Accidentally building an LJ

[Rnuovrcj5]

I’ve been meaning to actually make a build thread for this junk for a while so here it goes. I’m pretty bad about remembering to take pics as I’m working so I’m sure I’ll miss some stuff.

So here goes the backstory on this thing. I originally bought a 1927 Model T coupe built as a hot rod when I still lived in Texas. 402 BBC, manual VB powerglide, weird BOP 12 bolt. It was almost finished when I bought it. I finished it on the roof level of the parking garage for my apartment. It really wasn’t on the road very long before I got T-boned in traffic. Not a fun day. I ended up buying it back from the insurance company and fixing it. Fast forward a bit to having moved to Albemarle and I finished the new rear suspension the night before trading it for a tube chassis buggy.

 

[Rnuovrcj5]

Fast forward a bit more and I’ve done some work to the buggy and used it and broken it a few times. A few more moves have happened (Albemarle to Mooresville to Mocksville) at this point I’ve got a tiny little daughter that I need a seat for. I bought a mini suspension seat and spent quite a bit of time trying to come up with a good way to cram it in the back of the buggy. Reworking the cage wasn’t going to be too bad but I never could come up with a good way to get her away from the fuel tank. At some point around this time, an unfinished TJ on tons and 40’s popped up on Hardline. The guy was sick of working on it and was looking to trade for something turn-key. After talking to him a bit we ended up working out a deal and meeting up in SC to do the swap.

 

[Rnuovrcj5]

Now is when the “build“ of this thing sort of starts. It’s got a bunch of good parts in it. Currie RockJock high-pinion 60 front, 14 bolt rear, ORI struts on the front, 4 link rear, 3 linked front, PSC hydro assist, rollcage, rear mounted fuel cell, stretched wheelbase, etc.

After digging into it a bit, I’ve decided that at least 3 different people have “built” this thing. There’s some really nice work on it, there’s some nice work that’s not quite right, and there’s some pretty hacked stuff.

Some of the ”nice but wrong” stuff included the front suspension. It looks really good at a glance but then you start to realize if stuff was moved around just a little bit it would actually work . It’s got 14” ORI’s on it set up in the middle of the stroke like they should be, but everything hits everything at about the 3-3.5” of uptravel mark. Another good one is the expensive universal Genright panhard kit that seems to be installed as it came out of the box. Geo with the steering is actually pretty good but it’s way to close to the frame rail and the engine. That‘s next on the list to fix now. The rear 4 link stuff wasn’t bad but had some stuff like the lower links were a couple pieces sleeved together and all the joints were pretty smoked. It also had a super tall truss that smashed into the fuel tank crossmember with about 2” of uptravel. There’s some other stuff along the same lines too.

The “hacked” stuff included the massive notches in the rear frame rails to clear Coilovers at one point and the super well made fuel cell that was mounted in a pretty terrible way. The rear frame rails were about a 1/2” thick at the notches which were in front of the coil spring perches. It looks like there was more cage in it at some point that would have supported it but it was all cut out before I got it. The fuel cell was a really nicely made piece that uses. Factory TJ sending unit. Unfortunately, it was mounted by sitting directly on two pieces of round tube spanning the frame rails. The rear floor was cut out to let it stick up inside and there were hold down straps bolted to the body. If you had picked the body off the cell would have just sat on top of the tubes until you bumped it off. The roll cage isn’t the greatest once you start looking close too. I’m sure it would have been fine but there were a few things I didn’t care for on it.

I know I have more pics of this stuff but they must not have transferred to my iPad. I’ll see if I can find them at some point.

 

[Rnuovrcj5]

This gets cool for a minute and then mostly collects dust for several years (the tiny daughter from a few posts back is now 7 and has a little sister).

About 2 weeks after making the trade, an LJ body and frame popped up on here for CHEAP. I happened to look right after it was posted and managed to get it. The body was in nearly perfect shape but the frame was tweaked from a front end collision along with the fenders, hood, and grille. It also came with the entire drivetrain from a 1970(?) Commando which has since been sold. The only thing that kinda sucked about the whole deal was that the dude ended up “forgetting“ to bring the title and then ghosted me after that. Oh well.

The LJ body and the TJ both got shoved into my shop and mostly just moved out of the way when necessary. A few things got done to them like selling some parts I wasn’t going to use and buying some that I needed. Not really a whole lot happened at this point. The TJ could move around under its own power so that was nice at this point.

 

[Rnuovrcj5]

That last pic with the big enclosed trailer throws a nice wrinkle into building anything for a while. We decided to sell our house, store or sell a bunch of stuff, buy a big camper and go travel the country for as long as we could. All my tools and parts and everything we kept from the house ended up in that 44’ enclosed trailer and got parked at my wife’s grandparents house along with the TJ and LJ tub. The house sold fast in July of 2021 and we hit the road.

 

[Rnuovrcj5]

After about a year wandering around the country, we ended up back in NC. My wife went back to work as a teacher and we parked the camper at her parent’s house. I ended up pretty bored at that point and got inspired by the father‘s day “drive something cool to church” car show that our church announced. I decided that I could attack the TJ and get it to the point where it would be driveable if not anywhere near “finished”. A few weeks later I rolled into the church parking lot on 39” red labels and a an empty front housing.

 

[Rnuovrcj5]

Now that it was ”driveable”, I started driving it a good bit around town. I ended up buying a set of 40” Cooper STT Pro’s for “street” tires so I didn’t kill the reds and drove it all summer.

At some point around this time, I had sold the LJ frame for way too cheap to get it out of the way and had bought the back 2/3ish of another frame to use. I rolled the back of the frame into my FIL’s garage and got to work. I had a shaved 14 bolt that was originally going in my Toyota (also sold it ) so I built a completely new rear suspension with it. My goals were to keep it as low as possible and go back to a factory fuel tank under the body.

 

[Rnuovrcj5]

I’ll come back to this later. The rear suspension/frame work is where this really kicks off. Up until that point I had pretty much just done enough to get it driving but not much else. Once I started the new frame a lot started to change fast. I used the front of the Tj frame and the back of the 2nd Lj frame to build an Lj frame with my TJ vin. This allowed me to get rid of all the janky work in the rear half and swap the Lj body on to gain that space for the whole family to ride.

Little teaser of what’s to come…

 

[Rnuovrcj5]

I made sure to take pictures as I built the rear suspension and frame out. I started out by cutting every single stock bracket off of the “new” rear frame section. The “extra“ Lj fuel tank crossmember got cut out as well.

 

[Rnuovrcj5]

Next I drug it into my in-law’s garage and went after it. Started out with a Barnes fuel tank skid to be able to figure out how far back I could set the rear axle. I bolted it to the ”TJ position” all the way at the rear of the frame. After looking at a few ways to do the front mounts on it I decided to cut out and move the factory shock/fuel tank crossmember back in the frame. A carbide tooth sawzall blade cut it cleanly out and set it up nicely to weld back in. I made some temporary straps to hold the fuel tank skid where it needed to be and bolted the crossmember to it to set its position before welding it in place. I did a little trimming on it around where the factory shock mounts were to make it fit the frame better in its new position.

 

[Rnuovrcj5]

At this point I started setting up the rear axle. I wanted as much stretch as I could get and still keep the factory tank. An added bonus of this is if I ever decide it needs more in the rear, I can bolt a genright tank in it and gain another few inches. I’d have to rework a bunch of other stuff too as well as probably have to comp cut the rear. So there’s not much chance of me doing that. Wheel base is gonna end up in the 112”ish range once the front is done too. I think I ended up with a roughly 7” stretch in the back.

I bought a Barnes 14 bolt to TJ swap kit but only ended up using the center section of the truss and upper link tabs. I also cut a good bit off of the bottom of it to get the upper links as low as I could to keep them out of the floor. Having bottomed the TJ out hard enough to dent the crossmember a few times I didn’t want that happening on this one.

 

[Rnuovrcj5]

I’m gonna pretty much just photo dump all the pics of the rear suspension going together. Ended up with a mix of the Barnes truss and a bunch of tabs and brackets from Motobilt and TMR. Lower links are 7075 from Wide Open Design with old Ballistic Fab joints (dimensionally identical to Johnny Joints) and are about 35 or 38” off the top of my head. Uppers are 1.5x.250” DOM with helms from TMR. I had SendCutSend cut and bend the frame plates that locate the frame side link mounts and used TMR frame brackets for both upper and lower mounts. The frame plate and link mounts also bridge over where the frame later gets cut and put back together. It’s hard to see in the pictures but the two “C’s” that the link mounts are on are one piece with a plate tying them together on the bottom of the rail. This made it super easy to get them back in the right location after removing them to cut the frame rails.

 

[Rnuovrcj5]

I decided to use TJ/LJ coil springs in the rear to keep it somewhat simple and to avoid chopping notches in the frame or holes in the body (gotta keep that A/C inside). Shoving the rear end as far back as I did made keeping it low a bit interesting. I think I bought 3 or 4 different upper spring relocation kits before ending up with Barnes “factory replacement“ spring mounts. I’m pretty sure they’re flipped left/right from the way they’re intended to get them to sit how I wanted. The axle side spring mounts are offset stuff from TNT Customs. Springs are set up with just a little bit of forward lean like a factory TJ/LJ. I used a piece of all thread to set the upper/lower perches in relation to each other. I don’t remember where I saw that idea but it worked great. At this point, the springs were set up as if they were 9” tall at ride height. This came from measuring them installed in the TJ. I figured it was easier to build it all as low as possible and then adjust the ride height with lift springs or spacers instead of ending up too tall. This worked out great as it ended up with Currie 2.5” springs in the back after it was together.

 

[Rnuovrcj5]

At this point, it was time to cut it all up. I moved the TJ, the frame/suspension/axle, and the LJ body to a warehouse that my FIL runs a side business out of. This was mostly due to the fact that there’s enough room to have everything there at once. Oh, and forklifts. Forklifts make body swaps easy. They do a bit of fab work out of that shop so there are welders, plasma cutters, grinders, etc there so I didn’t have to bring everything from the house.

The original plan was to attack it once it was all over there and be done in 2-3 days. After spending a day making trips over there with everything, our older daughter came down with a cold and had to stay home from school. So I stayed home with her during the day and would go over to the shop as soon as my wife got home from work and stay as long as I could stand to each night. It took a little longer than my original plan but I brought everything there on Monday and rolled the now LJ swapped Jeep out the door and on to my trailer on Saturday.

While the body was off, I replaced the valve cover gasket (which is still leaking ). I thought I could slip the valve cover out the back under the tie bar between the shock towers. It needed another 1/8” to come out so I ended up cutting the bar and welding the tabs on it to put it back in.

I also swapped the sye’d 231 for a 3.8 Atlas 2 while I could get to it from the top. One bolt still made that a pain.

 

[Rnuovrcj5]

Now for the real fun. Measure about eleventy-billion times and cut my Jeep in half . Due to all the work and figuring I had done already when building the rear frame half out, this went really smoothly. I never got a pic of it but there’s a 22“ long inner sleeve where I joined the 2 frames together. Then the link bracket tie-in piece bridges it on the outside of the splice.

Once I had a one piece but longer frame again, I started putting all the link brackets back on. The SendCutSend pieces along with some reference marks made this super easy. Then I put the rear suspension back together and set the LJ body on for the first time. A bit of cutting in the rear wheel openings and it was bolted on for good.

It had stock TJ springs in the back at this point and looked awesome sitting at that height but there was no way it was gonna work.

At some point I closed in/gusseted that upper link mount on the frame but I guess I never took a pic.

 

[Rnuovrcj5]

Back at the house with a floor jack holding it up to figure out the rear springs. Currie 3”TJ/2.5”LJ ended up perfect.

 

[Hokie_YJ]

Finally!! Seriously, I'm really glad you posted this I'll definitely be using it for inspiration if I can ever really get started on mine.

 

[Rnuovrcj5]

Next was building a dash and some fun with wiring. The ‘98 TJ didn’t have A/C but the ‘05 LJ does. All the brackets were on the ‘98 engine but the dash didn‘t have the controls for the A/C stuff. The ‘98 also has the headlight switch in the dash instead of on the turn signal stalk like later TJ’s. Between both dashes and a couple of factory service manuals, I put together a ‘98 dash with the ‘05 center stack/HVAC controls. It wasn’t bad at all to merge the ‘05 wiring into the ‘98 harness to trigger the A/C. The entire HVAC box from the ‘05 is under the dash. I did later discover that the evaporator has a pretty massive leak in it. It’s the only part in the entire A/C system I didn’t buy a new one of. I have a new one to go in it but haven’t been motivated to pull the dash again.

 

[Hokie_YJ]

Next was building a dash and some fun with wiring. The ‘98 TJ didn’t have A/C but the ‘05 LJ does. All the brackets were on the ‘98 engine but the dash didn‘t have the controls for the A/C stuff. The ‘98 also has the headlight switch in the dash instead of on the turn signal stalk like later TJ’s. Between both dashes and a couple of factory service manuals, I put together a ‘98 dash with the ‘05 center stack/HVAC controls. It wasn’t bad at all to merge the ‘05 wiring into the ‘98 harness to trigger the A/C. The entire HVAC box from the ‘05 is under the dash. I did later discover that the evaporator has a pretty massive leak in it. It’s the only part in the entire A/C system I didn’t buy a new one of. I have a new one to go in it but haven’t been motivated to pull the dash again.
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Love the Cleetus wheel! lol Is it quick release? If so which kit did you use?

 

[Rnuovrcj5]

Love the Cleetus wheel! lol Is it quick release? If so which kit did you use?

It’s on a NRG SFI release with their adapter hub for the wrangler column. It’s a super nice piece. That wheel is nice too even if I didn’t win whatever car they were giving away when I bought it

 

[Hokie_YJ]

I’ve been meaning to do the disconnect for a while. I need to order a wheel during their next giveaway. Lol.

 

[baggednissan]

Bad ass man thanks for sharing!

 

[Rnuovrcj5]

After getting the dash in, I went after the rear axle. At this point it was an empty housing with the truss welded to the tubes And no brakes. All the other brackets had been fully welded at this point (link tabs & coil perches).

This housing has been shaved about 10 or 12 years ago. Before all the kits that exist now were a thing. It was put on a milling machine and the bottom was cut off. Then it was plated back closed. I‘ve had it stashed away with plans to put it under a Toyota truck that I had. The truck is gone but I had bought a lot of axle parts for the tons that never made it under the truck and they’re all getting used now in the Lj. A Motobilt “13 bolt” cover fit really well and I only had to shave some material off the bottom to match the housing. I bought a shaved 5.38 gear from ECGS which fit perfect with the shave. It also got a Yukon grizzly locker that I bought from them over 10 years ago.

Before setting up the gear, I stripped it all the way down to finish welding it. After using my big cooker burner to preheat the center, the truss got fully welded to the chunk with Ni99 rod. Post heated it for a bit and then wrapped it in a welding blanket for a while.

After it had cooled off, I set it up with the gear and locker. It set up pretty easily and went together quick after that. I transferred over the disc brakes from the TJ’s axle and got it reinstalled under the LJ.

 

[Rnuovrcj5]

I gave my FB marketplace find of a fuel tank some attention at this point. I cleaned it out really well and realized it was an early “15 gallon” TJ tank. The only real difference between a 15 and a 19 is the length that the vent tube extends into the tank farther. I chopped the vent tube off to the 19 gallon length and transferred the fuel sending unit/pump from the fuel cell into the tank. I should have bought a new, nice sending unit…

 

[Rnuovrcj5]

Next up was brake lines. I decided to run a flex line down the driver side upper link to a T fitting on the axle, hardline out to the ends, then flex lines into the calipers. I pretty quickly realized I needed to figure out where the shocks and bump pads were going to be on the axle so,I could route the brake lines around them. I had an idea of where the bump stops were going to land on the rails from mocking it up before the body went on.

I used TMR mounts and cans, some ancient swayaway bumps that had come with the buggy, and axle pads from some desert truck shop that I can’t remember. The bumps are set so that without the delrin strike pads, they‘ll stop the axle with about 3/8” clearance to the floor. Setting them without the pads is also a good way to get them squared up to the landing pads on the axle. After getting it driving again, I pretty quickly realized the bumps were totally blown out and needed to be rebuilt. Sourcing parts for them was going to be an issue so I bought a pair of 2” travel Fox airbumps from Accutune to replace them.

Lower shock mounts came from TMR and I made the uppers. It took quite a bit of flexing the rear end out and making little tweaks to get the 2” body Fox shocks to clear both the tire and frame without cutting into the frame rail. At full flex, the tire just barely kisses the shock body. This is with the 5.625” backspace H2 wheels so it should have plenty of clearance once I buy some beadlocks to put the reds back on for shenanigans.

Then I ran the brake lines. Threaded standoffs were welded on and padded p-clamps from McMasterCarr were used to retain the hard lines. All the fittings and braided hoses came from SRI in Mooresville. They can make custom braided lines however you want. I ended up using -3 sized flex lines and 3/16” NiCop for the hard lines. I’m very happy with how it turned out.


I had it flip the cherry picker over once during this process. It was looking a bit sketchy so I was keeping an eye on it and got out of the way quick when it went. It did a little bit of damage to the edge of the hood and took out the windshield. In hindsight, I should have had the cherry picker turned 90* with a leg in front and behind the tire I was picking up.