rtv or something. Was wondering if anyone had any thoughts on that. Also went to the local fabric store and picked up 4 yds of black acrylic felt and 3 cans of loctite spray adhesive. (It was 4 dollars cheaper a can than the 3M stuff and I generally trust loctite stuff, as it's all we use at work, and I usually say if it's good enough to go into space it's good enough for the Jeep. In the process right now of scraping off the original foam so I can solvent clean the fiberglass and lay down that new black fabric. So yeah, let me know your thoughts, I have an immaculate extra dash now, so I was thinking maybe of doing something finish/paint/texture-wise, using my old dash as a guinea pig. I like to put unique looking stuff on my XJ, but I also keep it tasteful, no racing stripes or safety colors, if you catch my drift. But yeah, main point being, I was really lucky, because of where I live, to find such a complete XJ sitting in a junkyard, while I was on vacation, on 50% off day. Freakin' awesome.

 

I check the local u pull website every 2 weeks or so they get a steady quantity of jeeps in my area. Some are bad some are nice but I like to go see them you can score some nice interior trim pieces cheap. About a month ago they had a 99 2 door with the 2.5 and ax5 tranny. The jeep was flawless I couldn't believe anybody would dump it in the jy in such nice condition. 3 days later it was completely gutted. I suggest using a broom to knock off all that old adhesive off the headliner panel just makes it quick and easy.

 

Yeah, I feel like the nice ones that show up attract the "resale" crowd and they just come and devour them, by the time an actual jeep owner shows up they're gutted. Especially the easy stuff, like the radio bezels and the side mirrors. Dash parts go pretty quick too. 97+ are prone to this moreso than early XJs it seems to me.

I got lucky on those taillights and the headliner though, since the hatch was having that weird problem where there's an art to opening it. I've had that problem on mine and was able to open it with about 10 seconds of fiddling. Guess it was meant to be lol

EDIT: Just saw the broom thing, I'll have to give that a try. My phenolic scraper is working really well it's just small. Other than a broom/brush it's the only thing I'd use on that thin fiberglass, it's hard yet soft, hard to explain. Just laminate I guess. Gotta be veeeeerrry careful with that headliner fiberglass sandwich structure, it will collapse pretty easily if you're rough with it.

 

Tell me about it I just did my headliner. Had to pull it out by myself let's just say the left side kept getting caught on the lift gate struts and ripping. Once you put down the new fabric and mount her up though all the trim pieces take care of any edge damage. My .2 cents tho be generous with the adhesive. Spray both the board and fabric and wait about a minute or 2 before mating them to let the glue get tacky. I used 2 cans of 3m super 77. It gets up to 110 degrees and the headliner seems to be holding up fine.

 

Why you looking in Tucson for jeeps? There's a few in junkyards near me that I want to snag the door mirrors off of, center console with cup holders and rear speaker bar

 

Wow, yours came out great, what type of fabric did you use? I went with black just so I can hide dirt, plus it looks better than stock with the agate interior IMO. Couple of questions for you:
Did you apply the material all at once, or did you do it in sections?
Did you hand-apply pressure or did you use a hard roller?

I got 3 cans of adhesive so I should be able to pile it on pretty thick with no worries. This job definitely wasn't even on my list, but I saw that same-year sport with the OHC and a pretty decent headliner and couldn't resist.

 

Thanks I used a multi color felt fabric. I have grey and black interior so I went with this grey, black, and white felt. Has a retro 80's feel to it. I like how it came out even nicer than original IMO I also did the sun visors with the same fabric. Today I picked up a soundboard out of a 95 at the jy. I'm pretty excited to reupholster that and put new speakers. I laid the fabric over the board and then pulled back a quarter of the fabric at a time. Sprayed the board first then fabric. so I did it in 4 sections and I just used my hands and applied just enough pressure with my palms to smooth it out. Some guys have used a paint roller it works nice but the material of the roller was sticking to the headliner fabric as I was rolling it so I stopped using it immediately. Black fabric was my second choice.

 

Local LKQ showed they had added a good handful of 97-01 XJs to their inventory in May so when I went on 4th of July weekend for 1/2 price weekend I was disappointed to find 1 97+ in the whole yard. I don't think they got to picked up in a month that they got rid of them, I think they misposted Grands as regular Cherokees. Still picked up a few things for both of my XJs for $20, E-fan, window crank handles, oil cap, seat belt buckle, and a dozen relays.

My original intent was to get a set of axles from a 97+ to go under my 93. Since my 93 is manual it has 3.07 gears and the idea was to get 97+ axles from an auto for a cheap gear ratio change for bigger tires. Good thing I found a good deal on a set of 99 axles, paid a little more than I would have at LKQ but they were already pulled....and LKQ only had 1 to pull from so I would have been rather disappointed.

 

That is one of my biggest pet peeves about LKQ/PYP, they mis-label grands as regular cherokees ALL the time. I show up thinking I'm about to have a field day, and instead spend half the time there googling what wj/zj parts will bolt onto my XJ. Anyways, I got all of the foam off the old board, will be posting updates/pictures as I go.

 

I don't bother with LKQ. I have found their inventory search to be pretty much worthless. It's not just that they label Grand Cherokees incorrectly. If you look for other models, you'll find they list vehicles they don't even have. And to make it worse, the vehicle I'm looking for is usually listed in their premium yard where you have to pay again to get in. So it adds insult to injury to pay the extra two dollars only to find that they don't have the vehicle they listed. It's almost as if the inventory is a scam. LKQ is really set up for the yard rats who scour the lots on a daily basis for parts they can buy cheap and sell or use to rehab ****boxes to sell to poor people.

I'd drive further and pay more for a Pull-a-Part or one of the yards that uses Row52.com to manage inventory.

 

Yeah, I agree with you 100%, however LKQ and Ecology sort of hold a monopoly on the southern california area, they even bought up all the independent yards out in the high desert. Kinda screwed.