What Can I Do Myself?

[Urban Hillbilly]

You might not want to do the rear main seal yourself as it involves removing the bearing cap and is a delicate operation.But all the rest is easily doable for a guy that is handy with tools.

Make sure you use spicer balljoints if it really needs them. No other brand lasts as long.check inside the frame for rust and imbetween the skid and frame. It'll help you gauge how much money you want to put into that tj if a frame swap is out of the picture

Looks like a fun jeep!

Yes, I kind of figured the rear main seal was beyond me for now. Thanks for the notes on ball joints & rust.

 

[Duck Doctor]

Rear main seal is not difficult just messy. Do yourself a favor and install a new oil pan instead of using the current pan. Since you're in the rust belt the pan may be compromised.

Of all the items you listed the rear main seal is the most time consuming. Rest of repairs are simple.

 

[03coloradowrangler]

Rear main seal is not difficult just messy. Do yourself a favor and install a new oil pan instead of using the current pan. Since you're in the rust belt the pan may be compromised.

Of all the items you listed the rear main seal is the most time consuming. Rest of repairs are simple.

Worst and most difficult part of the job is getting the exhaust pipe out of the way imo. My rear main replacement was a first time for me.. read the service manual and had at it.

 

[Good Hope]

I’ve do an all of the work on my Jeep myself, with help from this forum, friends, and selective online resources. But I have also done several projects twice because I messed something up. All part of learning.

 

[Cooper Smith]

Brand new member here, but have had an '08 JK since I bought it new in 2007. My daughter just bought a '97 TJ. She's very excited but it has a few more issues than we thought. My Jeep guy just gave it a once over and there's a list of things including oil pan gasket and rear main seal, ball joints, steering and track bar, Ujoints and trans lines. It looks good and only has 105,000 miles.

She doesn't have the money to get this all done and I doubt it needs everything right away. This is not her daily driver, but a fun summer vehicle. I'm no expert but it felt fine driving. The big question is, what can we realistically do ourselves?

I'm very handy and she's a tough kid and game for anything, but I've never gotten into "car stuff". I've built out my JK and F150, but mostly done the bolt on stuff myself and left the more involved things to the shop. I only replaced the brakes on my F150 for the first time recently (easy). That being said, I'll gut a bathroom down to the studs and rebuild it myself, including tiling, drywalling, electric and plumbing. I'll replace a gas water heater, do all my own landscaping, chainsaw all the time and run a variety of rental machines & equipment. I'll build whatever I need, but I've never learned to weld.

If that helps paint a picture, what can I reasonably tackle? I already have tons of tools and I'm willing to buy necessary specialty tools.

Thanks in advance. Looking forward to feedback.

Bill

If you can handle all that, You can handle the front end work. If I can do that grunt work with a YouTube video, you can do it. Oil pan gasket shouldn't be too bad depending on the motor (I'm assuming a 4.0 due to the rear main but eh). The rear main isn't necessarily horrible from what I've heard, but the kicker is you're working around the crank bearings and have to be unbelievably careful not to score anything or the leak will never stop seeping.