The Little Green Booger...my 1991 XJ build thread

[Georgia Mike]

So, some of you may remember me buying a '91 XJ last fall. My original plan was to transfer everything from my '96 beater onto this one, but as we all know, plans change from time to time. Especially with me. I saw the ad on Craigslist and it was only $200 with no pictures and it was 2 hours away from me. I took a gamble and went to check it out. It was at the owner's brother-in-law's place and he didn't want to start it and get oil all over his driveway which was understandable.

The owner and I worked out a deal and I drug it home the next day. Here it is loaded up and ready for the trip home.


When I got it home, I couldn't resist trying to start it. Let me tell you, if you've never felt an engine run with a slung rod before, it's a total assault on the senses! No matter how many times I've started this thing since buying it, it always catches me off guard when it fires off

Quick little vid of it running lol


So shortly after the video was taken, I drove it over to my dad's place. Even though it's right around the corner from my house, it was quite an unnerving experience.

I got it into the shop with the intent of pulling the engine out when I had one of those "what the heck are you doing?" moments. Maybe it was laziness, maybe it was the fact that it was cold and miserable, or a combination of the two, but I didn't get any further than taking out the air cleaner before I shelved my original idea and moved it to the side of the shop where it would sit all winter. I sold a few parts off of it to my brother-in-law to fix their wrecked XJ. Come spring, I yanked all the interior out and used it in my '96, and still it sat. So I finally decided to commit to building it into something I've always wanted and now I'm halfway done with replacing the engine. I have a '99 engine leftover from a part-out I did a couple years ago so that will be going in tomorrow.

It was quite nasty so I took the opportunity to clean it up while it was out.

 

[Georgia Mike]

Here's the window to this poor 4.0's soul.....


Back to the '99 engine.....
I bought the XJ it came out of from a local shop under the assumption it had a cracked head or blown head gasket. It ran great, but would overheat after 10 minutes of driving.

Pulled the cylinder head and found nothing unusual


Should've checked the water pump FIRST lol :dunce:


All cleaned up and ready for new gaskets, freeze plugs and timing chain


Pulled the XJ into the shop to finally put that old blown 4.0 out of its misery



Engine out, and good grief the engine bay and entire undercarriage was covered with nasty oil. My arms were completely black up to my shirt sleeves by the time the engine was out!


A little Purple Power and some pressure washer action took care of most of the grime


So that's where I'm at as of today. Will post progress pics and info as it comes.

 

[Georgia Mike]

Hey look! A cracked 4.0 header. Shocker.



Welded up the crack as best I could. Welding them usually gets me by for a couple of years until they crack again. Maybe I'll get an aftermarket one next go-round. Man, I REALLY need to stay in better practice with the TIG! It's hard to stay proficient at it when you only do it once every 6 months or so lol



Engine ready to go back in


Back in place

 

[PacificEd]

Looking good Mike!

 

[Ghost]

Nice!

 

[Georgia Mike]

Thanks guys!

Wasn't able to accomplish much today. Got most of the electrics reconnected, power steering hoses connected to the steering box, alternator, A/C compressor, water pump pulley and fan reinstalled. Hopefully the whole build won't take my usual "Grandpa" pace :laugh3:

 

[Georgia Mike]

Got nothing done today, but these showed up on my doorstep so that's something to report

HD Offroad center frame stiffener set


The fronts I can make myself fairly easily, and I'll have to wait to see how much frame rail I'm left with before I do the rears :shhh:

 

[Georgia Mike]

Not a lot got done again today. Overcoming all the tiny differences between the OBD1 and OBD2 engines, plus the late style manifold have really slowed me down. Add to that family responsibilities and free time has been minimal. If this had been a straight-up model year for model year engine swap I'd be done and it would be running and driving by now. But nevertheless it's moving along, slowly but surely even though I'm having to go back and redo some things. Vacuum lines are all in different locations so that slowed me down a bit. I think I've got it ironed out now.

And I also realized that I got in a hurry jamming the engine back in and forgot to drill & tap the head for the temperature sending unit. So I drilled and tapped the thermostat housing instead and will have to extend the wire to reach it. I know it's not the optimal solution, but it beats having to pull the head off.



Other than that, I got a few more small things taken care of like getting the belt installed and other boring stuff. I'm really going to like the later style belt adjustment, they're so much easier than the early design.

 

[Georgia Mike]

Started this morning with a to-do list and chopped it down throughout the day


If you'll notice it says "fix" radiator. This is, believe it or not, the original radiator, dated from 1991, with over 300,000 miles on it. It's in sad shape but I didn't want to fork out the cash for a new one just yet as I may have other plans for it.

Don't hate on the redneck epoxy putty repair job. It sealed up all those cracks and holds pressure, but it's only temporary :sure:


It's ALIVE!! :yelclap:

 

[condonsation]

Very nice! Cant wait to see more

 

[Ghost]

Nice. I did something like that recently to a radiator and it's holding strong.

 

[Georgia Mike]

I'm sure it would hold for many years to come, but if I were going to leave it in there I'd definitely take the transmission fluid lines off of it and go to a stand alone unit outside the radiator. If the tanks are so thin that they're cracking like they are, then I'm sure the trans cooler inside is pretty sketchy too. Water inside a transmission = bad times, even worse times when antifreeze is added to the mix lol.

So anyway, small update. Drove the XJ back to my house and started installing the factory swing-out tire carrier. Kind of a bummer that some of the inner support brackets for it are missing, so I'll have to make them. Could've sworn I asked the guy I got it from if everything was there, and got a confirmation that it was complete :eyes: No biggie, they look like they should be simple enough to fab up.

No pics yet, I'll post them up when it's completely installed.

 

[Georgia Mike]

As mentioned before, I brought the Jeep home this weekend. I still have yet to reinstall the hood, nor have I found another parts XJ to scavenge parts off of to put this one back together. So if anyone has one for sale for cheap, let me know.

I'll bet the neighbors were groaning when they saw this is in the front yard lol


Tonight I got the factory tire carrier mocked up. Looks cool for the direction I'm now headed with this XJ.


My original plan with this XJ was to get it running and make it into a buggy, but the more I look at my white one, the more I realize it doesn't make much sense to chop up a perfectly straight body like the green one, but leave a beat to crap one with barely functioning doors like the white one intact. So the decision is made and after the Crawl the white '96 will go under the knife and this green '91 will become a cool little retro-wheeler. Plans are the factory tire carrier (as seen), a set of the old school factory 8 spoke aluminum wheels, mild lift (3"-4") on 31's and uncut fenders. I'll use the axles from the '96 which are already geared and locked so it should be plenty capable for doing what I want to do with it.

 

[Ghost]

What are you looking for to finish it?

 

[Georgia Mike]

1991-1996 w/4.0 engine. Doesn't need to run. Just need it as a parts car so it'll need to be somewhat complete.

 

[Georgia Mike]

So this past weekend I finally had time to try and flush the cooling system. Man what a mess it was! I put straight water in it when I installed the engine because I knew it would need to be flushed. I didn't realize how bad it actually was!

Straight, clear water went in a few weeks ago. This is what came out on Friday.


I bought one of those cheap flush kits from Walmart and it worked better than I expected it to.


After flushing it three times I finally got some clear water draining from it.


Refilled it with straight water and it'll probably sit until this weekend and I'll add the Prestone cooling system flush chemical to it and let it do its thing. Hopefully that will clean out any remaining crud and all will be good. Then I'll have to find myself a good radiator before doing the final fill with antifreeze.

 

[Georgia Mike]

Today must have been opposite day at Pull-a-Part. Every '96-down XJ was missing the header panel except for one, which was a semi-unicorn bright red '95 model with 5 speed and 4x4. It was sad to see it there because it looked like it was pretty nice until it reached the yard. Even the grey cloth seats were in great condition, just a little bit dirty.

I did see 4 other '97-up models with complete header panels & fenders. Guess they're not so hard to find any more lol. Being as I was scavenging from the '95, I snagged the 10 blade e-fan and also the dual diaphragm brake booster. I found a fairly new radiator from a '99 model so I snagged that too. One thing that is eluding me at the yards is the mechanical fan shroud. Every one was either gone or broken beyond repair. I'm sure I'll find one some day.

:cheers:

 

[Georgia Mike]

Got the hood and the replacement header panel put on. I didn't grab the grill because it was black and the driver's headlight bezel was broken. I will be going back with the chrome grill like what was originally on it. Or not. I haven't made a concrete decision on that yet. Sure is a lot easier to find good black ones these days so that may be what I go with. I really wish I'd have just gone to the junkyard when I was working on my brother-in-law's XJ. I'd still have all my factory parts

It's starting to look like a Cherokee again!

 

[Georgia Mike]

Before any more work got started I needed to find out where the leak was coming from every time it rained. It wasn't a minor leak. Every time it rained reasonably hard I'd have about an inch of standing water in the front floor boards. I pulled the trim from around the windshield and was shocked by how much crap was caked under it.





I feared the worst, that the windshield channel had rusted out, but that turned out not to be the case. It's all good solid metal!

 

[Georgia Mike]

A couple of days ago I started working on the the front seat mounts I need to mount the later style seats into the earlier XJ. Turned out it wasn't so bad. Just a little planning ahead and so far it's going smoothly.

Took the seats out of the '96 trail beater to make templates out of newsprint type paper because it's very lightweight and easy to manipulate



My daughter Sara wanted to help out so I let her trace out the patterns on some heavier weight craft paper


Then she cut them out and we had a good set of patterns to go by



They fit perfectly!


I took the patterns to the shop and traced them onto some sheet metal I had lying around


Put them in the old HF sheet metal brake and they came out pretty nice, if I do say so myself!