Sahara One

PeteTJ

PeteTJ

Member
Joined
Aug 13, 2017
Messages
37
Location
Ontario, Canada
Hello All...
Like many here, I have had Jeeps for may years. All XJ's of various years. Now I am thrilled to have acquired a 2000 TJ Sahara for pretty much nothing so my menial weekly toy budget can be applied to restoring the potential of the Sahara.

I do not have an interest in mudding or rock crawling so my purpose here is to lightly document what I am doing to undo the years of abuse the poor Sahara has endured from the eight previous owners.

Stats:
Jeep TJ Sahara
Built, delivered to and always operated in Ontario Canada
280000 Km
Black Ext
Tan Interior
Black After market Hard Top
Black Besttop soft top
7" unknown brand touch screen entertainment system
No factory sub
31 inch tires

Condition:
Overall not great, but a savable machine!
.. Front and rear floor pans shot
.. Frame requires strenthening/repair
.. Steering gear, valve cover, oil pan, front differential leak
.. Rear DS shock top mount is gone
.. Clutch feels old
.. Outside paint is 50/50 - hood has raised crows feet, minor rust at tailgate.
.. Carpets are shot
.. Seat cloth is actually pretty good, but mechanically in peril
There is enough caked on mud and undercoating that I cannot see what other scaries lurk underneath - but that's the fun part for me :)

As the Sahara remains in Ontario, I need to at least bring it up to the annoyingly strict Ontario Safety standards so I can slap on an actual licence plate.

My intention is to work through the revival, hopefully as a team with you folks, and will inevitably request assistance to fill knowledge gaps and solve mysteries.

... PeteTJ

(I'll be back with updates on what I found and have done)
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Great canvas to start from, and it's nice to know that you'll be giving this TJ a new lease on life. I look forward to following this thread!
 
Thanks of confidence!
I will be listing the tasks and results up today as I recall them along with Pics, frustrations and joys.

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Task One: Deal with the rotten Floor Pans.
Based on the requirement for personal safety, the Ontario Safety regulations and generally not wanting to drive like Barney Rubble - The floor pans are up first.

I have a welder guy who is willing to work nights and weekends on the Sahara :)

This means inexpensive, albeit lengthy, repair time. It also allows me to work on the vehicle during the day so as not to rob any family time :)

In order make his job easier, I removed the carpets, seats, belts, exterior trim and steps. Of course that task sounds easy enough and might have been if the Sahara hadn't spent 17 years in Ontario. I estimate 13-15 actual hours to remove those standard items. The work included penetrating oil, lots of heat, really strong tools, a sledge hammer and cutoff wheels (to name a few). In the end, I had a clear interior / exterior for the project... Along with, roughly, 40 broken bolts, lots of unusable Nutserts, torn plastic mounting brackets and probably 8Lbs of rust shale and dust...

... And we hadn't even started to cut away the floor panels :(

Cut, patched and paint protected. (Ignore the brown stuff on the black floor pans - it's dust from griding other parts of the Jeep.) The pans are all hand made as there was too much damage to use a prefab part. Not gorgeous, but strong and safe. Both fronts were cut out, completely hand made, and stitch welded. The rears were patched and welded. All with upper and lower sealer and protective paint for $150!

Ultimately I will be Monstalining it.

On to the next task while my Welder guy continues rust repair - rockers, frame, etc.

... PeteTJ
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Funny Story...
Driving the Sahara back to my own driveway after all the welding was done. Dropped it in fourth about a kilometer away from my welders shop and all of a sudden.... BANG, KLANK, GRIND and Whirring..

Cruised to a stop at the side of the road and the clutch had no viscosity/function at all other that a noise maker (like a tambourine thrown off a roof and hitting every branch on the way down) . Was rope towed back to the welders shop somewhat disapointed.

After 3 hours of prying/cutting the transmission Skid plate off (Nutserts spinning) and another 3 hours to disentangle the transmission from the body and engine... The first thung we saw was little shiny ball bearings dropping out of the bell housing.

Pictured are the remnants of the throw out bearing and main shaft bearing retainer tube which had elected to forcibly disengage themselves from their long standing positions.

Ordered a new shaft bearing retainer, seal and clutch as it comes with a new throw out (might as well change it out while the tranny is off - right?).

While waiting for any parts for this project, I take the opportunity to 'clean up' any loose parts while I can. Scrubbing, wire brushing, abrasive blasting and painting as required.

New clutch is on (yes we cleaned up the flywheel) , Bearing retainer this evening and then the re-mating of the tranny to the engine.
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Cleaned up the fork and drive shafts while they were disconnected. Sample of the rusted nature of the parts would be the shot of the read shaft. Cleaned up parts are the fork and front shaft.
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You got your hands cut out on this one. Love following these type of builds to give new life to the TJ! Proceed!
 
Good plan - Mount is shot ! But... I am in Canada, so the pricing is a bit steeper. $60(ish). Can I swap out the flat head mount bolts with regular hex head bolts - is there enough room? I'm going to need to cut em off to release the mount to from the mount frame.
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With scale...
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Wirel brushed...
 
lowranger said:
It is nice that you are bringing life back to a TJ. I'll be watching this.
Click to expand...
Thanks. The more folks that watch /comment, the harder I try to do a *good* job. I Just got back home after spending 4 hours descaling lbs of rust off the rear frame. The numerous POs had used cheap spray on undercoating to glue the rust shale to the frame rather than clean it first. I am scraping/burning off the layers and removing the rust before treating and recoating it. I suppose having folks like you to cheer me on keeps me from just adding other layer of coating :)
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not a frame pic but representative of the ages of adhered junk...
 
PeteTJ said:
Good plan - Mount is shot ! But... I am in Canada, so the pricing is a bit steeper. $60(ish). Can I swap out the flat head mount bolts with regular hex head bolts - is there enough room? I'm going to need to cut em off to release the mount to from the mount frame. View attachment 24619
With scale... View attachment 24620
Wirel brushed...
Click to expand...
Not my best restoration work.
But... It's a solid piece of metal that'll never be seen without his of work by a tech. I ordered a new transmission out and will assemble and install it soon.
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