Hello,

Name's Jon. Just wanted to introduce myself. I just recently decided to finally get my first 4x4 and ever since I was a kid, I wanted an XJ. Well, when I got the money, I got lucky and found a pristine one for only 5K. It was 2WD which killed the deal, but luckily the guy's father in law had 6 others and worked on them for fun. So, I asked him to do a swap and he gladly obliged. The cost was 2700 for parts and labor, which I thought was awesome. I asked him to put a selec trac in it. Apparently, that may make some of you face palm, but I need the full time 4WD option as I have little ones and in Texas, we don't see much snow, but when we do, we don't know how to deal with it. So when it DOES snow, the roads are slippery and too many times have I spun out in a 2WD in the snow, while being as safe as possible. I even crashed one but luckily no other cars on the road. Also, I'm in east TX and we tend to have a lot of loose dirt on the road, as well as when it rains, our crappy streets get really flooded and are very slippery. So I will keep this one and see how it works out. After all, I'm mostly wanting this to be an overland vehicle and not a rock crawler. I don't even plan on getting lockers right away.

Anyway... She's a 99 Sport. She's red, with American flags on the front fenders with fender flares. She was rebuilt and sounds glorious. All electric everything.

I look forward to meeting, conversing, and learning with and from you folks. I'll leave off with a pic of the lady.

God bless you all and your families,

-J

 

Welcome! And good on you for getting the NP242 transfer case. I am in the same boat as far as which TC I desire. My sport currently has the 231 in it, but at some point I will swap in the Selec-Trac. We had an '88 when the kids were coming of driving age. Made it real simple. My daughter would get in pull the lever to FT 4WD and take off. No jerking, no worrying when she drove out of the snow onto just wet pavement.

That is a nice looking Jeep you have there. You are way ahead of where I am at. Though mine is 4WD, I have a lot of work ahead of me being that it has almost 200K miles on it. But I bought it because it's a Texas Jeep(no rust)and everything up here is rusty. I loathe rust!

Right now I'm restoring a Dana 30 front axle to replace the CAD axle(not original to the Jeep) that is in it.

Enjoy your journey! There seems to be some pretty good people on this site.

 

Thank you. Sounds like you had a lot of family fun in your 88. I'm sure your daughter has those memories of dad letting her pull the lever. That's awesome. Happy for you.
I need to learn how to the the work you're doing too. I probably need to buy the tools to even try it. Why do you say good on me for getting that TC? Is it because I'm not jumping on the "NP242 is trash" bandwagon?

 

Yes, exactly. Guys break transfer cases because they operate them in extreme circumstances. If you drive one sanely and maintain it, it will most likely last forever. Plus, some don't like them because they are larger and tend to hit rocks more often when rock crawling. That is not a "defect" of the TC, just an occurrence when driven in extreme terrain.

I'm an old mechanic and I have done a lot in the past with the tools I have. But I am finding as I age, that having better/more tools makes things much easier. I'm finally investing in a good air compressor and air tools so I don't have to use so much muscle to tear things apart. Years ago when I did ball joints and control arm bushings in a vehicle with hand tools, it was rather brutal. I don't have my compressor yet, but I have an electric impact. When I disassembled my front differential last weekend, it was actually fun. Yeah, I still had a couple stubborn ball joints that required some heat and pounding, but I got the diff completely torn down in 3 hours. I was happy with that.

Invest in the basic tools that have a multitude of use and utilize auto parts stores for the seldom used stuff like ball joint tools, spring compressors, etc. And if you don't have aspirations like I do to be able to paint and sand/glass bead blast, you can get away with a small compressor. Lot's of folks now a days buy battery powered impacts and drivers.

 

Worked on it a bit with my daughter. I love this thing.