Introducing Big Juicy

[hear]

(I had been using a different Jeep forum for my CJ project, but they don't seem to be as active on the TJ side of things)

Picked this up last week for $5k. 1997, 4.0L, auto, hard top & full doors, pretty much exactly what I was looking for. No rust that I've been able to find, the biggest problem at the time of sale was that it was randomly dying and was throwing a ton of misfire codes. Quick googling in the guy's driveway pointed me to the crankshaft position sensor. It was a 2 hr drive back home and we didn't have the equipment to tow it, so we needed to be right.

Narrator: they were.

Had that swapped out in 5 minutes, CEL went off, and made the 2hr trip back home no sweat. I don't know what it's like where you live, but here in North Texas, 4L TJ's priced under $7k sell pretty much instantly, and this one appears to be in fantastic shape.

Second problem was he said the heater was blowing smoke/burning. That was simply a bunch of tree debris down in the resistor pack, so for $15 & some compressed air, the heater is back working as well. AC compressor acts a little weird, but I won't be spending any money on that till the spring.

Problem #3 is that the seatbelt was partially cut on the driver's side, so new belts are coming.

Problem the fourth is that factory headlights are useless. I had been wanting halos for my JKU, and as luck would have it TJ & JK headlights are interchangeable, so I cascaded the LEDs off the JK down to the TJ and got my coveted halos for big brother.


The plan is to get is wheeling ready, but not too ridiculous, generally we drive our own vehicles to wherever we're crawling.

 

[Chris]

That’s a very cool 97 only color!

 

[hear]

That’s a very cool 97 only color!

Uhhh...yeah.... probably going to rhino over that. I'm not a fan.

 

[Ephry73]

I was afraid to Click at first, based on the title

Cool color and great project!

edit :Lick to click

 

[mrblaine]

I was afraid to lick at first, based on the title

Cool color and great project!

I'm never afraid to lick first.

 

[Ephry73]

HAHAHA I earned that one

I'm never afraid to lick first.

 

[txisboi]

Unique color for sure. Welcome, just south of you.

 

[TJ Starting]

Glad you jumped on here! Welcome from a hour south of Houston.

 

[TWiG01]

Very nice find, welcome!

 

[hear]

Did a few things over the past couple of days. First, I ordered new seatbelts from SeatbeltsPlus.com, they went in super easy. I won't know if they're any good until it's too late, but they seem to be top notch. You can see the old seat belts were "lightly worn."

Next, I played tire games. Some time back my wife bought me new tires for my CJ7 project which has been stalled in my garage for some time, and frankly needs to be "completed" and sold to give the TJ a place to park. Anyway I had a set of Mickey Thompson Baja ATZ 31's with literally a few hundred yards on them; I had the tires mounted and brought them home in the back of the truck. Then the only time they were driven on was back and forth on my street a little bit to test the brakes which I had completely overhauled m/c to shoes. Of course the bolt patterns are different TJ to CJ so I had to have all 8 tires remounted, but now I have new tires on Big Juicy. The old tires were also 31's and had plenty of life left, but it looks way better now.

 

[Apparition]

Nice looking rig

 

[TWiG01]

The seatbelts were definitely necessary. I wouldn’t have had much faith in those old ones to do their job

 

[hear]

The seatbelts were definitely necessary. I wouldn’t have had much faith in those old ones to do their job

Yeah, I didn't love the drive home with those, but options were somewhat limited. In hindsight, I could've probably swapped the drivers side with the passenger side before we headed out, although I had to use a cheater bar over my 3/8" socket since the breaker bar didn't offer enough articulation between the seat and the door sill. So we would've had to improvise to get around that.

My JKU is white with green accents, and I was really tempted to buy green belts for it and cascade the JK's belts down to Big Juicy, but I eventually decided to leave well enough alone and only replace the thing that was broken.


So yeah, if you're keeping score at home I currently have a 79, 97, and 2012. I'm working on the full set of round headlight jeeps (not really).

 

[hear]

Sometime after crushing the grille, the PO added this fantastically under-engineered cow catcher to the front bumper. It was directly in the path of the headlights, so I was casting my own shadow at night. I'm not sure why I left it on, other than to give me something to complain about and maybe deter any thieves. Anyhoo, replaced it with this smittybilt stinger bumper. I've never had a stinger before, nor have I had a stubby (tee hee), so this seemed like the right opportunity to do both. I got the matching winch plate, but alas no winch yet.

I had one D ring left over from a prior bumper swap, so I threw it on there to compensate for the classic Jeep lean.

 

[hear]

Had a small coolant leak that seemed to be coming from the water pump. She's got 180k on her with no evidence of abuse but also not much evidence of maintenance. Seemed like a good time to address the pump & t-stat, especially since in 2 weeks we're taking a wheeling trip to Hot Springs ORV park, which includes a 5 hr drive. Of course, nothing is easy.

Everything came apart ok & didn't break anything, so I felt like I was already playing with house money. Well wait, not so fast. The petcock drain plug broke off. Had to heat up the end of a flat head screwdriver to the point of being cherry red, then jammed it into the nylon bolt and let it cool. Then unscrewed it. That was all due to a tip I found here, which was brilliant. The problem was that every parts house/site says I need something that looks like this:

But in reality what I needed was a 3/8" coarse thread bolt, not that 2 piece push in action. I took the foam/rubber grommet thing off that and put it on a 3/8" bolt and that appears to have sealed, although I would LOVE to find the correct part if only for peace of mind that my DIY fix may one day not seal so well.

Next issue was the clamp on the lower radiator hose. It's a pain to get to, so we had the brilliant idea of moving the tabs into a more workable position, which was not easy to say the least. Only to find out that once we put the belt back on that the clamp tabs were in the way of the belt. So we had to fix that, which was not easy to say the least.

Then the thermostat. Got everything buttoned up, added distilled water to test for leaks (I have a bad track record with this)...no leaks, but engine got warm and never gulped down water when the t-stat opened like I expected. Which is exactly what would happen if you didn't bother to put the thermostat in. So that was awesome. Took things back apart, actually put the new t-stat in, buttoned back up and tested with distilled water, only to find it leaking like a sieve at the t-stat housing. Ok fine, took it back apart and surmised that the t-stat must have slipped out of the groove when we installed the housing. By now the gasket is soaked, so I'm hoping you can use a wet gasket, I guess we'll find out. It was midnight and I had my helper so we trudged onward. This time everything went back together perfectly, appear to have no leaks. Will go out there in a bit to see if there is any new water (hard to tell since we spilled so much last night).

The final wrinkle to this is that when I removed the fan shroud I leaned it up against the garage wall. Apparently 3 weeks of sitting there with gravity acting on it was enough to make the bottom ever so slightly go out of round. The clearance at the bottom is way tighter than it is at the top, and as such, the fan blade just barely graze the inside of the fan shroud. I'm hoping that over time it either stretches back or the fan will wear away the 64th of an inch of fan shroud which is causing my problem. Or else I'll need to drill new holes and move the shroud down a half inch or so, or something equally creative. Its close enough that just leaning on the fender makes it clear.

Next up, flush/re-drain the system (which I should have done prior to changing the water pump but my schedule didn't allow for that at the time).

 

[hear]

Turns out a prior owner had already drilled new holes to drop the fan shroud down, only I used the wrong holes and had the shroud too high. Used the other set of holes, problem went away.

Along with the water pump work I started to flush the cooling system. I should've done it before I changed the water pump, but YOLO. After I got it all buttoned up, I added a bottle of Prestone flush then filled up to capacity with distilled water, but it only took about a gallon and a half. Did that a few days ago and drained the radiator again today. The color of the post-Preston was about the same as the initial drain off. I filled it back up with distilled water (again maybe 1.5-1.75 gallons). I guess I need to do the heater core flush (not sure how to do that w/o using hose [that is, non-distilled] water) and I supposed I should bite the bullet and do the engine block as well.

And then last night we started putting new springs at around 9pm and finished at 330am. I got a set of virtually new 2.5" Rough Country springs for basically free, so that made it easy to decide how much I was going to lift Big Juicy. I've got my eye on a set of Rubicon Express shocks, but they're currently out of stock so I still have the OEM shocks. Probably not the perfect suspension set up, but it works and it's only temporary.

As far as actually installing the springs, it was my first time doing such a thing, and I'm sure we didn't do it optimally:
1. removed shocks
2. removed sway bar links
3. removed tie rod on passenger side
4. jacked up the axle on the driver side in order to get the passenger side to drop far enough
5. expended considerable effort trying to push the new spring in
6. re-attached that tie rod end
7. removed the driver's side tie rod
8. jacked the passenger side to lower the drivers side
9. That spring went in like a breeze

On the rear we did it this way and it went much easier:
1. put the frame on jack stands
2. removed the rear sway bar links
3. unbolted the lower shock mounts
4. unbolted the upper track bar mount
5. lowered the entire axle
6. passenger spring went in easy (but had the side effect of pushing the drivers side back up enough to make it not easy)
7. jacked up the passenger side axle a little
8. put the drivers side spring in with minimal effort

In hindsight, I think we should have done the fronts like we did the rear, by removing the track bar and whatever else kept it all in the air. Also using my taller jack stands would allow for the suspension to drop further. Far and away the hardest part of this project was compressing the springs enough to cram then in. The further up you can get the frame, the bigger gap you can create between the axle and the upper spring thing(?). I'm sure most people already know this, but we sure didn't.

 

[hear]

Had a big weekend & beyond with the juice.

Cooling System
Started the Prestone flush process middle of last week, and drained the radiator, came out looking pretty brownish, hoping I don't have bigger problems. Filled it back up with more distilled water and was please to see that my homemade petcock is still dry as a bone, even after opening/closing it for this cycle of the process. Next I did the heater core flush with the tee. That came out looking a lot more like anti-freeze than any other part of the system, which is surprising because I would've expected the mix of coolant/water/gunk to be more or less uniform throughout the system. Filled the whole thing back up with distilled water again.

I attempted to drain the block, but I couldn't get the plug to turn even with the breaker bar, so I decided to leave well enough alone. Not what I wanted, but I wanted a broken bolt even less.

Suspension
After the lift on Friday night I had it wobble on me HARD twice. I re-checked bolts, because I discovered that the drivers shock hadn't been tightened at the top, and was missing the washer on top and bushing underneath. Corrected that, although I don't believe that was the source of the wobble. I also re-did the bolts holding the sway bar bracket (the part that attaches to the frame) because I added a winch plate which bolted through those holes. I added washers to bear the load an torqued to 55...just a guess but seems pretty darn tight. Haven't wobbled since I did that, but I doubt that fixed it either. Also, when I put the new tires on I started getting rubbing on the lower control arms at full lock.

I probably need an alignment after the lift; I have a hard time believing I'm so in tune with my Jeep that I could feel such a thing, but it feels like maybe the tires are a bit too much toe in, light its fighting me a little.

Anyway, I took it to Dallas Offroad for their free death wobble evaluation, here's what they found/recommended:
1. Pitman arm side of the drag link is shot
2. Driver's side tie rod end is shot
3. Ball joints are shot
4. Track bar is shot
5. wheel bearings are good to go (yay, something that wasn't broken!)

Total bill: $1420 for Teraflex ball joints & stock parts elsewhere. Needless to say, my budget TJ doesn't have $1400 to spend. So I bought the ball joints and put them in last night, no problem. Added 1.5" wheel spacers, and am somewhat ashamed to admit that I just blindly turned the tie rod end one revolution to see if that makes it fight me any less. Granted there are too many other variables to really isolate that effect, but I know adding the springs should have increased toe-in slightly, so slightly lengthening the tie rod should un-do that effect, if only partially. Still need to put the rear spacers on & test drive it, finished up at 130am last night.

As far as the track bar goes, I found a guy locally selling a brand new Rusty's adjustable track bar for cheap, so I'll be picking that up today or tomorrow. And the ZJ tie rod swap becomes a new priority.

Whew.

Oh, and my winch was delivered this morning.

 

[hear]

It's been a flurry of activity on Big Juicy this week, we're headed to Hot Springs ORV park later today and I needed to make sure the old girl is up to the 5 hr trip as well as actually climbing over some things.

After doing the ball joints and my "a-blind-ment", it's driving much better. Maybe another turn on that tie rod end will make it perfect. I have the new Rusty's adjustable track bar in my hand but it won't get installed before the trip. Maybe in the driveway at the cabin we're staying at...

These items will require much more words, but I added a winch & new rear bumper last night. The winch looks good, but the rear bumper is probably junk and doesn't allow my spare tire to fit anyway. So it's coming back off before we leave in a few hours.

The winch is a Zeak which I got off Amazon for just shy of $300. Synthetic rope was what pushed me over the edge vs. the similarly priced Badlands. I figure it's all made in the same place by the same people, so let's roll the dice. Initial review is that it's well built. The solenoid box & cables is better than much of what I've seen. Sorry no pics yet...

 

[hear]

Haven't had much to post about, Big Juicy has been running great. I found some seats out of a newer TJ that are in much better shape and much more comfortable, although the gear mechanism in the seat back may need some work. At certain positions a little pressure can make it slip out on one side. And I'll need to figure out how to make the tumble levers work.

But the big news is that I found some extra cash, and dumped just about all of it into the jeep:

• BFG M/T 33" tires, all but new on FB Marketplace...$400.
• New steel wheels, allowing me to sell the 31's & Gambler wheels that I was running on, just about offset the cost of this piece of the project.
• 4" Zone Offroad suspension lift. Yes, I went cheap here. I already had an adjustable front track bar, and I'm not expecting it to ride like a Cadillac. I expect it will be absolutely fine for my purposes.
• G2 SYE kit
• Adams CV driveshaft (thanks to the Bleepin Jeep 20% off coupon!)
• Rusty's adjustable upper control arms. I know people here don't love Rusty's stuff, but Tom Woods sells them on his site so they must be pretty usable.

The tires are on, the lift is on, but the SYE, driveshaft, and control arms won't be here till early next week. And we managed to break the track bar flag nut AND muck up the threads on the passenger tie rod end so until I fix those things I can't drive it. That flag nut seems to be a hard thing to track down. I overpaid for one on Amazon, but I may try to fab one up in the meanwhile and send that one back if it works. And there has to be a better way to get castle nuts than by buying the entire tie rod end, but that's the only way I know of currently. Hardware store doesn't seem to carry them.

Anyway, I don't know if she was worth of the name before, but she sure is now.

 

[Nickgsjeep]

Uhhh...yeah.... probably going to rhino over that. I'm not a fan.

Bummer, I’m a big fan of that color. Lapis Blue. Very rare