Okay, so tomorrow marks my first week with my "new to me" 01 XJ. Bought it in Houston, Tx last saturday and after giving it a once over with a mechanic, I drove it straight home to San Antonio (about 180 miles). It has 151k miles, the tires were bald from the beginning so I knew that this was going to be the first order of business. However, since I am waiting on the title to arrive, I figured I'd hold off on the tires and just get to doing some research while just going over the car itself. Here's my plan so far:

Change the Oil
tighten or replace the belt (it squeaks when the AC is turned on)
Take it to my local shop to give it an in depth health check
Change out all (and I do mean ALL) fluids
Get new tires
fix the door lock mechanism
replace the headliner

From there, I think I'll look into swapping the rear axle for an 8.25. I have the turdy5 on now and I know its stock because I have ABS. I have a feeling that the front D30 may have an auto locker of some sort. This is my first 4x4 so I don't have much knowledge in that department, but after spending a lot of time researching, I have found that it is somewhat normal to have a clicking sound when at full lock left or right and I experienced this when I test drove it in a parking lot. Mainly happened when trying to do higher than normal speed circles. Gonna lift the front in the driveway and check and see if the wheels turn in unison or not. Anyways, thats my plan. This XJ is going to be a weekend toy for the family. We are not too far from a few off road parks and while I know it is not set up right now for the heavy stuff, It'll be fun to go on light trails for a change.

Oh, and I need to find out how much lift is on it already. Tires are 265/75/16 so I think that equates to 31s if I am not mistaken. Feel free to let me know if I am overseeing anything.

Glad to be here!

 

Wow nice looking start!
Mine wasn't so nice to start but at least mine was free to start

 

That thing is MINT! I'm super jealous. What does the interior look like? Looks like it might be lifted about 3.5". Likely a Rubicon Express or Old Man Emu kit... or a miss-match of parts.

First thing I would do is ditch the nerf bars and get some nice sliders, but that's just me.

Oh, and you're going to be able to tell if it's locked when you change the diff cover. I doubt it is. You might just need to replace the axle u-joints. Were you doing figure eights on hard asphalt in four wheel drive? Unless you have a full-time option (np242), you probably don't want to do that very often if not never again.