Finally back in the saddle!

[Freshmeat]

Yep. The rear portion of the frame is a lot worse than I'd anticipated, so I'm going to install the 31s, trim to clear 'em, grab some decent shocks from the junk yard, and rock out.

Think the D35 could handle welded spider gears on 31s in the mud?

 

[goodburbon]

Yea I think it could make it for a while.

 

[Freshmeat]

Okay. Tried to drop the tank, but the rear "frame" is so crushed I can't access the filler tube to completely drop the tank... so I pulled the pump assembly. I grounded it to the battery and hooked the power wire to the positive terminal and it stumbled a bit, shot out a huge chunk of dirt (appeared to be a mud dauber nest) and hummed to life. From there it spun right up without a hitch every time I connected it to the positive terminal, so I'm hoping it'll work fine.

Surprisingly, despite everything being absolutely disgusting under the XJ (everything leaks), the fuel pump harness is actually quite clean inside, so I just plugged it back up since I lost my dielectric grease. This plug will definitely get some dielectric before I hit any trails.

The tank is back in position and the pump assembly has been reinstalled, but it was missing the rubber line to go from the pump to the filter and from the filter to the hard line, so I'll get that on my lunch break at work tomorrow and install the filter.

From there it'll just be a matter of adding some fuel to the tank and finding out whether I have a running XJ.

Need to check:

Oil
ATF (do these use the MOPAR specific ATF?)
Coolant
Power steering fluid
T-case fluid
Axle fluids
Brake fluid
Air filter

I'll post up tomorrow with my findings.

 

[Freshmeat]

It's alive! Ran new fuel lines to and from the filter, cleaned up the pump plug and coated it with dielectric grease, added about two gallons of fuel, hooked up the yellow top... primed it several times, checked for leaks... and started spinning...
...and spinning...
...and spinning...
...and spinning...
...and just as I was about to give up, I heard a very brief stumble in the exhaust, so I let it spin a few more seconds... a couple more stumbles... a few more... then it finally sputtered to life, blowing a cloud of smoke into the neighbor's yard.

I let it idle for several minutes- at first it didn't want to rev over about 2k, but after a while I was able to get it up to 3k without any issue. I moved it in reverse and forward, both 4x2 and 4x4.

Tonight I realized it has the good gauges, not just dummy lights... but I'm planning to replace all the sensors to keep them as accurate as possible. It also appears to have cruise... but I'm not sure how to operate it, since the buttons are all worn off. It's on the edge of the windshield wiper / turn signal switch.

Speaking of turn signals... they don't work. I have a feeling it's the switch because in "neutral" position the right arrow on the dash stays on, but if I move it up to activate the right blinker it goes off. Left blinker doesn't work, either. I hope that won't be hard/expensive to replace- I'd really like to have this thing inspected so I can drive it on the road if I can get it stable enough.

The exhaust will need to be adjusted or replaced. As it is, any vibration of the muffler and it's bumping the rear driveshaft. I can imagine that becoming a major problem... but I also don't want to spend a lot on the exhaust for this thing. We'll see what happens with it.

Um... that's it. I'm beat. Won't work on it tomorrow or this weekend, but next step will be new battery cables so I can find out whether it's not charging properly due to a bad alternator or completely decayed cables.

Any advice on what to look out for as I get farther into this project?