Light XJ Build

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Beep Beep
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Location: Selah, Washington

Light XJ Build

Postby Beep Beep » Thu May 03, 2007 7:39 pm

This is the wife's XJ we bought for $500. She is going to wheel it and use it the winter months to get to work when the roads are bad. Here is the write-up on the build we started in February of this year.

Here is the Tweety Jeep at Ceg Ranch Saturday morning geting ready for a ride to Scuba's in Sunnyside.
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Scuba Steve, Colemancooler, Hercules and Test Dummy were all there to work on 99's XJ. Tiny showed for little while and helped put the front coils in.
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Here are most of the parts for the 4.5 Rough Country lift kit we bought from Run at www.4wheelingplus.com.
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The stock coil next to the 4.5 lift coil.
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The mud flap bolts wouldn't come off so Colemancooler used a better tool.
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Someone say Jeep?
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Hercules shows us the trie size difference.
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The Tweety Jeep with the 4.5 Rough Country lift kit and 31X10.50 MT/Rs on.
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On Sunday we put a new rear main seal, oil pan gasket, oil filter and 6 quarts of oil in the rig.
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As we were taking it out of the shop, oil started coming out of the oil pan at the tranny. We pulled the oil pan off and found the gasket had moved. We clean it back up and added new RTV. Scuba said he would get the oil pan on this week.
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We plan to do the test run at the Slab on February 17th.

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Beep Beep
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Postby Beep Beep » Thu May 03, 2007 7:40 pm

Feb 14th we got the Colemancooler built bumper put on. We still need to trim the front fenders and a few other small things.
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Beep Beep
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Postby Beep Beep » Thu May 03, 2007 7:40 pm

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Colemancooler came over to fit the tow bar to the bumper.
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He was nice enough to cut the fenders for us too.
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I had to use the drop hitch up side down.
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We still have the brakes to do tonight and a few small things to be ready for the Slab run.

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Beep Beep
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Postby Beep Beep » Thu May 03, 2007 7:41 pm

The test run at the Slab didn't go so well.
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Here is the rig the next day still on the trailer after we got it home.
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Today I backed the Tweety Jeep off the trailer and broke PUO's red strap. The wheel is still on.

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Beep Beep
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Postby Beep Beep » Thu May 03, 2007 7:43 pm

We replaced the ball joints and brake line and were ready for the next test.
On March 17th, 2007 we trailered the Tweety Jeep 100 miles down to Juniper Dunes to play in the sand.
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We had a great day climbing and wheelin the sand dunes. This test went well. We trailered the Tweety Jeep back home.

April 7th, 2007 the wife (99) wanted to go to Tree Phone for a drive. Tiny came a long with us. Test Dummy rode shot gun with him. Near Slavin Road the Tweety Jeep started smoking. We found out we had ATF coming out the filler tupe. We had a sharp bend in one of the tranny cooler lines and thought that could be the problem so we by passed the bend. We made it to the church in Tampico before she started smoking again. We added more ATF and let the rig run awhile and all was fine. As we were checking out the Tweety Jeep, Krazy Gimp was passing by and stopped. He said he would run up to the Ahtanum with us. The Tweety Jeep started smoking again on the way up. I just slowed down and she stopped smoking.

The road was clear up to Tree Phones. At Tree Phone the snow was deep. I tryed to drive around the camp ground loop and got stuck.
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10 lbs was to much air to stay on top of the snow.

After the run we headed to Sno-park and met up with IF and Build-not-bot. We sat around their camp fire as Test Dummy ran home for the Truck and Trailer. That gave us some time to visit so it worked out good. Everyone thinks the Tranny vent tube is plugged up on the Tweety Jeep. We check that out after we got home and found a little stuff in just the transfer case vent tube.

The next run (April 21st, 2007) we took the Tweety Jeep on a hard core. The tires did well with 8 lbs. of air. We only had to winch once. This was a good test on the bumper and winch.
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On up the trail I did break out a rear window because I slid sideways into a tree as I was climbing a hill.
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Beer box trail fix.
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Lucky I had a spare window at home.

After running it fast up a forest road we found out the tranny problem was not fixed. It started smoking again. I guess it is still a trailer queen until we find out what is going on.

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Beep Beep
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Postby Beep Beep » Thu May 03, 2007 7:47 pm

commando14,

Thanks for the winching pics.

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commando14
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Postby commando14 » Thu May 03, 2007 8:38 pm

Nice XJ buildup!

Dang ball joints.. I thought mine were wore out! Glad I replaced em.

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Beep Beep
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Postby Beep Beep » Fri May 04, 2007 9:23 am

I wrote this up for another forum I didn't go into to many details. The last run wasn't hard core compared to other stuff we do but it was more than I thought this open dif narrow tire rig would do.

That was only a little climb where I broke the window. I was hoping to limp over the top so we wouldn't dig in like the snow mound I was stuck on just before. I gave it to much gas before I cleared the trees. :?

After running 33x12.50s and getting into some bad situations, I had little trust in the 31x10.50x16s. Those little MT/Rs rock!

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Beep Beep
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Joined: Wed Mar 21, 2007 9:27 pm
Location: Selah, Washington

Re: Light XJ Build

Postby Beep Beep » Thu Sep 20, 2007 10:10 am

Here is an up-date:

The wife's Tweety Jeep has went through some changes.

February 3rd, 2007
[img]http://cegranch.com/mods/2007-02-03-01.JPG[/img]

April 22nd, 2007
[img]http://cegranch.com/all/2007-04/2007-04-22-05.jpg[/img]

June 9th, 2007
[img]http://cegranch.com/all/2007-06/2007-06-09-05.JPG[/img]

June 23rd, 2007
[img]http://cegranch.com/all/2007-06/2007-06-23-09.JPG[/img]

This is what we have now:
89 XJ, 4.0 L, AW4, NP242, 4.5 Rough Country Lift, 3.73s, rear Lock Right, 33 MT/Rs, Colemancooler made front bumper, 12,000 Mile Marker, home made roof rack, added stock tire rack, 100 KCs and Tweety Bird seat covers. The last part was not my doings. It is the wife's rig so I guess I should let her have a little say on something.

August 11th, 2007
[img]http://cegranch.com/all/2007-08/2007-08-11-19.jpg[/img]

[img]http://cegranch.com/all/2007-08/2007-08-11-10.jpg[/img]

September 16th, 2007
[img]http://cegranch.com/mods/tweety/2007-09-16-01.jpg[/img]

[img]http://cegranch.com/mods/tweety/2007-09-16-02.jpg[/img]


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