Joel's multipurpose XJ build (rocks/boulevard)

[frijolee]

Joel, I've run 11.60" 5165's with 255/70 valving (25-175783) up front for 12yrs/120k miles and they are still performing well.
EB1 mounting top and bottom, with my own upper mount similar to JKS units, and have never had them loosen up.
...

Thanks for chiming in Jeff. I just reread your full thread the other day and I was guessing those might be 5165s. Needed to ping you but you treed me. The benefit of the mounting and hose configuration probably outweighs the need to re-valve and I can always try out the 255/70 and decide if I want more damping.

For anyone curious, here's the difference:

7100:

5165 (billet clamps shown add +$85 for a pair)

Generic shot of quite a few including the 5150s...

Unfortunately, I'm not seeing the 5150s in the catalog anymore so they may be discontinued. (https://cart.bilsteinus.com/Portals/0/PDF/BILSTEINORCatalog2020_WEB.pdf)

Too bad, as I like those. I'm wishing I would have found those before I did 5100s. The shortened body that comes with a remote reservoir seems like a big advantage. It look me quite a bit of work at the rear bump stop to be sure the shock wouldn't bottom out and I'm right on the hairy edge as is.

Unfortunately, if I ditch the rear bar pins now, that inch or so of travel I loose becomes a bigger deal and I'd be likely to bottom the shock unless I dial the bumps down further still. Since my modified BDS/bastard pack rear springs have sagged a touch, I already wish I had a bit more up travel than I do now.

Maybe I should sell all my current shocks and start fresh. That's part of what has me tempted by 2.5" class shocks but all the ones I've looked at are so much longer bodies for an equivalent travel that it's just about a deal breaker, particularly in back.

The cost ain't trivial either.

I'll be using these mounts when i swap my shocks out. It would probably benefit you.
https://tandjperformance.com/product/part-bp-s1005/

I like those. Seems like an on the JKS converstion bits for only a touch more cost. I've run across a few folks that complained of loosening with the JKS route and these look like they add some bonus support the tower too. If I do run 5165s mounting the reservoir lower on the body like Jeff did makes that easy.

The track bar only moves out of its resting plane based on the center of axis of the axle as it moves up and down. Not much, hence the rubber bushings.
...

SJX...

When I blew up my front shock upper bushings, I was convinced I had something in control arms or steering loosening up. I actually pulled off the trail, broke out the tools and retorqued a bunch before I finally found the shock bushings were wasted. Turned out all the structural bits were okay (tightened a few but not a lot). The ticking I could in the floorboard in dead pedal area was in fact from the shock rather than what I thought might be an upper control arm bushing.

I'm running the SFR WJ high roller steering with heims at both ends of the trackbar so I should be good on degrees of freedom there. SFR has been decent but does have a couple issues. Let me pause on that one and write up some separate thoughts.

-Joel

 

[frijolee]

Anyone have opinions about the inherent limitations of front shock stem mounts and rubber bushings? Blowing those up is what has me looking at shocks in the first place but there are quite a few 5160 (direct fit options) that I can dig through that have stem mounts if I my bushing just aged out.

The only 5160 Bilstein actually calls for an XJ front is this one intended for 4" lifts:
https://www.shockwarehouse.com/site...name/25-187670-Bilstein-5160-Jeep-Cherokee-XJ

However if you look at TJ options this uses the same end details with a longer stroke.
https://www.shockwarehouse.com/site...name/25-187809-Bilstein-5160-Jeep-Wrangler-TJ

For what it's worth, I'm browsing various Jeep models with hot links to shock warehouse from this source:
https://www.jeepcommander.com/threa...reservoir-bolt-on-shocks-now-available.14695/

Regarding stem mount limitations... I've heard the shock tower can fail with stem mounts (another benefit of the TandJ top) but it was in discussion and I've never seen pictures of the failure. Supposedly something to do with sheet metal layers tearing welds and separating.

 

[Goose_XJ88]

I like my JKS Shock adapters and they allow me to orientate the top of the shock so that it pivots through the range of the shock travel vs binding up when they are mounted like the other kit suggested.

 

[whitexj98]

I installed the the "TJ" 25-187809, Bilstein would not tell me the valving but said they would be "firmer" then the XJ specific 5100s (24-185943) I had.

I have only had them out once (go fast/ sand trails ) and they seemed to do well, of course the JKS bumps made it very nice to go fast.

I also put 5165ss on the rear, 25-177510, unfortunately I got a bad one and it leaked immediately after the first go fast section from the reservoir fitting, bango bolt was loose. Wheeled the whole day with it pretty much discharged. Was a little disappointed with Bilstein, I was outside the 90 day warranty, yet first time actuality using them due to having the jeep in the garage doing a JK 44 swap. They didn't care and wouldn't accept it as a manufacturer defect, luckily 4wheel parts accepted it as a warranty return and I'm waiting on a new one.

 

[frijolee]

Figured I should catch up on some maintenance and such.

First off: shocks. After all that research (see above), I really wanted to upgrade, but after scoping things out a bit I realized I really only failed the shock bushings and the shocks themselves were fine. Performance is fine and all my bumpstops and such are dialed in with what I have. I couldn’t do it. I bought the correct shock bushings in poly.

I’ll replace the shocks when I finally blow these suckers. I’m wheeling fast on enough rocked out dirt roads that it’ll happen at some point. When the time comes 5160 or 5165s look like my best option when I get there eventually. I like the rebuildable nature of the 7100s but getting damping rates close is good enough since I wheel on all kinds of terrain and the form factor of the swivel eye connection is worth doing the others.


Onto the repair and service stuff!

Replaced my valve cover gasket to solve a leak. Yeah my power steering still leaks too but I at least have a plan on that score (more on that later).

I always scrape the surfaces to remove old residue, if using a blade you need a shallow angle or you’ll nick it.

NAPA gasket:

This video was helpful for the process https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_IdNxDDbIc BUT viewer beware! He called out the 1/4-20 fasterners as 17 ft-lbs. That’s wrong! It should be 7 ft-lbs.

Guess what happens when you check your brain at the door and just follow along with the video… Yeah, you prove the torque spec is wrong the hard way.

Thankfully I was able to get this back out without too much difficulty and it was better the hardware failed than had it ripped the thread out of the head.



I replaced several door checks that had the pins had wallowed out the holes. Before digging this up, I couldn’t have told you a “door check” was named a door check, so now you know too.

Jack stands and square tubing make for a nice alignment rig.

Clear coat on my roof was failing. I’d had the hood resprayed before but I gave that some love as well. Apparently this was a while back since my little helper already has her front teeth back in.

Next up, a review on LED headlights… Certainly one of the best bang for the buck mods I’ve made.

I also need to go through all my front end bushings as I’m developing a clunk that needs some attention.

I also managed to bend a control arm on some lava. Anyone have suggestion on whether I leave it alone or try to bend it back? I do have a 20 ton press.

Hope this finds you all well and happy wheelin’
-Joel

 

[Evan03]

I think id leave the control arm how it is. Bending it back will further weaken it.

Like your alignment method

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

 

[frijolee]

Headlights

Bought some bitchin LED headlights.
https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B07BWBRDJ5/

These ones are brand Afeax and use Osram LED chips. Pretty sure they’re a JW speaker knock off. Honestly, it might be the highest bang for the buck mod I’ve done on the Jeep. $86 shipped, it’s awesome.

We’re doing the country living thing out here on the Big Island so the last street light is more than a mile from my place. It’s DARK at night (I mean I work in astronomy so I know that’s why we’re all here, but still…)

Before shot… Kinda anemic.

Install is pretty straightforward, you just have to pull some trim and the support rings.

The lights come with surprisingly good packaging and they literally drop right in.

Big difference (both before and after are low beams only)…

One surprise I didn’t know about, the light have a bit of a daytime running light affect that’s always on. Kinda cool in a Vin Diesel, Pitch Black/Chronicles of Riddick kinda of way.

The new headlights mean I finally get to throw light sabers at the sky.

Here’s a quick shot of the pattern out wheeling… Pardon the slightly out of focus shot but it was fun chasing this wild boar for ~300 yards up the road. He couldn’t give a rip that I was following him.

The pattern is a touch blotchy and I wish they cast a little more light to the sides but overall, it’s such a massive improvement I can’t complain. $86!!!

Night run with some buddies… Used a flashlight to paint the foreground and that turned out pretty cool.

One twist I didn’t think about before doing headlights. Having serious light being cast below your line of sight is better for technical wheeling. Your elevated vantage point (relative to the lights) means you see shadows on the far side of rocks and such. By comparison a roof mounted light bar has light thrown from above your line of sight so you can’t see the shadows and lose a good bit of your depth perception.

I actually had a friend give me a light bar so I’ll probably mount it up regardless (more lumens down range is still good for running fast) but I hadn’t ever thought this through before so it was an interesting epiphany. I've been seeing more an more trophy trucks where all the light is bumper mounted with the roof left open so apparently others are thinking about this too.

Aiming the headlights requires a long skinny torx bit, FYI, but that's just an XJ thing, not specific to these lights.

Happy wheeling!
-Joel

 

[FatSlobBob]

I have the same headlights and can vouch for everything OP is saying. They're very bright, have a good cutoff, and the DRL function is pretty neat.

 

[frijolee]

One kinda oddity, I forgot to mention about the headlights. Whenever the lights are on the high beam indicator on the dash is half lit. Turn the actual high beams on and the indicator goes on notably brighter, but sometimes I find myself clicking highs just to verify whether they're on or not.

Small annoyance but I'm still happy with the lights.

 

[XJlimitedx99]

One kinda oddity, I forgot to mention about the headlights. Whenever the lights are on the high beam indicator on the dash is half lit. Turn the actual high beams on and the indicator goes on notably brighter, but sometimes I find myself clicking highs just to verify whether they're on or not.

Small annoyance but I'm still happy with the lights.

Had a similar issue when I did my H4 conversion. It has to do with the fog light circuit (fog lights turn off when high beams are engaged).

You can pull your fog light relay (if you have fog lights?) from the PDC, or there is a way to jump a pin in one of the connectors to get everything functioning properly. You'll have to search for that.

 

[Nimrod]

I had a somewhat different issue when I installed a Putco relayed headlight wiring harness, but removing the factory fog light relay was the solution. So it’s worth a try.

 

[frijolee]

Thanks for the tips, that's rad. My rig had fog lights but they're long gone. I've actually been trying to figure out how to use the factory switch remaining to drive power to a light bar. A friend gave me a curved 52" bar and it looks kinda fun for night running.

 

[NOTNSUV]

Did the OEM stainless trim fit over the LEDs?

 

[frijolee]

Did the OEM stainless trim fit over the LEDs?

Like a glove. It's perfect.

 

[Da XJ nut]

Your build rocks...I have spent the last 2 days at work during my limited down time checking out the whole 36 pages, WOW!! I am blown away how far you've taken this XJ and love every aspect of it, most of it is engineering magic and way outside my realm of doing to mine. I grew up in Hawaii ( on Oahu ) was a military brat, dad was stationed at Hickam AFB. I went through the Big island Hilo area as a teenager and sample the coffee in Kona......I miss the Dark Chocolate Macadamia Nut Kona coffee ....but the candy is ok too. Just my 2 cents. Again LOVE your projects/ FJ40, RX, and the XJ

 

[denverd1]

damn those headlights are sweet and cheap! looks like I'll be upgrading mine... again.

glad the head "stud" wasn't an issue. those can make or break a job.

 

[frijolee]

Thanks for the kind words y'all. The Jeeps been pretty solid and I've been wheeling it quite a bit. I did manage to crack an exhaust header though. Not sure if it's because I've been wheeling wet or if it was just time. Results from the latest run (this was just puddles on the way back out, it washed off all the clumpy stuff in route):

A small crew of 3 rigs and 3 bikes went splashing through 20 miles of puddles to reach a very cool mud pit. My friend Jeremy is a madman with a snorkle and he went DEEP.

Apparently he was actual floating for a while, while water poured in, and both he and the passenger were convinced they were going down. However, once he had 6-7 inches of water inside, that made him heavy enough that he got to the bottom and found enough traction to slowly churn his way out.

Of course the downside of the much muddy water was that he had to pull his full interior and now is chasing electrical gremlins. I thought it was a pretty good example of that classic saying "bad decisions make good stories." :laugh:

Anyways, here was our crew for the day. Note the rib cage deep water line on Jer's spare tire. :worship:

When you wheel in the wet in Hawaii you pretty much have to get comfortable with mud getting places you may never get it out.

In the name of expediency I do pressure wash my engine bay on occasion, just try not to aim directly at anything electrical. Now I'm finding myself wondering if the thermal shock loads of the periodic big splashes finally did my header in. This was an OEM like version with the bellows on 1 and 6. It lasted the 10 years I've had the rig, so not terrible.

About two weeks after the mud run above, my Jeep started stumbling, running piss poor, and throwing an check engine code P0171 "bank 1 lean". At the same time at it claims lean, I'm smelling gas and it's puking black out the tailpipe so the evidence point to running pig rich.

After a little investigation, sure enough... Cracked header at junction of #2 to the main (weird spot by okay). Air sneaks in between pulses so the O2 sensor thinks the engine is lean while it commands richer and richer fuel trims.

While I could weld this up, from what I've read it's likely to just fail again so I'm thinking it's upgrade time. Since I decided to keep the jeep I'm okay getting something nice... My exhaust is 2.5" mandrel bent so a good header might do more for me that some performance wise. I'm already running a flex pipe which is supposed to help quite a bit with cracking.

Old shot but you get the idea:

Having spent a healthy chunk of this afternoon reading forums and hunting for that nugget of truth. I can report the following for anyone looking at headers:

-The cheapest that's worth looking at is the ATP 101212 (formerly APN). But plenty of folks still fail these and treat them as consumables. The Amazon reviews are pretty bad though. https://smile.amazon.com/ATP-Automotive-Graywerks-101212-Manifold/dp/B000EQLCU2/#customerReviews

-The midrange is folks like JBA, Gibson, Rugged Ridge, and Pacesetter. The first three are very similar to the ATP but at a little higher quality. Feedback in the midrange remains hit or miss on quality/longevity. I actually like that Pacesetter has longer tubes, but I'm not looking to run painted mild steel. "Proper" long tubes probably don't matter since I can't get tubes long enough to benefit from refracted pulse length tuning (that would need ~35" primaries).

-Getting toward the high end we have the Banks Revolver. https://www.bankspower.com/i-2581-e...99-jeep-wrangler-4-0l-1991-1998-cherokee.html. Downside quite a few folks still report failures, IE https://www.naxja.org/forum/showthread.php?t=1108130. That said, Petty Cash Racing (4643) runs a revolver and has had good success.

I like the design and Banks does have the longest warranty I'm aware of at 5 years. It's technically available on Amazon prime so free shipping to Hawaii (but Banks won't honor your warranty on a purchase through Amazon). I can't imagine that giant 6-1 void really doing great stuff for flow without a serious merge spike (that they aren't using).

-Which brings me to the top end of the market and the way I'm leaning. The AFE Twisted Steel header. https://afepower.com/afe-power-48-46201-twisted-steel-headers.

Reviews are very good on Amazon. https://smile.amazon.com/aFe-48-46201-Stainless-Twisted-Wrangler/dp/B005URAXX2/#customerReviews. One weird twist on Amazon's rankings... at the time of this writing, there are eleven 5 star reviews and one 1 star, which Amazon claims equals 32% 1 star reviews and a 3.7 star average. That math don't work. I think their algorithm is broken.

Anyways, the sole 1 star was a small area that got missed on original welding. Should it happen on a header this expensive? No. Am I worried out it? Also no.

The big upside to the AFE is that it's 14G steel (significantly heavier wall than most), uses actual merges instead of a stamped collector, and it's 100% TIG welded. Even if I do crack it, it should be notably easier to repair and toss back on. It comes with a 2 year warranty. They include Fel Pro gaskets. I like that they're using several radius bends to give the smoothest path while watching lengths. Hell, they even got the firing order perfect: 1-5-3-6-2-4 means that each group of three sees pulses at the local merge in a perfect rotational sequence.

Crap like that gets me jazzed so I'm leaning seriously toward spending the funds... Should be pulling the trigger Monday morning but please chime in if you have thoughts in the meantime. Price is steep, but seems like you get what you pay for... The cheapest I can find for the AFE is currently $622 and change here: https://eliteracefab.com/products/afe-twisted-steel-header-ss-409-hdr-jeep-wrangler-yj-91-99-i6-4-0l but I'll get to tack on another $100 in shipping to get that out to the islands.

Am I correct in assuming I should change the motor mounts as a matter of principle? I'm on the M.O.R.E. "BombProof" motor mounts, but they are 10 years old. Been reading good things about Brown Dog mounts.

-Joel

 

[grainofsalt]

I'd assume the rubber on your motor mounts is old.

FWIW I've been very happy with my brown dog mounts, easy to replace the rubber on them.

As for header, I run a borla, Love it! Probably almost 10 years old now. And it's survived with my 4.6L stoker.

 

[Redsnake]

I've had MORE and Brown Dog motor mounts... both eventually blew out on me on my DD, barely trailed 01XJ. Finally went with the https://www.stinkyfab.com/collections/xj-drivetrain motor and ATF mounts. I like them better than the previous and w/the easily replaceable bushing (if ever needed) they made sense. They're all good, but I like the SFR best. My personal opinion of course.

 

[75SV1]

I'd add Doug Thorley to the premium headers. I have one installed, another for my next build. I hear they do not flow as well and the Banks. Still. Also, mine are ceramic coated. I also have Bronn Dogs. I like them. Also, one s to look at are Stinky Fab and Ironman 4X4. I also have a BBK header for a 2000 TJ or XJ. It was cracked and I had it rewelded. They guy who did the welding didn't like the factory welds.