Surprise build for my brother

You may have seen this on another forum. I am not trying to spam anything- just more recently stumbled across this forum and thought it would be fitting to post a build thread here as well since it is more relevant

My brothers "ole trusty" ford 6.0L powerstroke just blew up and the rocker arms let some needle bearings make their way to the HPOP and LPOP. However since he just got accepted into an engineering PhD program at a good school for it, my dad and I decided we're gonna surprise him with a relatively built jeep to replace his truck. I picked up a 1997 2.5L wrangler 5spd manual with 208k miles on it this weekend for what I feel is a great price! Engine and transmission are in great shape so it may not be the 450hp powerhouse that his 6.0 was but it should give him a lot of fun in new ways.
It looks like the previous owners put a rough country 2.5 inch lift and some moto metal 17" wheels with 29" tires on it
Jeep came home with roaches in it so I set off 2 bug bombs and let it bake in the sun for a few hours.



After the jeep aired out I tore out the interior and got the bedrug carpets soaking in bleach and oxyclean and the soft top soaking in water with simple green. Pressure washed the seats and hit the tub with a wire wheel for some minor rust, then degreased it and sprayed it with gray primer





After that I started with some of the wiring. The previous owner had poorly wired an amp in creating a source of parasitic drain which coupled with the chinesium halo headlights means a dead battery if the jeep sits for more than 3-4 days. So out came the headlights and the amp and wiring for it all. While I was tearing out wires, I tore out the battery connections to the body ground, engine ground, alternator hot, fuse box and starter and remade those. I used 2 AWG for everything except the alternator hot wire which is 8AWG right now but I will be replacing with 4AWG for when it comes in so that we can upgrade to a 150 amp alternator. I also have military spec style battery terminals on the way so these autozone ones will be replaced with those when they are delivered.

Parts that are on the way for this jeep before I drive it up to illinois for him
Suspension/Steering
- savvy offroad 3" lift
- fox shocks all around ( unfortunately not savvy tuned shocks since they werent in stock)
- JKS front and rear track bars
- currie currectlync
- oem steering stabilizer
- 4.88 yukon gears
- SYE + adams 1310 driveshaft from rudys offroad
- Black magic brake upgrade (rotors, pads and calipers)
- ultra 164 wheels 15x9 + falken wildpeak at3w 33x12.5 tires
- timken wheel hubs
- YJ brake lines

Body
- Fishbone offroad Front and rear tube fenders
- smittybilt XRC rear bumper and tire swing out
- morryde tailgate hinges + hi lift mount
- amazon bikini top
- found a local hardtop in mint condition
- found local full doors that I will have to repaint- was able to straight trade them for the current half doors that I have as that is what this guy wants
- hooke offroad rear storage
- smittybilt SRC rock sliders ( I wanted frame mount because they will more be used to kick snow/mud off rather than slide on rocks)

Interior
- Select increments upper and lower dash speaker mounts with kicker speakers
- pioneer 75W x 4 channel marine amplifier
- in search of a new driver seat still

Engine/Electrical
- mean green alternator
- DIY 2AWG wiring upgrade + 4AWG wire for alternator
- mopar water pump
- fan clutch, radiator cap, thermostat, thermostat gasket from the cooling system overhaul on this forum
- PO of the jeep who is a friend had recently replaced radiator, hoses, distributor cap and wires
-truck-lite LED headlights

Lots and lots of parts came in over the last week… gonna have to leave a case of beer for the UPS and fedex guys

Today I was able to get the radiator pulled, replace the water pump, thermostat and pulleys. Gonna be dropping a mean green alternator in tomorrow

I was also able to get the Currie currectlync installed and a new steering stabilizer.

Annnnd finally, new calipers, rotors and pads from black magic and new timken hubs as well. I have not bled the brakes yet because I realized that these red lines are 4” lift YJ lines so I’m wondering if they are going to be too long and need to be swapped with regular length YJ brake lines

JMT said:

The YJ 4” lines may be too long. I used the regular YJ lines with my 4.25” lift and they’re fine. The Dorman are better bc you have more mounting options.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the input, I picked some of those up today!

Over the last few days I have
- installed fox front shocks and teraflex 3" lift coils (I thought this jeep had a 2.5" lift but I think it actually may have been a 4" RC lift since the front springs I took off were longer than the 3" teraflex ones I replaced them with
- got front and rear brakes bled
- painted the sway bare and replaced the bushings with greasable ones
- installed rock krawler sway bar disconnects
- installed the JKS front track bar and got the axle centered
- installed front and rear fishbone off-road tube fenders
- wired in an auxiliary fuse block from blue sea systems
- flushed the cooling system with blue devil chemical flush and distilled water after I finally got the thermostat housing to stop leaking

I tried to install the new truck-lite headlights but I am very disappointed that for almost $700 they don't come with replacement housings so I had to order those since all of the adjuster screws on the original ones are completely shot.
Cancelled my order for the currie double adjustable control arms since morris 4x4 wasn't planning to ship them until the end of September even though the shipping time on the website when I bought them was within 3 days..... SO I ended up ordering some core 4x4 tier 3 control arms today and got my shipping notice today.

Picked her up today from getting 4.88 gears and core 4x4 control arms installed
Having fox shocks front and rear is such a massive improvement over the touch country shocks it’s unbelievable
Now begins the interior work
Insulation on the floor
Amp and speakers
New driver seat
Storage boxes
Gotta get the full doors I have painted black

Got a hard top on today as well
It was impressively challenging to do in the driveway by myself without a lift or hoist but it got done and nothing but my shoulder popped
2 of the 3 bolt holes lined up and the rear most bolt hole is off by about an inch and the plastic tabs did not have a hole to slot into but other than that it was straightforward

At this point I don’t think I’m worried about wiring in the defrost or wiper

Bought this kit on rock auto for the AC system since it doesn’t work and I’m sure there’s a leak somewhere but the jeep also has 206k miles so it can’t hurt to replace these for the price of the kit

Are there any special tools required to install this? My plan is to just install it and then take it to an AC shop to pull vacuum and recharge the system. Hopefully it’ll be a straight forward install but any insight would be greatly appreciated

This weekend Ill be doing the 500 mile differential gear oil change since the shop that did my install is currently dealing with 3 feet of water in their mechanic bay from the hurricane.
Found a bosch 67756 fuel pump on rock auto to be delivered tuesday so I will be dropping the fuel tank and doing the 19 gallon mod to it.
So far the interior is 99% done with the floors sound deadened about 75% coverage with butyl rubber and aluminum backed foam. Not planning to do the rear area of the pan since I still have to install the hooke road rear storage box. Amp, speakers and headunit are also in and the dash is back together.



Also had the full doors I picked up sprayed with black raptor liner rather than try to paint match the very well abused 25 year old white paint

Dropped the fuel tank and did the 15 gallon to 19 gallon conversion today. Dropping the tank was the easy part but man oh man is it a PITA to reinstall with one person. I was hoping to replace the fuel pump with a Bosch fuel pump while it was out but it turns out the 67756 part number does not work in the 97 fuel tanks... guess I should have looked into that a little bit more. Oh well. I'll advise my brother that IF the fuel pump does go bad when he takes it to a shop for repair to have them install one of the genright fuel access panels in the floorboard. As well since it appears there are no good fuel pumps other than Bosch and those can't be had so if the pump is gonna be dying might as well make it easy and not have to drop the tank each time.
I replaced the fuel neck filler hose and vent hose while they were out and also noticed that the grounding strap is not connected to the vehicle end and looks like it hasn't been for quite a while so I fixed that up to.
It was also a good opportunity to get the last 4 bolts installed in the smittybilt bumper - the ones that hide behind the gas tank. OH AND did I mention that the smittybilt XRC bumper had to come off to drop the tank because the rear side of the receiver was catching the skid plate. I made sure to cut the skid plate out so that doesn't have to happen again.









Skid plate was in pretty rough shape but it still has a few more years in it and I have to leave in a week to drive the jeep up to him so I don't have time for a new one right now. When it's time to replace the skid plate I'll see about getting one of the genright 23 gallon tanks to go in too. For now I washed out all the gunk. Hit it with a wire wheel and some rustoleum farm implement spray paint (didn't get a picture of that)

Quadratec frame mounted rock sliders. My brother most likely won’t be doing any hardcore rock crawling while he is still in school so I went with frame mounted bolt on vs weld on or tub mount to more so protect the body from door dings. Didn’t want to go with tub mount sliders because they seem like a good way to trap road salt and rust the tub out faster.
The install for these would have gone much smoother if they self drilling bolts from quadratec didn’t strip out when trying to tap the hole for the first time making me have to recut the threads on almost all of them

Got the jeep all finished up and to my brother last month. Drove it from central florida to central illinois and the only issue I ran into was the steering shaft rubbed through the power steering hose so I got to replace the high pressure power steering hose in an autozone parking lot in tallahassee. Other than that things went smoothly and it was no issue to hold 70-75 mph on the interstate with the 33s and 4.88 gears even with the 2.5L engine. I think I averaged around 14 mpg for the drive too.
He has since tweaked a few things like adding a subwoofer and a trailer hitch rack. And it looks like he's about due for a new fuel pump. It seems to be a hard start in the mornings unless he primes it a few times first leading me to think its the backflow regulator. Since the bosch units aren't available anymore and it looks like the other options available just dont seem to last, I feel like its a good choice to have him add in an access panel like the one from Gen rite when the tank is dropped that way he doesnt have to drop the tank every few months to years or however long the pump decides to last.





So far the list of things done to the Jeep
Suspension/Steering:
- teraflex 3 inch spring kit
- fox shocks front and rear
- Core 4x4 tier 3 control arms
- JKS front and rear track bar
- Black magic front and rear brakes
- YJ front brake lines
- Currie/Rockjock currectlync steering
- SYE
-left over transfer case drop from the previous owner
- rock krawler quick disconnects
- 4.88 gears front and rear

Body/Exterior
- Raptor lined black full doors
- truck lite Headlights
- Fishbone offroad flat fenders front and rear
- smittybilt XRC rear bumper with tire swingout
- rough country front bumper (from Previous owner)
- hi lift mounted on hood (brothers call)
- quadratec frame mount rock sliders
- hard top
- 33x12.5r15 falken wildpeak at3w on 15" aluminum wheels (each one is 86 pounds for those interested)

Interior:
- Bestop drivers seat
- butyl rubber/ CCF on most of floor pan
- Cheap double din head unit
- pioneer 300watt marine amp under the steering column
- JVC 150w powered subwoofer
- kicker lower dash speakers + versapods on upper dash
- tuffy under seat lock box
- rear storage locker/tray from amazon]
- 3x roll bar mounted UTV dome lights from amazon with white/red options

Misc:
- 15 to 19 gallon fuel tank
- recently changed timing belt/chain?
- recently replaced distributor and spark plugs
- new power steering pump
- New AC system waiting to be installed
- trailer hitch storage rack
- gas can holder for spare tire carrier