obxbronco's build

[criket]

I'm going to post up a few upgrades/repairs that were performed on my buddy Ricky's jeep (obxbronco on here). I hope he doesn't mind.

A little background on the jeep
2001 Jeep TJ Sport
4.0 liter
Stock gearing and axles.
What looks like a 4" lift but unsure of brand (everything is painted black underneath)
33" Duratracs on American Racing wheels (I think)


Well, my buddy with his TJ has some work he wants to do to it. He doesn't have a garage so we are using mine. Works out great because I get some wrenching time



Here is the list of repairs/mods:

- Freeze plugs. We think one has come loose on the back of the motor and is leaking through the bell housing. So we gotta pull the motor.
- Rear main seal
- Valve cover gasket
- Oil pan gasket

- Upgraded track bar

- 1.25" body lift

- 1" motor lift
- And whatever else.



We started on Saturday around 12 noon. Here are some pictures.

Not a lot done to it since I'm only working on it about an hour every couple of nights this week. We got to cut the exhuast and unplug the computer connections and she should pop right out.



Oh and if you guys don't have one of these and need to disconnect a fuel line or AC line, get one! Fuel line came off within 3 seconds with this tool.

 

[criket]

More progress made on my buddy's TJ. No pictures though because it looks the same, lol.



FINALLY got the motor and trans free from each other tonight. There were 2 more bolts at the top of the bell housing and they were external torx. Had to go to Auto Zone and pick up the correct socket and a couple extensions.



I still couldnt' get to the bolts because of lack of space so I did some research and found a solution that worked for me.

1. Put ratcher tie down strap around trans and tie to frame. Just to keep the trans from moving/falling.

2. Put trans in 4th gear so when the trans moves, it wont' bend the shifter.

3. Remove bolt on motor to motor mounts.

4. Remove motor mounts completely.

5. Lower engine until the motor mounts on the block are past the ones on the frame (or as far down as you can get it)

6. Remove consol, shifter knob, shifter boot, and metal plate around shifter.

7. Use many extensions and the external torx socket and remove external torx bolts from bell housing.

8. Raise engine and free it from the trans.

9. Have cold beer.





So now I have about 6 or so more electrical connections and the engine can be removed. The engine is currently loose and free and is beggin to be taken out.



More updates coming this weekend (with pictures)

 

[criket]

Good progress today. Ricky (owner of TJ) came over and we pulled the motor and set it on a couple of tires.



I had to cut the exhuast bolts with the sawzall and that was the most difficult part. There were a few more electrical connections that we had to get and we had to remove the front grill. The hoist wouldn't go high enough.



Oh and yes I did adjust the jack and block of wood under the jack before I left. It just got moved over there while we were pulling on the motor.

Oh yea and my wife is mad since I stole her kitchen towel to use as protection for the top of the motor.

 

[criket]

Got to work on the TJ some tonight. I been sick all week and haven't done much but cleaned up the garage.

Tonight I pulled the exhaust manifolds and installed new brass freeze plugs. As I was putting them in I realized that kit didn't have enough plugs. I need 2 more plugs. Anyway, I put in what I had and I'll call him tomorrow to tell him.

After that, I pulled the valve cover off to install the new valve cover gasket. I inspected the valve train while I was there. All was good, a couple of push rods were a little tight, no broken springs or loose rockers. Very good. Then I cleaned the valve cover and head and installed the new valve cover gasket.

 

[criket]

Worked some on it again last night. Finally got all the brass freeze plugs and got them in.

And the one in the back of the head

Here is the back side of one of the original freeze plugs that I took out. Looks like the water in it had some rust. Whatcha think?

Then I took the oil pan off and pulled the rear main cap to replace the rear main seal. Everything that I've read on the interwebs says that these 4.0's leak from the rear main seal. Even after they are changed out for new ones.

Here is a pic of the crank where I pulled the old seal from the top half. It took me a while since I had to use a punch and hammer to push it around and out from the crank. One it moved, it came out very easily. I had to be sure that I didnt' nick the crank or make any major boo boos. Then I installed the new seal after coating it in new engine oil. It went in very easily (no pics of install since it's hard to hold a camera and install the new seal)

New seals from Crown automotive

Here is the main cap with the old seal in it

Tomorrow nite schedule:

-Carry main cap to work to use on a vise to get old seal out

-Install new seal in main cap

-Install main cap and torque

-Install new oil pan gasket.

-Then motor is done!

 

[criket]

Got to work on it more tonight. I had the stomach bug yesterday, missed work and garage time. Blah. Also, sorry for the lack of pics. Camera died after 3 pictures, dangit!

Carried the main cap to work and used the vise to get the other half of the rear seal out. Took all of 30 seconds. So pissed, I need a vise BAD!

I put the new seal in the main cap, cleaned the cap and bearing, put bearing back in cap, main cap back in motor, torqued it to 80 ft lbs and BAM! New rear main seal in.

Then I reinstalled the spider thingy that connects all the main caps together. Not really sure why it has it but anyway. Bottom end all buttoned up

Then I cleaned the bottom of the block and the oil pan and installed the new oil pan gasket. I put plenty of rtv sealant around the gasket so it shouldn't leak (1.5 tubes of black rtv to be exact. Probably overkill but screw it, I ain't doing this again anytime soon) Sorry no pics of oil pan and gasket, camera died at this point.

Tomorrow night's schedule:

-Install final brass freeze plug on rear of block

-Reinstall exhaust manifold and driver motor mount

-Clean up garage. It's a friggin mess!!!!!

 

[criket]

Good progress tonight. Once again I was sick all weekend and didn't even go out of the house so I made up for it tonight

Installed that final brass freeze plug in the back of the block. Had to remove the flywheel first. Oh and always make some sort of lines or something so you'll know which way the flywheel goes.

My wicked paint marks.

The flywheel is actually pretty heavy. I was surprised but I guess that it is heavy because of the looong inline 6. Everything else on this mother is heavy, why not the flywheel eh?

Then I installed this last bad boy. It's a shame that no one will ever see it.

Then to top it off, I reinstalled the exhuast manifold. BTW, the intake and exhaust are held on by the same bolts (huge washers grab both the intake and exhaust). So after the intake basically fell in my lap while trying to line up the exhaust, I just took both off and started with the exhaust and then put on the intake. Once again, you won't be able to see those purdy brass plugs. So sad.

Motor is DONE!!!!! She is ready to be put back in the jeep. But wait. We still have a motor mount lift, body lift, and track bar to install. Oh well. Maybe this weekend.

 

[criket]

Not much of an update tonight. I did manage to clean up the garage, clean my tools, and put them away. That took the majority of the time.

I did however install the 1" motor mount lift. Super easy install. We may have to take these off when we put the motor back in. I'm not sure yet. We'll see.

I hope that I can loosen all of the body mounts this week and put the 1.25" body lift on this weekend. That is this weeks and weekends goal. Here's to sticking to the plan

 

[criket]

Some more progress today. Ricky came over so that made things go a LOT quicker.

First thing was to loosen the body mount bolts. Easy right?

2 minutes into working and this happens

ARGH!!! Off to Lowes I go to buy real breaker bars.

Got back and loosened all the body mount bolts. Then I put on the 2 front brackets that the TJ grill sets on. Since it is a 1.25" lift, we needed these brackets to fill the gap where the rubber bump things are on the grill. There is a long flat piece of steel on the back side that goes down the side of the frame. I drilled a couple of holes and ran a self tapping bolt through.

Then we got the floor jack and some blocks of wood and jacked one side of the jeep up at a time, slide in the 1.25" body lift and installed the new bolts. Repeat other side and BAM! You just got lifted 1.25"

By the way, we found out that you have to jack the body up a LOT before you have enough space to slide in the body lift. It took us a few minutes to figure out hey, we're not lifting it high enough yet, lol.

Here are a couple of pics that sort of show the finished product. Sorry for the crappy pictures.

 

[criket]

Then we installed the radio lock box from Quadratec. This thing is sweet!!! You put your radio in and put it in the factory location. It has a drawer and a locking plate on the front so no one can steal your radio. I think I'm going to order one.

Then we started messing around with the new track bar and track bar mount. We still have to get some big drill bit before it's done. The new bracket is huge!

Out with the old track bar and in with the new.

And then we test fitted his tube doors for fun. They look pretty cool.

 

[criket]

Alright, let's get an update in here

Got the track bar bracket on tonight. (actually I worked on it some last night but who's counting, right?).

As you can see, I mocked up the bracket and drilled some pilot holes. Those pilots holes are 1/2" btw.

I used this drill. I call her Big Momma

Once I got the pilot holes drilled, I removed the bracket to drill some even bigger holes for the crush sleeves that go inside the frame. That is a 7/8" drill bit. Wonder if Big Momma can handle such a large bit????

Yep, she took it like a pro. Never grunted or strained. Here is a picture of the first hole after I drilled it out to 7/8"

I'll just be honest, drilling these big holes with the 7/8" bit wore me out. I can't keep up with Big Momma.

And here is the final bracket position and tightened down to specs.

I had a good night tonight with the progress. It just took a while and a lot of energy to drill those big holes.

Left to do:

-Install last bolt of opposite end of track bar. Probably going to have to drill out the hole a little bit.

-Final check for all bolts for track bar, body lift, and motor mount lift.

-Install motor back into Jeep.

I plan to call a couple of jeep buddies to come over Saturday so we can get this thing to running again! I really hope that it is running on Saturday night.

 

[criket]

Progress was made today. Ricky and I pulled a 12 hour shift in the garage. I'm tired, lol.

It started well but when we went to line up the clutch and input in the transmission, we ran into a problem. The clutch wasn't lined up correctly and no auot parts store had any line up tools. So after 4 hours of wrestling with it and going to a couple parts stores, we decided to line it up ourselves. It worked!!!!!!! Don't ask me how but it did.

One other thing we had to do was to get a longer bar for the engine hoist/cherry picker. The one that came with it was way too short and we couldn't get the motor back into the jeep far enough. So my buddy Phillip works at a garage and said they had a longer one that would work. It was about 4 foot longer, lol. It worked too!!!!!

Here we are putting the motor in the first time.

We put the motor in and took it out 4-5 times before it finally lined up with the transmission and everything. We got it in and all the trans bolts tightened down.

Right after it went in for the last time (I hope).

As you can see in the above pictures, we had just got it in and tightened down to the trans and motor mounts. No wires were reconnected and the point above.

Then we started pluging everything back up. This was the easist part thanks to me and Ricky labeling EVERY wire, nut, and bolt that we removed.

And this is where we ended the night (after 9 pm).

Left to do:

-Install surpentine belt.

-Install fan

-Install radiator, radiator shroud, and grill.



I have to thank Ricky, Rocky, Charles, Pa, and Phillip for all their help today. We wouldn't have got anything done without all you guys help.

 

[criket]

Well made it to here tonight.

Seems like the list to completion never ends, lol.

-Install lower radiator hose

-Install sway bar

-Install plastic thingy on front that covers up sway bar

-Install factory air intake

-Button up interior around gear shift

-Fill with fluids

-Test drive





Almost there.......

 

[obxbronco]

huge thanks to toby (criket). Wish we worked same shift so i could be there more.

 

[criket]

Well she runs!!!! After topping it off with oil and coolant, I went to start it and it did nothing. After checking the battery and uses, I began following the wires and found that one of the grounds on th eblock had a nut loose. I tightened that bad boy down and she started!!!

Runs smooth, good oil pressure, no oil leaks, no coolant leaks. Exhaust manifold smoked a little at start up but I'm sure I got oil on it when I had it off.

Feels so good to hear it run and run good. Project complete, at least on my part. Now it's up to Ricky to continue this build lol.

 

[obxbronco]

got a few more ideas, but nothing real major! lol