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BigK's XJs

BigKintheXJ

NAXJA Forum User
Location
Cupertino
Figured I haven't really introduced myself, and I thought Id post my build thread here while im at it.

Hey, My names Karl. Im 19, and here's "reggie"
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My dad and I caught the fever after building up my DD which is an 89 2door. He's had it since before I was born. We figured we needed something we could get a little more serious with. We got this guy, a red 97 sport 2wd with a blown something or other on the motor, we knew we wouldn't be using it for the drivetrain so it wasn't an issue. Got him for about 500. Next we needed the guts to get us where we needed to go. So we picked this up for 2800.
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Thats a 92 that is equipped with a 4.5" rubicon express lift, dana 44 rear, hp d30 4.56 gears, lockrite lockers in both front and rear, and some decently treaded 33" truxus mtrs. It also had some goodies in the engine bay, optima red top, new dizzy, better injectors and such. As you can see, this thing isnt exactly a looker, and things were really half ass put together. The suspension was in desperate need of being re-torqued, and the front locker was stuck locked. OK, ill try and keep the first post decently short, but ill hopefully have this whole thread up by tonight so bear with me.
 
This is going to be very pic intensive...

Had to do a full system check before we got started so we took it to hollister and tested it.
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hmm thats the only pic I have of that day. Thats my brothers 2k there, we put a new head on it. After that it was all ready to go for the swap. Basic dissassemble, reasssemble procedure. mark the connectors, decide which ones need to be replaced, mark all the hardware in baggies etc.
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This is hilarious, the PO had "welded" front end frame stiffeners on. Heres a shot of the weld at first, then the chisel I effortlessly drove through the weld.
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almost done with the important stuff.
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Got it all buttoned up, slapped the brush guard from my 89 on it and spun it around. It needed much less sheetmetal in the tire area, so we didnt drive it much.
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My Dad decided it would look better with flares, so he got some napier precision ones from aj's offroad, and some sliders as well.
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trimmed the fronts to the first crease, and pulled off the door trim.
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leaky brake cylinder on the passenger side, pulled the shaft and found some twisted splines
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Got some Ten Factory Shafts in there, should last us for a while. We kept the twisted ones for back-ups.

Front flares on, and we exchanged bumpers with my 89.
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Heres the 92 buttoned up as much as it would be, put the axles under it just to roll it around. pick n pull came and got it for like 150 bucks with no motor or transmission.

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sliders bedlined and installed
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D windows
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New rubbers, kept an old one as a spare.
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better.

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We then decided to tackle the front locker problem.
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if you look closely, you can see that the pin and the hole are missaligned. We used some .03" shims to bring the locker back into spec, and man its a whole new jeep after that. You really cant tell that its got such large tires, where as before you had to fight all 25" of rubber up front to turn.

Rear flare on
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Finally time to put our money where our mouths are!

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whoops

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My girl approves!

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That's pretty much all of the building, hasn't been much after that as far as building. We did go on an adventure to Dinkey Creek over near Shaver Lake in the sierra's, what a blast. Camping, wheeling, fishing, and some pellet rifles with my dad and brother. What more could you ask for.

Here's my dumb mug in my 89 "jerry"

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And my Brother

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some people say we look alike

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This was all really light wheeling the first couple days, nothing to scream about. There were a bunch of lakes up in the hills that you could get to. So we did.

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That was last august. In January, My girlfriend and I went camping at hollister, where we met up with Tim, Mike, Gordon, and some others I cant remember off the top of my head. They've convinced me to join up with NAXJA, so here I am! finally got some trail damage worth mentioning haha!
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That tailpipe is absolutely mangled!
 
Thats pretty much it! Im sure things will continue to get interesting. I've recently swapped the tcase to a 231, which will be clocked and hack n tapped hopefully before st patty's so I can go wheeling for my birthday.

Cheers!
 
love the muffler delete modification! that was a fun day!
for a few bucks more than a hack & tap you could get a real sye from advanced adapters. they work a ton better plus you can use a front shaft in the rear instead of building a new drive shaft.
if you don't have access to a welder & want to reinstall the front frame stiffies, you can always make it over to the next build party at my house & i can weld them on for you.
 
love the muffler delete modification! that was a fun day!
for a few bucks more than a hack & tap you could get a real sye from advanced adapters. they work a ton better plus you can use a front shaft in the rear instead of building a new drive shaft.
if you don't have access to a welder & want to reinstall the front frame stiffies, you can always make it over to the next build party at my house & i can weld them on for you.

Yeah I considered getting a full SYE, but I got a deal on the hack n tap and figured why not. I'll have to take you up on that, whens the next one?
 
Yeah I considered getting a full SYE, but I got a deal on the hack n tap and figured why not. I'll have to take you up on that, whens the next one?

whenever anyone wants to.
i'll be in the shop all this weekend.
 
I cant make it out this weekend, girlfriend's birthday. Maybe later in March, but im going to be really busy. What kind of welder do you have?
 
I cant make it out this weekend, girlfriend's birthday. Maybe later in March, but im going to be really busy. What kind of welder do you have?

century 225 amp 220 volt mig & a lincoln 110 volt mig.
thinking of picking up a larger mig one of these days, been eyeing the miller 252...
 
Nice. Miller's are good machines. I learned to weld on an old 225 in high school. That thing took a lot of abuse. I've been trying to get a 110 for a while, but the circuit my dryer is on has a really small amperage rating so it trips the breaker all the time.
 
Thanks, I'll work on posting some stuff on the other ones too. Hopefully I'll be lifting the blue one this summer, school is kicking my ass and I haven't been working enough to buy new parts. I'm on the other side of Campbell just next to 85 and Winchester
 
I remember when they built 85 back in the day. Right behind out house in San Jose.

The front stiffy welds - dude was probably scared to turn the heat up with the unibody and rip through it? I know I always want to turn it down but I can't....
 
We're about the same age. I went to branham high for half my freshmen year. Then moved back to santa cruz graduated 2010

You should definitely come hang next time Tim has a wrenchfest!

Planning on coming to the Reno run in May possibly?
 
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