Hey y'all, I'm new to the whole jeep life. I've wanted a xj since I could drive and last July I finally got my hands on one... We've had our ups and downs but overall I'm satisfied with Betty (my son's name for her) and slowly working towards the jeep I want and hoping I can learn some new things as well as help some people with problems I've ran into a long the way.
Meet Betty

Just got some new shoes

Work in progress, was replacing the steering




I like my lighting

 

Looks like you and Betty will spend a lot of time together before you hit the trail

 

Yeah, those are some older pics but just ran into the same problem this morning...that's what I get for trusting some hillbilly mechanic to fix my rig.
The part pictured here is the y link I bought for it because I was told it was a rugged ridge steering kit but turns out it's a 1 ton ruff stuff steering kit that uses much larger studs, you can see where he drilled out the hole to fit the larger tapered stud, wasn't enough so it was only about 2/3rds of the way thru and the smaller xj stud didn't fit the spindle so he put a washer on top to "make it work" now my drag link is in the machine shop because the ruff stuff one is stuck in it. Oh also the mounting hole is on the side for the correct one and the top of this one

 

ouch - yes that's redneck engineering

 

It's bad enough that it's got the 1 ton steering on a stock suspension but the guy I got the jeep from changed everything for the steering over for this 1 ton stuff and from what I've found it'll cost me more than I want to spend right now to convert it back to stock