What did you do to your TJ today?

Interior finished !!!! Sound deadened Everything front to back. New Bedrug carpet and Bartact seat covers…
Even painted the seat frames..
The cab is a lot quieter and a lot less noise from the exhaust and tyres
Before
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After
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Got the pilot bearings swapped out. 15mm impact socket and a hammer made light work of it. Greased up the new bearing because it was very dry fresh out the package. The old bearing actually seems fine so I’ll throw it in a jar on the shelf. Put some paint on my cylinder head too.

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I love the gray bedrug with gunmetal pearl. Might have to do that in mine eventually…

Thanks, I like the colour combo too. It’s pretty expensive stuff if you have to get it shipped out of your country but hopefully it will last so I won’t need to buy it again 💰💰
 
Replaced my nearly 10 year old diehard platinum AGM battery with an Odyssey. I just hope I get another 10 years out of the new one. I went with a group 65 and it seemed to fit better than the group 34 that was in there already. I wonder if the PO changed battery trays. The diehard was still going strong but I had a chance to buy the Odyssey for $115 at auction so I couldn't pass that up. And I just dropped off the old battery at advance auto and they gave me a $10 gift card.

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Opened up a box of goodies for it. SYE and driveshaft go in tomorrow. Hopefully I’ll be able to adjust pinion angle and everything else this weekend as well.

Installed adjustable control arms for last week, and have a track bar relocation bracket ready to go to accommodate the soon to be newly tilted rear axle.

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Opened up a box of goodies for it. SYE and driveshaft go in tomorrow. Hopefully I’ll be able to adjust pinion angle and everything else this weekend as well.

Installed adjustable control arms for last week, and have a track bar relocation bracket ready to go to accommodate the soon to be newly tilted rear axle.

View attachment 389727

I’ve got the same job planned when I get a couple nice days off. I’ve had it for almost two months now waiting to get through winter lol

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Just driving along, running errands in town and enjoying my TJ and the nice weather when all the sudden, the exhaust gets real loud. Turns out I broke my JBA stainless header after about 1 1/2 years even though I put a flex coupler in the header pipe in front of the oil pan☹️
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Just driving along, running errands in town and enjoying my TJ and the nice weather when all the sudden, the exhaust gets real loud. Turns out I broke my JBA stainless header after about 1 1/2 years even though I put a flex coupler in the header pipe in front of the oil pan☹️
View attachment 389797

So the question is: what next?
1) I could re-weld this header. The weld wouldn’t be stainless. But maybe that’s not bad. Mild steel is more flexible.
2) I could get another header like Banks header for $500:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004CIK628/?tag=wranglerorg-20or the aFe header for almost $800:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B005URAXX2/?tag=wranglerorg-203) I could replace with a stock style tubular manifold with bellows for flexibility like on my original 4.0 (pre Stroker):
The Mopar version is over $600:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0049EXDFW/?tag=wranglerorg-20Here is a inexpensive ($95) stainless one (the bellows are non-stainless for flexibility):
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B075869XV3/?tag=wranglerorg-20or one of several Chinese mild steel stock style versions like this $175 Omix part:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01GT8AN44/?tag=wranglerorg-20
I really don’t know which is the most reliable or best for HP/TQ with my Stroker🤷‍♂️
 
So the question is: what next?
1) I could re-weld this header. The weld wouldn’t be stainless. But maybe that’s not bad. Mild steel is more flexible.
2) I could get another header like Banks header for $500:
[URL]https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004CIK628/?tag=wranglerorg-20[/URL]
or the aFe header for almost $800:
[URL]https://www.amazon.com/dp/B005URAXX2/?tag=wranglerorg-20[/URL]
3) I could replace with a stock style tubular manifold with bellows for flexibility like on my original 4.0 (pre Stroker):
The Mopar version is over $600:
[URL]https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0049EXDFW/?tag=wranglerorg-20[/URL]
Here is a inexpensive ($95) stainless one (the bellows are non-stainless for flexibility):
[URL]https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B075869XV3/?tag=wranglerorg-20[/URL]
or one of several Chinese mild steel stock style versions like this $175 Omix part:
[URL]https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01GT8AN44/?tag=wranglerorg-20[/URL]

I really don’t know which is the most reliable or best for HP/TQ with my Stroker🤷‍♂️

a question about your question… how long can you afford to have the Jeep down. That break looks clean, I would be curious about welding that back up. Did it fail due to poor quality on a the weld, maybe a temperature differential cycle between the wrap and the collector. Looks like your wrap co-insides with the weld location? Thinking that the collector maybe getting splashed with water and wrapped area not- do that enough times maybe cooling contraction is the cause of the failure? It looks like a clean install and with the flex coupler maybe it’s not installation / vibration caused?
 
a question about your question… how long can you afford to have the Jeep down. That break looks clean, I would be curious about welding that back up. Did it fail due to poor quality on a the weld, maybe a temperature differential cycle between the wrap and the collector. Looks like your wrap co-insides with the weld location? Thinking that the collector maybe getting splashed with water and wrapped area not- do that enough times maybe cooling contraction is the cause of the failure? It looks like a clean install and with the flex coupler maybe it’s not installation / vibration caused?

The TJ is my primary daily because I like it best right now, but I have others. I remember thinking the welds on the header looked good when new, but that means nothing. I’m an inexperienced welder now and didn’t weld at all when I installed that header. I also wondered if the heat wrap contributed to the failure but by creating a sharp demarcation in heat/cool rates. It would be an interesting experiment to pull it off, weld it and re-install w/o the wrap. The one problem would be if it fails at a bad time (like Moab).

edit: I found a pic of the header when new:
F12A7538-2BF1-43B0-8302-CC287E1F3B6C.jpeg

I wonder if that weld was a little cold (lacking penetration)….
 
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So the question is: what next?
1) I could re-weld this header. The weld wouldn’t be stainless. But maybe that’s not bad. Mild steel is more flexible.
2) I could get another header like Banks header for $500:
[URL][URL]https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004CIK628/?tag=wranglerorg-20[/URL][/URL]
or the aFe header for almost $800:
[URL][URL]https://www.amazon.com/dp/B005URAXX2/?tag=wranglerorg-20[/URL][/URL]
3) I could replace with a stock style tubular manifold with bellows for flexibility like on my original 4.0 (pre Stroker):
The Mopar version is over $600:
[URL][URL]https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0049EXDFW/?tag=wranglerorg-20[/URL][/URL]
Here is a inexpensive ($95) stainless one (the bellows are non-stainless for flexibility):
[URL][URL]https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B075869XV3/?tag=wranglerorg-20[/URL][/URL]
or one of several Chinese mild steel stock style versions like this $175 Omix part:
[URL][URL]https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01GT8AN44/?tag=wranglerorg-20[/URL][/URL]

I really don’t know which is the most reliable or best for HP/TQ with my Stroker🤷‍♂️

I would go with the Banks personally. Like with most things, you get what you pay for. Let the Chinese keep their shit. And yes, I have some Chinese shit on my tj but nothing critical.
 
I would go with the Banks personally. Like with most things, you get what you pay for. Let the Chinese keep their shit. And yes, I have some Chinese shit on my tj but nothing critical.
I also would rather buy American and Banks certainly has a good reputation. I haven’t personally tried their stuff but was just recently looking at their Monster intake ram for the Cummins in my tow rig. Even though I don’t always find you get what you pay for, I have noticed that if you don’t pay for it you usually don’t get it.
 
I also would rather buy American and Banks certainly has a good reputation. I haven’t personally tried their stuff but was just recently looking at their Monster intake ram for the Cummins in my tow rig. Even though I don’t always find you get what you pay for, I have noticed that if you don’t pay for it you usually don’t get it.

I did say " most things ".
 
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The TJ is my primary daily because I like it best right now, but I have others. I remember thinking the welds on the header looked good when new, but that means nothing. I’m an inexperienced welder now and didn’t weld at all when I installed that header. I also wondered if the heat wrap contributed to the failure but by creating a sharp demarcation in heat/cool rates. It would be an interesting experiment to pull it off, weld it and re-install w/o the wrap. The one problem would be if it fails at a bad time (like Moab).

edit: I found a pic of the header when new:
View attachment 389833
I wonder if that weld was a little cold (lacking penetration)….

Another option when it comes to welds that I really want done well - I take it a guy that does it for a living. I would definitely wrap again - maybe even go lower? when i took my temp gun to my exhaust it was 500 ish degrees underneath my intake. IMHO. The whole stock intake system is a pre- heater.
 
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If you decide to reweld it I suggest getting a spool of 309 stainless wire. Clean the pieces inside and out and use weld through primer. If you show me a picture of the other piece without the wrap I can probably tell you what failed.

Edit: From what I can see with the first pic, it doesn't look like the weld failed. It looks like the break happened in what's called the Heat Affected Zone. The area of the metal just outside the weld. This could be caused by heat cycling but I'm not 100% certain.
 
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