Okay, so this has been a work in progress for three years now. Lots of issue, inexperience, lack of money, etc. have made it drag on forever.
Along the way I have learned a TON and am now finally in a position to realize that what I *really* want to do is a frame-off restoration of this junk heap. I want SHOW quality and looks. I do NOT intend to baby this rig, though. It is a real build. And I intend to break stuff on it on the trails. Aggressively break stuff. Yes. I do. I will beat on this Jeep, heh, heh, heh...
This TJ was in such sad shape when I bought it that I fell in love as I tried to fix all the messes that made it the wonderful wreck I bought like an ignoramus. It was in an accident in New Jersey back in 2004. The original owner traded it in. It has had a total of five previous owners. All must have been poor high school kids because every shortcut known to mankind was used to keep it running, but alas, no actual maintenance or quality work was done to it. Junk parts were used to lift it, junk performance parts were slapped on it because the owners believed the advertising hype. And it seems to have been in the Mississippi River flood in Missouri in 2010. So I want to be anal about fixing it up because I want it to be "new" for me. Just once. I will beat it up for sure, over time. But I want it to be mine and mine only, with no connection to the neglectful previous owners, at least one of whom I wish a painful, flame-filled death upon every time I have to work on it. The last owner was for certain a block-headed kid. I met him. He was akin to a bipedal donkey. And he did some ridiculous shit to this poor TJ.
So I have many pages of photos and write-ups that I plan to compile into a build thread first half, then I will pick it up where I am today. And that is at the point where I have decided 100% to rebuild the engine and do a full frame-off restoration.
I am learning to weld (MIG and flux core) with my little Lincoln unit. I am getting good enough that I will try to get a dedicated 220 line run out to where I like to practice welding.
Lots to post about. It will take forever, too. I will add to this as often as I can.
The basic information on this TJ is that it is a 2003 Sport in Shale Green Metallic. It came with 3.73 gears with a Dana 44 rear end. I got it with a severely clapped out 4" suspension lift that was poorly done, blown, and rusted into place solidly. Both the Smittybilt bumpers were bent and severely rusted onto the frame.
The 33" BFG muds were nearly bald and had HUGE flat spots. The brakes barely worked. And I had to identify and fix about a hundred (no joke, here) rattles, squeaks, bangs and thunks in the cab and suspension. It drove hot permanently - not much, but enough to worry me. (It shows signs of having been badly overheated in the past.) The stereo was basically a $25 junk head with four blown Sony speakers and a sub console that had been ripped through the plastic. The black housing was still present in the console but the plastic grille slots had been snapped off and the speaker ripped out. Both the front seats smelled like piss and had weirdly bent frames. The carpets were no longer removable because the idiot donkey kid had removed he seats with all six panels installed, and managed to catch carpet beneath all eight seat bolts. And they reeked of damp menthol cigarette butts.
But that Dana 44 was in great shape, the NV3550 shifted well and quietly, and the 4.0L still pulled along with good compression. The NP231J worked and the thing still stumped along off pavement really well.
I dropped an even $8000 on it because it ran well and it was straight with a great frame.
My 2003 that I bought when it was only nine months old (from a Honda dealership, no less) had given up the ghost on I-55 the month before. It was also Shale Green Metallic and was in beautiful condition. But it was an SE and that little 2.4L threw a rod clean through the clock, knocking a 5" hole through the side.
My options for a replacement were extremely limited. I badly wanted a 4.0L after a decade of rolling with the "four angry squirrels". That is such a complex swap that you might as well do a SBC 350 as the difference in price would not be that much.
A reman 2.4L would cost me like seven grand if the dealership did it. No freaking way was I going to spend that kind of coin on that weak engine!
I decided that the clapped out Sport would be a good solution for only a grand more. The two were nearly twins, so I decided to cannibalize my SE into the replacement Sport. And I did. I took *everything* I could from that TJ and put it into the new one. I ended up with a really great Sport that needed a lot of work.
I gave the SE to my best friend for free (with no engine, all the beat-to-hell parts from the Sport, etc.) and he kept it in his driveway for a year until he could finally source another 2.4L with the correct TJ motor mount bracket bosses on the block to allow for RWD. (All those Neons and PT Cruisers use transverse mounting for FWD, so the holes needed to mount the TJ brackets to the sides are missing.)
So this thread will be about how my wife and I ended up buying tons of tools, parts and books, watched hundreds of YouTube videos and read thousands of posts in several web forums, and taught ourselves to be fairly competent mechanics that now work on all six of our vehicles without fear, and how we have not taken a car to someone else for work in four years now.
Pics will follow, but I have a lot to do tonight. I hope some here will end up reading this thread some day and learning from it. I will share all my mistakes, too, as they are more instructional than my successes would be. And some of them are pretty funny.
Later, y'all...
Along the way I have learned a TON and am now finally in a position to realize that what I *really* want to do is a frame-off restoration of this junk heap. I want SHOW quality and looks. I do NOT intend to baby this rig, though. It is a real build. And I intend to break stuff on it on the trails. Aggressively break stuff. Yes. I do. I will beat on this Jeep, heh, heh, heh...
This TJ was in such sad shape when I bought it that I fell in love as I tried to fix all the messes that made it the wonderful wreck I bought like an ignoramus. It was in an accident in New Jersey back in 2004. The original owner traded it in. It has had a total of five previous owners. All must have been poor high school kids because every shortcut known to mankind was used to keep it running, but alas, no actual maintenance or quality work was done to it. Junk parts were used to lift it, junk performance parts were slapped on it because the owners believed the advertising hype. And it seems to have been in the Mississippi River flood in Missouri in 2010. So I want to be anal about fixing it up because I want it to be "new" for me. Just once. I will beat it up for sure, over time. But I want it to be mine and mine only, with no connection to the neglectful previous owners, at least one of whom I wish a painful, flame-filled death upon every time I have to work on it. The last owner was for certain a block-headed kid. I met him. He was akin to a bipedal donkey. And he did some ridiculous shit to this poor TJ.
So I have many pages of photos and write-ups that I plan to compile into a build thread first half, then I will pick it up where I am today. And that is at the point where I have decided 100% to rebuild the engine and do a full frame-off restoration.
I am learning to weld (MIG and flux core) with my little Lincoln unit. I am getting good enough that I will try to get a dedicated 220 line run out to where I like to practice welding.
Lots to post about. It will take forever, too. I will add to this as often as I can.
The basic information on this TJ is that it is a 2003 Sport in Shale Green Metallic. It came with 3.73 gears with a Dana 44 rear end. I got it with a severely clapped out 4" suspension lift that was poorly done, blown, and rusted into place solidly. Both the Smittybilt bumpers were bent and severely rusted onto the frame.
The 33" BFG muds were nearly bald and had HUGE flat spots. The brakes barely worked. And I had to identify and fix about a hundred (no joke, here) rattles, squeaks, bangs and thunks in the cab and suspension. It drove hot permanently - not much, but enough to worry me. (It shows signs of having been badly overheated in the past.) The stereo was basically a $25 junk head with four blown Sony speakers and a sub console that had been ripped through the plastic. The black housing was still present in the console but the plastic grille slots had been snapped off and the speaker ripped out. Both the front seats smelled like piss and had weirdly bent frames. The carpets were no longer removable because the idiot donkey kid had removed he seats with all six panels installed, and managed to catch carpet beneath all eight seat bolts. And they reeked of damp menthol cigarette butts.
But that Dana 44 was in great shape, the NV3550 shifted well and quietly, and the 4.0L still pulled along with good compression. The NP231J worked and the thing still stumped along off pavement really well.
I dropped an even $8000 on it because it ran well and it was straight with a great frame.
My 2003 that I bought when it was only nine months old (from a Honda dealership, no less) had given up the ghost on I-55 the month before. It was also Shale Green Metallic and was in beautiful condition. But it was an SE and that little 2.4L threw a rod clean through the clock, knocking a 5" hole through the side.
My options for a replacement were extremely limited. I badly wanted a 4.0L after a decade of rolling with the "four angry squirrels". That is such a complex swap that you might as well do a SBC 350 as the difference in price would not be that much.
A reman 2.4L would cost me like seven grand if the dealership did it. No freaking way was I going to spend that kind of coin on that weak engine!
I decided that the clapped out Sport would be a good solution for only a grand more. The two were nearly twins, so I decided to cannibalize my SE into the replacement Sport. And I did. I took *everything* I could from that TJ and put it into the new one. I ended up with a really great Sport that needed a lot of work.
I gave the SE to my best friend for free (with no engine, all the beat-to-hell parts from the Sport, etc.) and he kept it in his driveway for a year until he could finally source another 2.4L with the correct TJ motor mount bracket bosses on the block to allow for RWD. (All those Neons and PT Cruisers use transverse mounting for FWD, so the holes needed to mount the TJ brackets to the sides are missing.)
So this thread will be about how my wife and I ended up buying tons of tools, parts and books, watched hundreds of YouTube videos and read thousands of posts in several web forums, and taught ourselves to be fairly competent mechanics that now work on all six of our vehicles without fear, and how we have not taken a car to someone else for work in four years now.
Pics will follow, but I have a lot to do tonight. I hope some here will end up reading this thread some day and learning from it. I will share all my mistakes, too, as they are more instructional than my successes would be. And some of them are pretty funny.
Later, y'all...
