Originally Posted by TrailerTrash

First thing I would do is get it outside in the driveway or yard or wherever you can do this. Get it up on jackstands, pull the wheels off, and wash the underside of the entire vehicle. Pressure washer would definitely be best but if you dont have one you can use a garden hose. Spray it in all the holes on the frame flush every corner out. You can also go to a self serve car wash and use the tire cleaner to soak everything then blast it all with high pressure soap then high pressure water to rinse it.

When it dries you can get under it and start checking with a screw driver and flashlight poking for rust. Hopefully you dont find much at all. It doesnt look bad from the pictures but its very dirty and hard to tell.

Originally Posted by BigNuge

Definitely recommend a wire feed MIG. Point and shoot, and will do much thinner material than SMAW.

Your XJ is in need for sure, but savable. To make it make sense you’ll need to do the work yourself. Else it’ll be quite expensive to get fixed.

The rusted shackle is the least of your issues. Got to get all that rot identified, assessed, and tooling to get it fixed.

As has been suggested, get the underside cleaned up, probe around with a pick and hammer, find all the rot. Post pics of what you find.