1998 Frame off Stroker Build

[98Stroker]

Hi all! I'm going to start making my build thread for my father son build from four years ago. Meant to make a thread as I was going, but was too busy working! Haha. In 2015-2016 my Dad and I rebuilt a 1998 TJ 4.0 5speed with a rotted frame, tired motor and burnt up Dana 35. Below is what she looks like today followed by the first picture the day I brought it home. Initial thoughts were to fix the rust, mild 2" lift and some 33s. Through issues & research it became the 4.6 stroker, dana 44, dana 30-elocker, 35" beast it is today. (scuffed off the angry eye paint within the first few days don't worry)

Bought it from a kid who beat the s**t out of it. Frame was rotted so bad the two upper control arm mounts ripped off the frame. This left two control arms holding the rear in... He must've had his buddy put a junkyard driveshaft in it when it ripped out the stock one. Only problem, his buddy didn't put fluid in the rear when he was done. This kid drove it 40 minutes to meet me with no oil in the rear... could've cooked an egg on the poor dana 35. Got the Jeep home somehow and started looking it over closer. Started researching frames in the NJ tri-state with minimal luck. Reached out to my uncle who lives in the Southwest to start looking for us too. He found one by him in perfect shape with no rust. Reached out the guy wanted $1000 for it. Didn't waste much time and paypal'd him and got a quote to get it shipped to NJ on U-ship for ~$800. (more on this later) While we were waiting for the new frame we pulled the tub off and started on that. Here's the first pics after the tub got pulled off the rotting chassis and the frame got stripped down.

Pulled the motor and put in on a stand. Tore out the toast dana 35 and still solid dana 30. Tore out all the suspension leaving just the crusty frame.

Got the frame out and pulled the trailer into the shop. Put the tub on some jackstands so we could take it outside.

Thouroughly cleaned and scurbbed the tub to get a few years of mudding and abuse off it and the underside. Next, we started doing some rustproofing underneath.

Couldn't find the pictures with the undercoating, bear with me I'm digging 4-5 years into my camera roll. After the underside of the tub got undercoated we brought the tub back into the shop to began to fix rust spots and prep the tub for paint. Main issue was the typical rust on the top of the fenders.

After that pesky spot had a new plate cut and welded in some body work was done to fill in the edges and smooth it over. Next came sanding and prepping the tub for its new color! My Uncle came over to use some of his expertise to help us out.

Got the tub dragged outside to do some final sanding and tape off the tub. This was a day in late fall that turned out to be real warm and with no wind.

Wish I had more pictures close up, but the previous owner decided to partially bed line the jeep. He must've not guessed well on how much he'd need. Only the hood, fenders and windshield frame got the bedliner treatment. Took near a whole roll of low grit sandpaper to break through to the base. Just glad he didn't go through and bedline the whole tub lol. Tape and prep is done, time for paint. Went on pretty well, a bit heavy in some places because we painted until near dark lol. The heavy spots were wet sanded and buffed to a nice thickness & finish.

Tub got its hardtop back on and put outside for the winter(covered with a tarp after this lol) while we started on the motor.

 

[Jaxon B.]

Nice work! Wondering if I should just start saving money to rebuild my 4.0 at 126k, having starting issues and was just gonna do the tuneup, but if you're rebuilding at 186k I might look into that lol.

 

[98Stroker]

This thread is going to be a work in progress as I find more pictures. I'm going to be editing and fixing this as I go! I just wanted to finish out the tub and paint work, but at the same time we were working on the tub we received the mint frame from the Southwest and were working on that. I shopped around rebuild kits for the burnt up dana 35 or to go super dana 35, but obviously started shopping for dana 44s at the same time. Found a guy who parts jeeps and was selling one with 3.73s(same ratio as the dana 30 we were re-using). Went to look at it and tried to bargain a bit. Wouldn't come down on the price of the axle, but tossed in some nice corbeau seats that needed a bit of work. Here's a picture of the old frame. Check out the non-existant rear upper control arm mount.

First came prepping the axles. The new dana 44 and original dana 30 were tapped off, stuffed with rags, sandblasted then painted.

The new frame arrived and looked great at a first glance. It wouldn't be until much later we'd find the issues with it. Now while the frame was mint we still sanded and painted it along with the axles getting it to its point here.

Now if you noticed its missing something you have a sharp eye. The frame came with 3/4 front control arm mounts... Being the first TJ frame my Dad and I had stripped down we didn't notice until we got to this point. We immediately reached out to the guy we bought it from and his response was "get it back to me and I'll get you your money." Well that couldn't work since we almost spent as much on the shipping as we did on the frame. Long story short the guy stopped answering us and we settled it through PayPal. They were able to help because of my description and ultimately got the full money back. So we got this brand new frame for the shipping because of a shifty seller.

Here's the beautiful frame with a missing mount. Without other options and trying to keep the project rolling we cut the other mount off the crusty frame, cleaned it as best as it would come and welded it to the new frame. We measured countless times to ensure the location, but it looked like some sort of adjustable control arms were in our future to ensure it would square up. The rolling chassis was assembled and rolled into the shop for the winter to come while we began on the motor. The stock suspension was used over for the rolling chassis since we still didn't know what direction we were going.

 

[98Stroker]

Now I hadn't mentioned this yet but I was a sophomore in college the fall of 2015. So the motor was going to be our project while I was home for winter break.(The tub was painted over a long thanksgiving weekend lol) Now the motor was a stock, probably never rebuilt 4.0 with 180k. We looked into the stroker kits for fun and found they really weren't that much more than a decent rebuild kit with pistons. Ultimately decided to go the stroker direction since we were doing the full rebuild anyway and it'd always be a what if had we not done it. So the motor was stripped down to the block and shipped out to get, I believe, bored .030 over. This is the day we started tearing into it after we unpackaged it from the shop

Put on my first set of piston rings. We pinned the rods to the pistons. Dropped the new stroker crank in with the pistons/rods and torque'd down the caps.

The block got its freeze plugs put in, taped off and painted

At the same time my Dad was laping in the new valves to the head. After that the head was painted and got put on the block with a new gasket, cam, pushrods, timing gears...

The engine got put onto the hoist and had the untouched ax-15 bolted up to it with a new clutch. Along with some fancy new motor mounts the motor got bolted into the painted rolling chassis. Felt good to see some major progress and I was back off to college for the spring semester. Mom came by to help too

 

[98Stroker]

Back from college for the summer it was really time to get rolling. I had been home a few weekends but not enough to make serious progress. The project now had an end date goal. My mom for fathers day weekend got us tickets to the Jeep Invasion in Wildwood, NJ, which would be in mid June. The push was on

Now one thing I hadn't mentioned was that this was a 2005 frame. Unknown to us that meant our 1998 skidplate wouldn't work. We quickly got a late model skidplate to work with the new frame getting it to this point here with the trans bolted down.

At this point I ordered a 2" suspension lift from bds. Just springs and shocks. Shown installed. Now we noticed the stance of the chassis was squatted a bit. We kept scratching our heads on why. Finally we measured the old frame and found the reason. The shock and spring tower perch was 2.75" higher than on our new frame. So at some point in this frames life it had its towers cut and moved down 2.75" for a cheap lift kit? We didn't notice because the welds were so well done it looked factory.

Great I have a free lift kit! Wrong, nothing was done to the back. So I would have 4.75" of lift in the front and 2" in the back with my bds lift. I couldn't ride around with the Carolina squat so 4" springs and shocks were bought for the rear to hopefully bring it to 4.75/4" lift when all was said and done. The last issue with the frame was a rad support on the passenger side. That was cut off the old frame painted and welded in. Hopefully all the headaches were behind us.

The brake lines were fully plummed, new mix and match springs and shocks were put in. New adjustable control arms by Rough Country. As much as I regret not buying Currie's or something the RCs have been great. They adjust well, stay greased and are beefy as hell.

Exhaust was also put on. Factory header had a crack welded and painted. Magnaflow high flow cat, dynomax muffler and tailpipe(very happy with it). Gas tank with neck was put in and just reassembling as much as we can. Tub creeping, waiting patiently

Currie steering went in. Motor gets all of its accessories. Ungraded sway bar, Rubicon Express disconnects, extended brake lines. Rubicon express track bars with drop brackets front and rear. With some customer service calls in between lol. Had to get Clayton relocating tabs for the sway bar link on the axle because it rubbed with the massive Currie steering. Good excuse to have a Clayton sticker on the hard top.

After all the suspension and steering issues were sorted we brought the trailer in again. Got the tub on the lift and rolled the frame underneath.

Lowered the tub down, got everything lined up and got thee body mounts started. Starting to look like a Jeep!

Now we're a few days before the Jeep is slated to drive a bit over two hours to Wildwood to drive on the beach for Father's day weekend and we still haven't started up the motor. A friend of my Dad's who wasn't using his TJ that weekend let us borrow his wheels and tires. We blew it on ordering new wheels and tires with enough time. And without further without ado here she is on her own weight with some borrowed 35" km2s. Also installed the Poison Spyder bumper that had been painted and waiting.

 

[98Stroker]

We spent the entire next day on finishing work, plumbing things and getting the motor ready for its first start. After a full day the 4.6 finally started for the first time at 1am. The best part was that we were supposed to leave for Wildwood at ~9am. We let the newly built motor run as we pulled it around back to take off the hardtop. After running for about 30 mins my Dad started crawling underneath to make sure nothing leaked. He noticed some leaking coolant. We got it back into the shop and started investigating. The freeze plug at the back of the motor must've been cocked slightly and was leaking a bit of coolant. Out of all the freeze plugs it had to be that one!!!! We both went to bed disappointed we weren't going to make it. I got woken up at 7 to my dad telling me we're pulling the trans and he found a freeze plug.

Below is the day of the Jeep Invasion(Saturday) pulling the trans and draining the coolant to get to the crooked freeze plug. This would've taken minutes when the motor was in a rolling chassis!! But now were doing it in the Jeep.

Hours later it was back together with a new freeze plug. We packed an overnight bag, mom packed us some lunch and after a few driveway pictures we were on the road to break in a brand new motor that hadn't been driven more than 2 miles on the street. We ran out of time and the doors were taken apart but not painted and we never found time to scuff and paint the bedliner hood. So it went back on as it was and is still on the Jeep today. It grew on me pretty quickly and sets it apart.

Here's the final pics on the beach. After a brutal 3-4 week push of countless late nights and a million hiccups we made it Saturday and got on the beach as the sun was setting. Got a better picture the next day.

 

[98Stroker]

I've been enjoying the Jeep for the past 4 years. I've put about 20k in it in that time. Since then there have been some upgrades to improve driving and handling. First came an A-Z fab rear bumper and tire carrier, since I would go for a full size spare when I bought my tires. Pic with old 31" tire next to a stock tj

Soon after the trip I got a set of my own tires and wheels. Some 15x8" pro comp alloys and 35x12.50x15 BFG k02s.

Next came some A-Z fab sliders along with some much needed quadratec headlights. Cool pic from an icy day.

Then came the falcon steering stabilizer to rid some driveline vibes and some Fox remote reservior shocks in the rear. Had them for almost two years and I absolutely love them. The softest setting solved almost all of the rear bouncing issue I had. I'll take a pic of them when its not raining.

Last summer I picked up a pair of half doors, sanded and painted them. One of my favorite purchases, its the best of both worlds having both doors. This summer I added an e-locker up front, warn free wheeling hubs and a power steering box cover to prep myself for my first Raush Creek trip.

 

[98Stroker]

Some pics from Raush Creek. My buddy who I went with has an 06 Rubicon and some Raush experience. Jeep did great on the 2 hour drive each way and wheeled all day including a few black trails. Locker worked magic, hubs were great. I envy my buddie's low range, so maybe some lower gearing in the future, but overall great trip where the stroker jeep could finally stretch its legs. Thanks for looking through my build, I'll try to help with any questions and update things I missed!

 

[Rec_Rider]

There isn't much better than working with your dad on projects like these. You'll have the memories for a lifetime. No doubt you guys spent a lot of time and did a lot of work including an engine build but time spent with family like this is priceless.

So I need to ask, you are a new member but not new to wrenching on your Jeep. How much of the info from this forum was used on your build? The reason I ask is when I went through much of the work on mine this, and other forums, gave me a bunch of info that helped the build even though I didn't join until it was mostly completed. Now I mostly state what worked and what didn't.

 

[98Stroker]

So I need to ask, you are a new member but not new to wrenching on your Jeep. How much of the info from this forum was used on your build? The reason I ask is when I went through much of the work on mine this, and other forums, gave me a bunch of info that helped the build even though I didn't join until it was mostly completed. Now I mostly state what worked and what didn't.

Yeah definitely a great project and time. I was constantly on the forums as a lurker finding answers to questions and what products people liked/didn't. Finally got around to making my own account.