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Howdy everybody. Look like it's time to start a new build thread in the MJ section of the forum. That's something new for me. Ha.
Before I start the introduction, I need to explain how I came to this point...
In 2009 I started a money pit project; a BBQ smoker mounted on a trailer. After a couple of years, I lost motivation, (I didn't have time to constantly drive to my grandmother's house to work on the BBQ smoker, it was stowed in her garage). I already had my first jeep XJ which was lifted and all, I knew I needed another vehicle to daily drive, what's better than another XJ? That way I ll only need to keep stock of same parts instead of two different piles of parts.
So I put the smoker up for barter on Craigslist. About two days later, I got a hit. A guy had a 2001 XJ with warped head that he didn't want anymore. We went ahead with the trade.
I replaced the head with a TUPY 0331, fixed few minor stuff and got it running, which was great because it had AC (it was summertime). By August I got bored of it, and wanted something different. So I sold it for $2,200.
I wanted a 5 speed XJ, just because... I looked for about a month and found this gem... 1999 XJ with 4.0 and AX-15. I bought it for $500 and drove it home.
To recap what happened, I put in a 2.5 lift, slapped on some 31's, swapped the axles to get 3.55 ratio (HP30 and a XJ D44). Swapped the t case out to a NP242. Etc etc.
I made a mistake that I still regret to this day... selling it. I sold it for $3,800 (I put in only $2000-including the purchase price of $500). Still a decent profit but I regret it nonetheless.
I bought a purple 1998 XJ auto for $900. I thought I could flip it and sell it but that didn't happen unfortunately. It was a nightmare working on it. Lol. Eventually led to the diagnosis of bad piston rings in cylinder number 1 on the engine.
I wanted to get rid of it. I also wanted something completely different. I got really tired of XJs at that point. I'm about to move to a new house with a garage. I knew I would need a truck of some sorts but it should have a 4.0 so that way I can reduce the amount of parts to stockpile. And because I m used to working on it and I'm pretty familiar with it. I also usually haul stuff such as axles, and stuff. It's difficult to load the XJ lol.
Here is where a MJ comes in. I knew I can't afford to buy one and I couldn't sell the purple XJ for a decent price either. So a trade is the only way.
I keep asking various Craigslist postings to see if they were willing to trade. Some were willing, some weren't. One guy even tried to rip me off by jerking me around with vagueness and *******-ness... anyway.
One day I saw a posting that asked for $3000 for both MJs (one good running one and a parts one). I thought it wouldn't hurt to ask.
He agreed to the trade, so I drove the jeep over and took both trucks home.
And that's how I ended up with TWO MJs! Who would have thought??
I m able to post up one picture for now. My bathroom poop break is over so I gotta go back to work. Ha.
Oh I realized I forgot to add details about both MJs.
The tan one is 1988 pioneer with 4.0, AW4, and Dana 35 (2wd). 239,000 miles on it. Obviously a renix. I ll be keeping this one.
The red one is a 1991 eliminator with 4.0, ax15, and 8.25 rear axle (2wd) 129,000 miles on it. This is a parts-only vehicle since there's no title for it.
I'm keeping the pioneer because the body is in better condition overall. I still haven't decided what to do with the other MJ.... part it out, try to find a title, or turn it into trails-only crawler. I ll know when time comes.
So when I arrived at the dude's house. I looked over the eliminator because he didn't arrived yet. It was parked against the fence and he must have spray painted it black because the side against the fence was still red... lazy ****.
I ll need to remove the paint somehow.
It's missing a battery, starter, and the rear driveshaft. So I couldn't get a chance to fire it up. The interior is nearly immaculate. I would rate it 9 out of 10. Blue interior. Maybe I should swap entire interior into the pioneer.
Someone put a Chrysler 8.25 axle under it.... new u bolts and all. Yeah that's great... but he never welded new perches on it. Oh well.
The coils seem to be really old progressive type of springs along with really old tubular lower control arms. Can anyone take a stab at as who made them?
The guy arrived in the 88 pioneer. It had extremely offset wheels with 275/65/15 tires. Looked really stupid. I checked them out. Real bad rot on them. I demanded to keep my tires/wheels off the purple XJ. He obliged and helped me swap them. Now the pioneer looks much better.
Final act I had with the purple XJ was to yank the eliminator out of its resting place and pulled it towards the tow dolly.
It rode really terrible due to blown rear shocks... and broken leaf packs. In fact, on Sunday I went ahead and replace them with the leaves from a Dodge Durango... I used top three leafs with eyes cut off under the MJ main leafs.
When I removed the centering pin, a pile of broken leafs fell down to the ground. 8 broken leaves in total.
Replaced the rear shocks with brand new JK Sahara shocks. Nearly same lengths and I already had them on hand. So why not.
When I drove it home late that night I got it, I was startled at how the dash lights suddenly went wonky and dimmed & brighten up randomly. At first I got to admit. I thought the alternator was on its way out. Luckily I made it home.
I checked the handy TIPS and saw that the ground was poorly designed. So I used a 16" wire with eyelets crimped on it, placed one of them under the original grounding location and put the other end on the stud which holds the parking brake mechanism.
Before I did this... the cigarette lighter didn't work, there's poor illumination, and the wipers didn't work.
After I did this, the wipers now work, the lighter outlet works, the illumination stayed bright, and the little light inside power/comfort switch illuminated. So it is not a myth. It really works.
I also took the drivers side tail light out and cleaned the grounding location there (for the taillights and the fuel pump) I ran out of eyelets so I will be doing the fuel pump ground extension later on.
While I had the taillights out. I decided to upgrade the reverse lights to LED.
Oh I also got rid of the black plastic toolbox on the back, because a friend gave me a beat up aluminum toolbox. It just need some straightening out and reinforcing.
I ll keep the rack bar thingy. It need to be cut down a bit lower and I ll weld a mesh across it so nothing ll hit my head just in case.
10-19-2016, 09:02 AM
The tale of SuperMJ
