My new to me XJ

01grn_xj

NAXJA Forum User
Well I finally got out and took some pics of my XJ. I bought this on April 19th and drove it to the shop on April 20th with no oil pressure. :repair: It did have a warranty or I would have done the work myself. I know the guy that did the work very well and knew that he would take care of me. He tore apart the engine that was in it and could find no definite reason that it was losing oil pressure so the decision was made to swap in a used motor. Around the one month mark of me owning this thing he stuck a used engine in it that was supposed to have 82,000 miles on it. All was well but once the engine got hot it had the exact same problem as the first engine. Funny thing is is that he called the company and they told him and I quote "put another 3 quarts of oil in it and see if that will prime the pump" . So he tried it knowing that it would not work and called them and said it did not work. So they tell him again to "put 3 more quarts of oil in it and see if that will prim the pump". By this point he was fed up with the crap and waited a little bit and called back and said that it did not work (he did not even bother trying it). Basically the engine would have had 12 quarts of oil in it when all said and done.:banghead: Sooooooo back to the drawing board. The company he got the engine from agreed to swap him out with an engine that had 92k miles on it (later found that it actually had 125k miles on it) The engine showed up and he didn't have the other engine back out of the jeep yet so they wanted him to cut another check for this engine until they got their other one back. He was already unhappy about this and then he saw that the timing case was cracked on the engine they were delivering so he told the guy to leave, only not so politely. :banghead: He called them back and they agreed to give him his money back on the engine so he could look elsewhere. He found one at another place and it was still in the vehicle so he asked them to test the oil pressure. They said they would check it on thursday and let him know. I let it go past Thursday and over the weekend and called him on Monday. He called the place and they said " oh one of our regular customers called and needed one so we just sold it to him". :gonnablow

By this point it has now been 6 weeks since the day I bought this thing. He found another engine at yet another place and they sent it up to him and he installed this one and all has been well with it. In total my jeep sat there on the lot waiting for a transplant for 8 weeks to the day from the day I bought it to the day I picked it up from him. And then 4 days later my transmission shift cable broke 35 miles from home. So here are some pics of my rig how it sits for now. Plans down the road are 3" lift with 31's as far as basic and I have been creating an ever growing list of other things that I would like to do to it. So thanks for reading my extremely long post and here are the pics.

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Coming from a guy that just did 3in and 31's a yr ago, go taller or you'll regret it... I think 4.5 would be what I'd go to if I could afford it... Ohh, and when you get the lift, make sure you buy full leaf packs, not AALs, totally not worth the trouble and you'll get a better ride/flex...

** Also before you get the lift in, you might as well buy the SYE kit... MAke sure you get a Heavy Duty one as well...
 
looks good man, thanks for posting up some pics :thumbup:
 
Coming from a guy that just did 3in and 31's a yr ago, go taller or you'll regret it... I think 4.5 would be what I'd go to if I could afford it... Ohh, and when you get the lift, make sure you buy full leaf packs, not AALs, totally not worth the trouble and you'll get a better ride/flex...

** Also before you get the lift in, you might as well buy the SYE kit... MAke sure you get a Heavy Duty one as well...



i completely agree i got a 3" kit with AAL and the leafs are sagging and i want to jump up to 4.5"

just rememberd i need a SYE when i do this



your jeep looks good too love the green.......

is that chrome on the wheels?
 
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Nice!

Whatever you do, start with a good foundation and build from there. I have the OME lift and am already adding on to it, more out of necessity than desire, but it's a start. Apparently all the skids and the rocker protection weighs a ton.

Sorry for all the trouble you had getting the engine sorted out. Sounds like my luck...
 
Coming from a guy that just did 3in and 31's a yr ago, go taller or you'll regret it... I think 4.5 would be what I'd go to if I could afford it... Ohh, and when you get the lift, make sure you buy full leaf packs, not AALs, totally not worth the trouble and you'll get a better ride/flex...

** Also before you get the lift in, you might as well buy the SYE kit... MAke sure you get a Heavy Duty one as well...

I am looking into SYE kits. Apparently I will need to buy another drive shaft to go with the SYE kits and the ones I am seeing are around 400-600 bucks, am I looking in the wrong place or what? Also I saw someone mentioning that they were running a WJ shaft with the SYE kit? I am going full leaf pack either way I go but I am really leaning towards the 4.5". 4.5" Is what I really wanted to begin with but weenied out on the idea when I saw people saying you need an SYE kit and all that hoopla. But after some serious thought I think I will pony up and go for it.

i completely agree i got a 3" kit with AAL and the leafs are sagging and i want to jump up to 4.5"

just rememberd i need a SYE when i do this



your jeep looks good too love the green.......

is that chrome on the wheels?



THanks man I love the green too. It has dings and scratches on it but, hey it is not for show. Yes they are chrome hub caps but are no longer on it becasue I traded for a set of XJ aluminum 5 spoke wheels i think they are "ecco" wheels?
 
THanks man I love the green too. It has dings and scratches on it but, hey it is not for show. Yes they are chrome hub caps but are no longer on it becasue I traded for a set of XJ aluminum 5 spoke wheels i think they are "ecco" wheels?


the ecco wheels will look good on there, thats a pretty good trade


i think with a SYE you can run a stock front drive shaft insted of getting one of the after market ones (somebody correct me if i am wrong)
 
My 1999 XJ required a front driveshaft out of a ZJ that had a v-8 in it... The stock Frt dive shaft out of a 97+ 4.0L Auto is approx 2in too short... The DS I am using has approx 1/2-1" of the flex joint out when sitting on level ground.
 
My 1999 XJ required a front driveshaft out of a ZJ that had a v-8 in it... The stock Frt dive shaft out of a 97+ 4.0L Auto is approx 2in too short... The DS I am using has approx 1/2-1" of the flex joint out when sitting on level ground.


Ok thanks for the input on this. I hope to start collecting the odds and end pieces here soon so when I purchase the lift in the spring I have everything ready to go.
 
the ecco wheels will look good on there, thats a pretty good trade


i think with a SYE you can run a stock front drive shaft insted of getting one of the after market ones (somebody correct me if i am wrong)

I think thats just with hack n tap SYE's i could be wrong though.
 
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