My '96 progress thread

[Georgia Mike]

Yeah that's how it usually goes with me. I'll go to replace a door lock cylinder and wind up having to rebuild everything between it and the transfer case lol

But since I just had it all apart, I'm not too worried about the seal replacement.

 

[Georgia Mike]

Well someone just haaaaad to come along and jinx me, didn't they? :looney:

Wound up removing the passenger side unit bearing due to excessive play. I went ahead and replaced it with my last trail spare, so now the bad bearing will be the spare. It'll get me off the trail if need be, but it's not much good for street use.


Turns out those Ten Factory shafts are a lot tighter fit in the bearing than the stockers were. There's a machined section just behind the splines that fits into a bore in the backside of the bearing. The factory shafts have always pretty much felt like a slip fit so I've always been able to zip the nut on with our impact and usually be within 5-10 lb/ft of spec. The Ten Factory shafts seem to be more of a press fit lol. The impact hadn't gotten them anywhere near spec so there was LOADS of play on both sides. I literally had to stand on a 3/4" ratchet to get the play out, then backed off and torqued them to spec.

Then I replaced the pinion seal, and took it for a test drive....no leak!

 

[Georgia Mike]

So I was daydreaming at work today; going over all the things I needed to get loaded up for the trip to Gulches this weekend, and then it hit me.....when I installed the frame rail stiffeners I covered up a frame rail tie down point that I use when towing the Heep on my trailer. So it was back to the shop to remedy that.

The metal was quite a bit thicker in that section of frame rail than I thought. That's a good thing!


Looks like a rat chewed its way through, but it's done and will work with my RTJ hook set.


While I was at the shop I spied my old 8" Pro Comp 130 watt lights lying on the shelf. They'd been there for 3-4 years now, and I figured it was as good a time as any to put them back into service. The old Hella lights that have been on the front since I bought it are less than ideal. The headlights are brighter than they are, even on their dim setting. The first picture back in post #25 shows them in use, along with the one on the tailgate shining out back. I'm sure they'll be good for something like rock lights, so I'll explore that option sometime later.

Out with the old....


In with the...older? Better?


Ah yes.....MUCH brighter!

 

[Georgia Mike]

Finally got around to building a "new" axle last weekend. The old housing was bent and would not hold backlash, it was eating axle shaft bearings and shafts, and the carrier bearings were totally shot (see earlier posts about the axle saga). Plus the XJ pulls to the left all the time and I was hoping the bent housing was the culprit.

It took a few tries to get the pinion height right. I originally tried to get a pattern as if I were setting up a new set of gears. After trying three different times, I read on Randy's Ring & Pinion that when setting up used gears, the pattern should be checked on the coast side since there would be less wear on that side. I went back and looked at the photos I'd taken and the second set of shims I'd used looked pretty spot on, so that's what I went with.


Got it all reassembled and installed. Now there's no more rumbling and roaring :clap:

Still have to pull on the steering wheel to get it to go straight down the road, though. Pretty sure I know what the root cause is. Dang it....

 

[Georgia Mike]

Forgot to update this about the steering pull. Turned out to be just a simple bone-headed oversight by me. The toe adjustment was way out. Once I reset that (in the driveway with a tape measure) the pulling has all but disappeared. Anyway, I installed the rear axle and everything is much improved.



Now that I have a good rear axle, I turned my attention to other areas to help make this thing as street-friendly as it's going to get. First order of business was to figure out the battery drain issue I'd been having. Turned out to be some of the PO's rat nest wiring. By the time I'd figured it out, the battery was already on its way out. I had a marine starting/deep cycle battery lying around for a few years that I was doing nothing with, so that seemed better than spending $100+ on a new one, so in it went. Problem is that it's a group 24; bigger and taller than stock. On a related note, I had picked up a battery tray from an early MJ a year ago to replace my stock broken one. I didn't realize the old style trays were larger, but that allowed me to use the bigger battery, so win for me! With the battery being taller, I had to make extensions for the hold down bolts and clearance the hood, but it was worth it to save the $$ for other things.

"New" battery



Extensions I made. I had to cut off about an inch of the stock bolts to accommodate them, but they worked out great, and now I should have plenty of juice for those long winch pulls vs. the small battery that was in it before.



Hood clearanced. Looks professional, eh? :looney:



Since I've been driving it on the street a bit more here lately I've come to realize I really need mirrors, especially since a cop followed me for a few miles the other day and I could only see him occasionally due to the partially blocked view the driver's mirror provides. Since I've had it, it has only had the one driver's door mirror and nothing else. I put in an old windshield mounted rear view mirror, and also installed a door mirror from a '99 that I'd parted out last year. It matches the '97-up style mirror on the driver's side



And lastly, I had become very tired of the limited glove box access since the cage had been installed. I remembered seeing a post here on years ago about a no-so-elegant, but clever fix, so I copied them and cut it in the band saw! I'm sure after a few years the vinyl will start to peel up at the cut line, but it's not like that would be the worst looking thing in the interior, so it seemed to be the least of my worries, and now I have great access to the glovebox!

 

[Lowrange2]

Maybe I need to do the same to my glove box. I have the same problem.

 

[Georgia Mike]

A couple of weeks ago I decided that to get the most enjoyment out of this XJ I was going to have to focus on making it more street friendly. Now that I have addressed most of the handling quirks, I'll focus on comfort & reliability. Since I had decided to forgo the build on that '91 I bought a while back, I figured I'd use it for parts for this '96. Started in the back by installing the carpet and rear seat. My interior is tan, the '91 is grey. No biggie to me. I'll figure out the dash later on but for now it's already riding a bit quieter down the road which is nice since this thing has always been like riding in a steel drum!

Pulled the rear seat and cleaned the dirt off the floor


Small parts pile that I pulled out lol


New look!


I still need to figure out what I'm going to do for the roof. Pretty certain I can't get the headliner to slip in there with the cage in the way so I'll have to come up with some creative (read: CHEAP) way of deadening the sound. Maybe I'll use some of that roof repair patch tape. Heard good stories about that stuff. I will also be ditching the 4 point harnesses I put in up front. I hate those things. They may be a bit safer, but they severely limit my field of view offroad so I rarely use the shoulder straps (which isn't that safe), and driving with them on the street is a total nightmare!


And now to the less fun stuff....


Finally got around to doing something about what I called "the elephant in the room" with this XJ. The driver's side rear frame rail had been damaged by the PO. He said his son "backed it into a tree" when I asked him about the bent rear bumper, but I'd hazard a guess that something a bit more extreme happened that he wasn't willing to divulge to me. The frame rail had a couple of buckled spots that extended from right under the fuel hose access hole, all the way to the forward leaf spring mount. I had pounded them straight as best I could in the past, but until now I made no real attempt to "fix" the issue.

Being as it's a unibody with a bent "frame rail", the body was doing all sorts of funky things back there. Most noticeable is the wrinkled quarter panel. This was caused by the body flexing from having little support due to the damaged rail. The floor is also bent down next to the outer rail which also allows the quarter to move up and down. Pictures don't do the wrinkles justice but most of that damage was caused before I installed the cage, which strengthened it a lot but the quarter panel still flexes more than I'd like since it seems to be moving independently of the rail.


So I got to work doing the best I could to repair the damage. Got the Jeep on the trailer and chained the frame down close to the most forward damaged area. Chained the other side of the frame down like I do when I tow it to keep it from moving around. I went ahead and pulled the fuel tank for easier access and to keep the risk of fire to a minimum while I weld. I slipped the High Lift under the rear bumper to jack the frame rail back into position, which didn't work as well as I was hoping. I had to jack it way high to get the frame rail to move. It wasn't the optimal setup for sure, but it did the best that I'm going to be able to get it on my own, and I'm certain it will be better than before.

In the end, I wound up with this contraption that doesn't look sketchy at all, right? :looser:




I think the PO may have waited too long to put the tank skid on. It's a little hard to see in the pic, but there's a huge dent right in the middle of the tank lol


This was the worst spot on the frame. Glad I pulled the tank so I could get at it!


Drilled a hole so I could slip a 1/2" bolt and a large fender washer through, then used that with a combination of brackets to allow me to pull the rail back into position.




Not perfect, but it's much better than before!


To finish it off I'll add some plating to the inside frame rail to strengthen that previously buckled area, then finally install the rear frame rail stiffeners on the outer rail. I may even plate the lower rail on this side to add more strength to the repair. I'll post another update when that all gets done.

 

[Georgia Mike]

Oh yeah, forgot to add that last weekend I installed some new front shocks, and hopefully sometime this week I'll go get new ones for the rear.


This was a much-needed improvement over the rusty, crusty junk shocks that were on it! Those things were well past their service life and were doing nearly nothing!

 

[Georgia Mike]

So I can't leave well enough alone.....

I started looking a little closer at the frame rails and when comparing them from side to side, the driver's side began to slope downward after the kink in the above pictures. There is probably a 3/8"-1/2" drop from the kink to the end of the frame rail out back. So I got a little creative and figured out a way to get it straightened before I weld the repair plates & stiffeners in. Hopefully it will stay put afterward and I'll no longer have the leaning to the passenger's side like it's always been since I've owned it.

Jacked up the rear and got the wheels out of the way



I have a pair of these big 1/2" thick steel plates from a gantry crane that I've never put back together. They're identical so I mounted one on the trailer deck, and the other one underneath and through-bolted together. I bolted a chain to the plate, and ran the other end to my brackets bolted to the hole in the bottom of the frame where the kink is.



It was late last night so I wrapped it up without trying it out. Got home today after work and it seems like it's gonna work like a champ. I was able to jack the frame rail even with the other side with little effort at all.



Unfortunately I had to cut it short this afternoon. I'm not quite ready to weld the plates & stiffeners on yet so I didn't get anything else done, but the proof of concept was nice! :thumbup:

 

[Georgia Mike]

Finally got back on it this evening. Jacked the frame rail up even with the other side and got to welding.

Did the inside first. I made a small stiffener out of some leftover sheet I had laying around. Drilled all the holes in it then took it to work to break it to match the frame rail bend angle.


Installed the outer stiffener. Not much to say here except I worked well after dark getting it done. By the end I was really wishing I was in the shop instead


And I confirmed my suspicions about the bushings being worn out. It's hard to see, but if you look hard enough you can see the bolt is way off the centerline of the spring eye with the XJ's full weight on the springs. Looks like I'll definitely be replacing them all sometime soon....

 

[Georgia Mike]

Spent the majority of today stripping the rest of the carpet & interior panels out of the '91. The interior is in shockingly good condition.....under the filth. I have to say it boggles my mind how some people can trash an interior and continue to ride around in it like nothing's wrong. I mean it's one thing if you have a dozen kids, or even pets, but good lord some people just don't need to eat in a car. I found several petrified french fries and a rotten hot dog in a plastic bag stuffed under the passenger seat, and what looked like a gallon of spilled coke in the carpet. Oh yeah, and two Accu-Chek tubes with weed residue in them. Guess that explains all the food. Munchies y'know.

If I've said it once, I've said it a dozen times......living in your own filth is bad enough, but living in someone else's filth is a whole new level of sick. This had to be fixed, so I grabbed the Purple Power and pressure washer then got to work!

What it looked like when I pulled it out and shook off the biggest bits of junk


30 minutes later



That's MUCH better. Now all I have to do is hope I can make it work with the different seat mounts of the '96. Shouldn't be too much of a hassle. I'm thinking I can just cut the carpet in front of the forward seat mount and then just poke holes in it for the rearward mounts. That's the plan anyway :confused1

Got the fuel tank hung back in there and replaced the fuel line & filter while I was there. Here's a better shot of that dent in the tank :doh: I may take the tank out of the '91 and swap it in if the pumps are the same, or at least if they'll interchange between the tanks.


Mounted the new shocks out back

 

[Lowrange2]

Lookin good.

Lots of effort there fixing that body.

Should have just cut it all off and replaced it with tube.

 

[Ghost]

Spent the majority of today stripping the rest of the carpet & interior panels out of the '91. The interior is in shockingly good condition.....under the filth. I have to say it boggles my mind how some people can trash an interior and continue to ride around in it like nothing's wrong. I mean it's one thing if you have a dozen kids, or even pets, but good lord some people just don't need to eat in a car. I found several petrified french fries and a rotten hot dog in a plastic bag stuffed under the passenger seat, and what looked like a gallon of spilled coke in the carpet. Oh yeah, and two Accu-Chek tubes with weed residue in them. Guess that explains all the food. Munchies y'know.

If I've said it once, I've said it a dozen times......living in your own filth is bad enough, but living in someone else's filth is a whole new level of sick. This had to be fixed, so I grabbed the Purple Power and pressure washer then got to work!

What it looked like when I pulled it out and shook off the biggest bits of junk


30 minutes later



That's MUCH better. Now all I have to do is hope I can make it work with the different seat mounts of the '96. Shouldn't be too much of a hassle. I'm thinking I can just cut the carpet in front of the forward seat mount and then just poke holes in it for the rearward mounts. That's the plan anyway :confused1

Got the fuel tank hung back in there and replaced the fuel line & filter while I was there. Here's a better shot of that dent in the tank :doh: I may take the tank out of the '91 and swap it in if the pumps are the same, or at least if they'll interchange between the tanks.


Mounted the new shocks out back

If the 96 has a front mount sender then you can just swap tanks. The pumps between 91 and 96 have different part numbers but IIRC all the front mount tank holes were the same only the senders and pumps were different.

 

[Georgia Mike]

Lookin good.

Lots of effort there fixing that body.

Should have just cut it all off and replaced it with tube.

I rather enjoy my climate controlled environment. And by controlled, I mean under MY control, not mother nature's :laugh3: All jokes aside, I'd love to have a dedicated tube buggy, but I just don't know if I'd use it enough to justify the cost. It seems as though I talk about wheeling more nowadays than actually doing it.

If the 96 has a front mount sender then you can just swap tanks. The pumps between 91 and 96 have different part numbers but IIRC all the front mount tank holes were the same only the senders and pumps were different.

Good info. Yes, it's a front mounted pump.

But, the tank is now the least of my worries. The engine is running way lean for some reason. I'm getting 3 codes on the scanner:
#1 P0141 O2 Sensor heater circuit malfunction, bank 1, sensor 2
#2 P0138 O2 Sensor circuit high volts, bank 1, sensor 2
#3 P0138 O2 Sensor circuit high volts, bank 1, sensor 2

Seems as though I have an issue with the downstream O2 sensor. I wasn't sure which wires I should probe or what values I should be getting, so I just pulled them both today and looked them over. All I knew I could do at the time was measure the resistance for the heating element while I had them off. I got roughly 5 ohms on the upstream sensor, and had bupkis on the downstream one. That's possibly an issue so I went ahead and ordered replacements for both. They should be here in a couple of days, but in the mean time I'll do some searching to see if I can troubleshoot the system in case the O2 sensors don't cure it. Any links you guys may have would be appreciated!

Ever since I've had this thing I occasionally smelled the catalytic converter running too hot, like a sulfur smell. I didn't pay it much mind before since I rarely drove it, but now that I'm trying to get it more road worthy, the 150 miles per tank I've been getting just ain't gonna cut it. Seems crazy to think if it's running so lean that the mileage would be so crappy. All I know is just driving around the corner to my dad's house got the cat so hot that I could barely touch the bare floor above it, and when I drove it to the gas station yesterday the exhaust was so hot I could barely hold my hand 6" away from the exhaust tip for more than 5-10 seconds.

So I'm gonna hold off putting the carpet in it until I get this diagnosed. The last thing I want to do is go to all this trouble just to melt it :flame:

 

[Ghost]

I have used 84 tanks 88 tanks on my 94. Yes I have dented and crushed it at least twice. Every front mount tank I have used had the same size hole. Even the small tank I used. Funny thing they used a baffle to make the tank smaller. Did you know that? As far as the o2 thing my 98 has a CEL again. Last scan it was o2 sensor. What causes them to go bad?

 

[Georgia Mike]

Not sure. If I had to guess I'd say old age or inferior quality parts. The ones I ordered are NTK, which is the OE brand. Whether they're "OE quality" or not remains to be seen. The OE units are supposed to have a 100k-125k mile service life from what I've been reading. My XJ has 125k on it now, but I'd hazzard a guess that it has more hours on the engine than the normal engine with 125k on it due to all the trail use. Plus I think that at least the upstream one may have been swapped out sometime in the past.

If you're having reoccurring O2 issues it could simply be a low quality replacement part you're using, or it could be in the wiring or PCM.

 

[Georgia Mike]

A little more progress today. New O2 sensors arrived in the mail so I slapped them in. I cleared the codes and hoped for the best. Started it up and the MIL stayed off. Exhaust smells much better, but it's still hotter than I'm used to feeling. I was talking with Andy (a-mechanic) the other night about what it was doing and he suggested it was actually running rich. I suppose that does make sense now that I think about it. Way too much fuel going through = crappy fuel mileage, plus the excess was most likely going out the cylinder unburned, so the cat was working its butt off trying to clean that up. Time will tell if the MIL stays off, but I do know when I tried clearing it in the past, it came back on as soon as I started the engine.

With that done, I decided to move forward with the carpet install. I pulled the remnants of the factory tan carpet out, which wasn't doing much good...


Then I pulled my ratty tan seats out and vacuumed the floor. Hopefully this will be the last I see of the bare floor for quite a while!


Started putting in the carpet from the '91. Luckily a friend of mine gave me a pair of later model seats last year that were in excellent condition, other than needing a little cleaning. He had bought them thinking they'd fit in an old Comanche they had, but they wouldn't so they sat around forever. He was about to toss them out and asked if I wanted them. Even though I had no use for them at the time, I wasn't about to let them go to scrap. He even delivered them to me for free. SCORE! :yelclap:



It's not 100% done yet, but it's coming along and hopefully I'll have it finished tomorrow night. I can say this about this carpet job.....unless you're cheap (like me), or just get the carpet for free (again, like me) don't bother swapping carpet from an older model to newer, or vise-versa. It's a pain. Most stuff lines up fine, but some things don't and so far I can't seem to get it to lay down right, at least not to my liking. Maybe I just need to fidget with it some more.

And wouldn't you know it!! I got in a hurry and scratched my pristine paint while putting in the driver's side seat! Oh the horror!!!! :dunce:

 

[Georgia Mike]

So after all that time swapping the carpet into this thing I snatched it back out. I could still never get it to drive the way I wanted on the street so I'm throwing in the towel trying to make it street-worthy. The bad part is now the interior for the '91 has been modified to fit this '96 and I'll have to come up with a solution for that somehow. A set of custom fit floor liners will take care of the cuts around the roll cage, but I need to come up with a pair of forward front seat mounts for the '95-up seats. Anyone have some they're willing to cut out and sent to me? I'll pay ya....

So anyway, I took the XJ to Harlan for the Cherokee Crawl this past weekend and man what a great time we had!

Killing Time




White Tail


Got some new trail rash while I was there.

Passenger door gap opened up a bit more (don't mind the sideways pic-I couldn't get Photobucket to rotate it for some reason)


I clearly remember those rock rails being below the rockers at some point in time. Back door is a bit more difficult to open now lol


Gangster lean is getting a little more pronounced


It was all worth it though. I had more fun wheeling this weekend than I've had in the last few years combined. Plus I cleaned up at the Crawl raffle so I've got new parts I can use to start getting the old girl back in shape!

 

[PacificEd]

Where did you get the tail light boxes?

 

[Ghost]

Where did you get the tail light boxes?

x2! Was great to see you but I really wish we could have done some wheeling together! I've got what you need just no desire to cut them out right now...... text me later this week.