Well it all started when I was young, riding around the woods with my grandfather in his willys cj2a. I have always enjoyed riding in the old jeep and tinkering with it when needed. I still drive it a few times a year and we continue to use it as a deer camp jeep for now. I always wanted a Jeep of my own, and was finally at a place in my life recently, where I could justify purchasing one.
I ended up purchasing a '01 Sport, 5 speed, with cruise control, the dana 44 rear, and just under 100k miles on it.
It took 1 WEEK before I started updating, upgrading, and modifying! The first thing to update were the sun faded fender flares. I pulled those off the jeep, sanded, and then repainted using a rattle can truck bed liner. They turned out great and brought those old flares back to life!
The 2nd upgrade I made pretty quickly was the headlights. We all know how awful the stock Jeep lights are on these things. So I spent some time digging here in the forum and found some "Trucklite" knockoffs on amazon for around $100. That has been money well spent as I can now see at night!
The 3rd fix I had to tackle was the leaking valve cover gasket. Threw in a fel-pro gasket and stopped the leaking.
Not long after I had the jeep I started having trouble driving it in the rain. I would lose power and the motor would start missing anytime I was driving in the rain. It was quite frustrating and took a while to figure out. Eventually after a lot of head scratching I found that my coil pack had a crack in it and would start to short out if any moisture got to it. Soooo new coil pack.
After that I drove it for a few months with no problems and starting saving for new wheels and tires. I ended up finding a set of steel wheels on Craigslist for $100 so I purchased them. I love to turn a wrench and to tinker, so I'm not opposed to buying anything used if I feel I can save money and bring it back to life using my own time and skills. The wheels were showing rust so I sanded them down, primed, and then painted them with a satin black Krylon spray paint. They turned out great!
So then I decided after more research that I wanted to increase the 31's and go with 33's. To do this I would need a lift. For now, I decided to go with a 2 inch budget boost just to get me down the road. I will slowly add quality parts to the jeep and would eventually like to end up with 3-4 inches of lift.
I went with 2 inches of lift to try and avoid the driveline vibrations. . . well lucky me, I had terrible vibrations with just the 2 inches of lift. So I dropped the transfer case 1 inch and that has eliminated the vibration. I plan on installing a SYE, drive shaft, and upper rear control arms, within the next 6 months so I can raise the transfer case back up and increase my lift height later down the road without vibrations being an issue again. I also realized that my ride was TERRIBLE after installing the 2 inch spacer lift. Especially after I took the hardtop, along with the spare tire off the Jeep. Because of the decrease in weight my ride height changed so much so that my stock shocks would limit down travel when hitting bumps in the road. Thanks to you guys I measured my ride height and purchased a longer set of Rancho rs5000x. These shocks are as good as people on this forum say they are!! Night and day difference on how well my Jeep rides now.
So that is where I am at currently in the on going process of my Jeep upgrading/updating/modifying. As I said my next move is the SYE kit and rear upper control arms. Once I get that done I will have a set of 4.56 gears thrown in it and a set of lockers, or maybe a set of truetracs, or maybe one of each. I'll cross that bridge when I get there!
I ended up purchasing a '01 Sport, 5 speed, with cruise control, the dana 44 rear, and just under 100k miles on it.
It took 1 WEEK before I started updating, upgrading, and modifying! The first thing to update were the sun faded fender flares. I pulled those off the jeep, sanded, and then repainted using a rattle can truck bed liner. They turned out great and brought those old flares back to life!
The 2nd upgrade I made pretty quickly was the headlights. We all know how awful the stock Jeep lights are on these things. So I spent some time digging here in the forum and found some "Trucklite" knockoffs on amazon for around $100. That has been money well spent as I can now see at night!
The 3rd fix I had to tackle was the leaking valve cover gasket. Threw in a fel-pro gasket and stopped the leaking.
Not long after I had the jeep I started having trouble driving it in the rain. I would lose power and the motor would start missing anytime I was driving in the rain. It was quite frustrating and took a while to figure out. Eventually after a lot of head scratching I found that my coil pack had a crack in it and would start to short out if any moisture got to it. Soooo new coil pack.
After that I drove it for a few months with no problems and starting saving for new wheels and tires. I ended up finding a set of steel wheels on Craigslist for $100 so I purchased them. I love to turn a wrench and to tinker, so I'm not opposed to buying anything used if I feel I can save money and bring it back to life using my own time and skills. The wheels were showing rust so I sanded them down, primed, and then painted them with a satin black Krylon spray paint. They turned out great!
So then I decided after more research that I wanted to increase the 31's and go with 33's. To do this I would need a lift. For now, I decided to go with a 2 inch budget boost just to get me down the road. I will slowly add quality parts to the jeep and would eventually like to end up with 3-4 inches of lift.
I went with 2 inches of lift to try and avoid the driveline vibrations. . . well lucky me, I had terrible vibrations with just the 2 inches of lift. So I dropped the transfer case 1 inch and that has eliminated the vibration. I plan on installing a SYE, drive shaft, and upper rear control arms, within the next 6 months so I can raise the transfer case back up and increase my lift height later down the road without vibrations being an issue again. I also realized that my ride was TERRIBLE after installing the 2 inch spacer lift. Especially after I took the hardtop, along with the spare tire off the Jeep. Because of the decrease in weight my ride height changed so much so that my stock shocks would limit down travel when hitting bumps in the road. Thanks to you guys I measured my ride height and purchased a longer set of Rancho rs5000x. These shocks are as good as people on this forum say they are!! Night and day difference on how well my Jeep rides now.
So that is where I am at currently in the on going process of my Jeep upgrading/updating/modifying. As I said my next move is the SYE kit and rear upper control arms. Once I get that done I will have a set of 4.56 gears thrown in it and a set of lockers, or maybe a set of truetracs, or maybe one of each. I'll cross that bridge when I get there!
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) is Steel Blue pearl...I think they ran it for only 2 years 2001-2002. Mine is close but lighter called Gunmetal pearl 1997-1999
