Wade's 2003 TJ Sport Build

Wade

Detail Oriented
Supporting Member
Joined
Dec 9, 2015
Messages
161
Location
Yazoo City, MS
This first post is just to create the build thread. Not much in here today.

I bought this Sport in June of 2013 after my first TJ died on me. I had bought the first one used in early 2004. It was a trade-in on a Honda lot. I saw it there amongst the endless backdrop of Accords and Civics and similar used offerings. It simply stuck out. It fairly screamed for me to look at it.

And I did.

And I bought it and fell in love with the thing. It was only a 2.4L SE with just about no options, but it had the carpets, rear seat and AC, and the PO had slapped an aftermarket stereo in it. It had half doors, and after it sat in my driveway overnight I went out to see how to take down the top. That first drive turned me into a Jeeper for life. I will *never* be without an open-topped Jeep again.

Anyway, after ten years of very heavy use it threw a rod, which punched a fist-sized hole through the block. The Wrangler casting of the 2.4L block is not what one would call "common" and in 2013 it was no longer being produced at all. A rebuilt one would have taken months to get and would have cost nearly four times what a 4.0L would have. This was my DD, so I needed to get wheels ASAP.

I decided that for a few grand more I could just get a 4.0L TJ and then sort the situation over time. I did. It was beat to hell and severely abused and I was a newb at buying beat up, old, poorly lifted rigs. I got taken. But the frame (slightly tweaked) was more or less rust free and the driveline seemed to be solid.

Happily, I got the *exact same* TJ, just moving from the 2003 SE to the 2003 Sport - same color, same interior, same everything. They were even built in the same month.

And I shamelessly cannibalized that very nicely maintained and kept SE into that beat AF Sport. I swapped over just about everything. Now I am building it. I donated the blown SE with all the beat up Sport parts on it to my best friend, who was good at engine swaps and who also had wanted a jeep most of his life. He is like me in that he makes little money. We poor folks have to stick together, so I gave it to him knowing he would eventually build it into a very nice rig.

So this thread will outline the initial purchase of my Sport, with all the unhappy discoveries and initial work needed to make it run reliably, as well as the gift that allowed me to almost immediately retire it from DD status and turn it into a toy that I could leave on jack stands as long as I needed without having to panic-repair it in time to get me to work on Monday mornings...

For this first post I will post up the sales ad photos, the pics I took on the road trip home, and the next day after some initial cleanup.

I will try to keep up with this thread regularly.

Thanks for reading. I hope all my missteps and screwups help some of you to avoid problems. I will post part numbers when I can, too.

This first image is of my dead 2003 SE the afternoon I brought her home from the Honda dealership. I have been addicted since that day, HAHAHA!!!



TJ SE 2004.jpg
 
IMG_0615.JPG
And here she is, dead, on the side of I-55 north of Jackson. RIP, old girl. My friend will make you live again soon... :(
 
Last edited:
Here is the replacement POS nightmare TJ that this thread is about. ;)

These first ones are from the CraigsList ad I answered. Very deceiving stuff!

IMG_0669.JPG

IMG_0670.JPG

IMG_0671.JPG

IMG_0672.JPG

IMG_0674.JPG

IMG_0675.JPG


These are from the trip home from Hot Springs.

IMG_0676 - Version 2.JPG

IMG_0679.JPG


First day at her new home in Mississippi, after a little clean up and some careful looking over. (I *really* needed to do this AT the dealership. Had I found all the shit he hid in order to rape my wallet I would not have bought this TJ. <facepalm>

IMG_0681.jpg

IMG_0683.JPG


First order of business: ditch the ruined BFG muds. They drove like rocks all the way home from Hot Springs, which was about a five hour trip. Ouch! Picked up some new BFG All Terrains. I love the TA/KO tire. Great product!

IMG_0691.JPG

IMG_0692.JPG

IMG_0693.JPG
 
Last edited:
More of this saga later.

However, as a teaser - this is what I am up to today: I am restoring a very beat up Dana 30 HP from a 1992 MJ Comanche. Currently I have stripped it down, had some new brackets welded onto it, had it bead blasted, and then I primed it yesterday. The weather is cold, so the very heavily applied self-etching primer will need about a week to let all the acid bleed through and evaporate so that I can top coat it.

I have a lot left to do, but it is coming along very nicely. I should have it on the TJ in about two weeks, I think.

Here are pics of it the day I picked it up near Birmingham, after a ton of wire wheel work, bead blasting, and then priming.

Hope you enjoy my Jeep porn. ;)

Here is the HP 30 the day I picked it up.

IMG_3998.jpg
 
Last edited:
Looks like a lot of surface rust, but I'm assuming most of that can be taken care of with a media blaster (which is what you intend to do, right?).

Why did you go with an HP Dana 30 and not something else? Just curious why you went with that.
 
The knuckles no longer turned - at all; the ball joints were totally frozen. The end of the track bar was still in its bracket, as was the steering stabilizer. Had this not been the case I would have passed on this axle because I could have seen that both brackets were ruined. The holes were badly wallowed out - perfect ovals. Damn.

The LCA brackets were straight, but looked like they had been bent. The rust was terrible and the LCA holes looked to be rusted badly enough that they might crumble some, making them instantly hazardous.

The sway bar end link posts were rusted on so badly that I had to cut them off. The unit bearing bolts were mostly okay, but one had to be cut out. The ball joints - omg...
 
That's a lot of work to go through for that axle! I hope you got it for a damn good price!
 
Looks like a lot of surface rust, but I'm assuming most of that can be taken care of with a media blaster (which is what you intend to do, right?).

Why did you go with an HP Dana 30 and not something else? Just curious why you went with that.
The brackets ended up being very badly pitted, but the large ones (bumpstop/shock mount) still had enough metal to be solid. The other brackets were just ruined. The media blasting showed that most of it was totally okay, under all the garbage, though. So that was good.

The HP 30 will raise my front driveshaft up by almost as much as I have it lifted, restoring that driveline angle very nicely, as well as giving me some extra clearance up at the pinion. And the HP uses reverse cut gears so that it can turn on the drive sides of the teeth instead of the coast side, so no tendency to walk out under load, no tendency to vomit out the pinion. And using the drive side (like on a rear axle) restores a good bit of strength to the R&P that was removed by sticking it on the front and reversing how it would have worked as a rear axle.

I have 27 spline alloy shafts and a locker, so this will be a nice, inexpensive axle upgrade to the stock low pinion Dana 30. I am pretty stoked about it, actually. :)

More pics about to go up...
 
Here are some pics of it all cleaned up with the new brackets. And yeah, this cost me a LOT more than a normal HP30 would cost, but there were zero HP30s in my area when I was ready to buy, and it still cost me a lot less than a restored one from someplace like ECGS, and tons less than a Rubicon Dana 44.

IMG_4180.jpg
IMG_4181.jpg
IMG_4185.jpg
IMG_4186.jpg
IMG_4201.jpg
 
  • Like
Reactions: TJ Starting
Man oh man, that looks like new! Is that powder coat or spray paint?

One of these days I'm going to replace the Dana 44 axles in my Rubicon with some HP Dana 44 axles from Dynatrac or Currie.
 
Replaced the track bar bracket with one of ECGS's heavy duty ones. It is like twice as thick and I cannot imagine the hole wallowing out. The steering stabilizer bracket was trashed, so I got one from TMR Customs. It did NOT fit like the stock one and the welder had to chop it up a bit. (I am learning to weld, so replacing this will be one of my first projects after I feel like I am ready to go to work on it.) The LCA brackets are some really beefy ones from Artec. Nice!

I have the 4.56 R&P and the master install kit from Revolution sitting here, and I decided to try the newer version of the Ox air system. It just looks like the right choice for me. I have a heavy duty Viair 400C universal kit to run them and air up my tires. Ought to be fun stuff.

The Dana 44 is next. It just needs to be stripped and have a Currie bracket added to reinforce the track bar bracket. Then I can install the 4.56 R&P and the Ox in it and be a happy boy again.

Time for me to go. More later!
 
  • Like
Reactions: Chris
Man oh man, that looks like new! Is that powder coat or spray paint?

One of these days I'm going to replace the Dana 44 axles in my Rubicon with some HP Dana 44 axles from Dynatrac or Currie.

And I want to see lots of clear photos when you do, along with a full report on what you got and how much you love it. I have never seen the HP 44 and would really like to hear about them.
 
Oh, and two pics were of bare steel, and the green is Rust-Oleum Self-Etching primer - like a can and a half of it! I have to let it sit like that for about a week so that the etching acid evaporates out. Then I will top coat it with Rust-Oleum Hammered in black. Should end up looking really nice. I did that with the Dana 30 currently on my TJ - very good looking and fairly tough. The texture of the hammered stuff makes touchups really easy as it hides a lot of scratches and chips and such.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Chris
Oh, I forgot: I also had a Currie bracket welded into the folded steel passenger-side UCA bracket so that it is now a solid bar inside, and it now can run Johnny Joints on the axle end of the UCAs. Mice nicer than the ratty, old clevite joints!
 
  • Like
Reactions: Chris
I'll let you know when the day comes. My D44s are fine for now, but since this is a never ending project I imaging I'll upgrade the axles to HP D44s from Currie or Dynatrac. No point in going with a Dana 60 for me since I think that's a bit much for what I need. Truth be told, even the HP D44s would be a bit much, but some of the things we do to these Jeeps we do just because we can.
 
The texture of the hammered stuff makes touchups really easy as it hides a lot of scratches and chips and such.

That's why I'm so reluctant to even powder coat axles. It's much easier to touch stuff up with spray paint than it is with powder coating.

My axles aren't rusted but the factory paint is coming off in numerous locations so I need to re-paint them anyways.

I also need to have my Currie rear track bar bracket welded on soon.
 
I am making this into a build blog. When it becomes decent enough I will link to it here. Right now it is a jumbled mess of pics and text. Sort, sort, sort, cut, paste, sort...

Got the Savvy gas tank skid in, though. ;)
TJ Tank Dirty.jpg
IMG_4204.jpg
IMG_4206.jpg
IMG_4207.jpg
IMG_4208.jpg
IMG_4215.jpg
IMG_4216.jpg
IMG_4217.jpg
IMG_4218.jpg
 
  • Like
Reactions: TJ Starting
I am making this into a build blog. When it becomes decent enough I will link to it here. Right now it is a jumbled mess of pics and text. Sort, sort, sort, cut, paste, sort...

Got the Savvy gas tank skid in, though. ;)View attachment 1965View attachment 1966View attachment 1967View attachment 1968View attachment 1969View attachment 1970View attachment 1971View attachment 1972View attachment 1973

That looks fantastic, looks almost like brand new!

I figure having a build thread is nice because if you ever want to sell your rig you can just give people the link and show them all the progress. Not to mention it's also cool just to be able to keep track of of progress.