Operation 'Basket Case MJ'

[Gojira94]

Column and steering shaft in temporarily, so I can move it around for cleaning and sealing the underside of the cab.

 

[Gojira94]

Sway bar and disconnects in. I'll have to wait until the engine weight is in it for final adjustment...

 

[Gojira94]

Been a while. Had some stuff happen in early August and just lost all interest... in everything. Then last week a couple of XJs showed up in my local yard. I figured I'd try to make a go of motivating myself to find some missing pieces of the puzzle and clean up some odds and ends in the 'keep' pile.

A pair of AX-15s showed up in 94 2-dr, 4WD XJ and a 96 2WD 4-dr. I hoped maybe an OE transfer case skid on the 94, no dice. I grabbed the crossmember from the 96 and cleaned it up. My original AX-4/ AX5/ Auto on the left, AX-15 on the right.

Got all the rust off the tank straps and painted them. Ordered some strap liner today from Tanks, Inc. They come in 24" strips, 1.5" wide, 1/16" thick (part # SL24, sold individually). I figure it'll help preserve the tank and bed mounting surfaces.

I cleaned up the charcoal canister and painted its mounting bracket. I temporarily mounted it so I could get some idea of where to mount a coolant expansion tank. I painted the home-made bracket for the Wilwood valve and test fitted it for steering shaft clearance and fitment. Looks good. Also mocked up the booster/ master with the rear line and passenger side line.

And here's the next dreaded job- clean all this up and undercoat it...

 

[Gojira94]

95-96 XJ booster clearance with foam pad and spacer from the boneyard... no trimming or bending needed.

 

[Gojira94]

Couple more bits and pieces. Battery tray, new filter in canister and buttoned up, coil and module, front lower supports.

 

[Gojira94]

So... how to use an HO overflow bottle with the Renix relay and solenoid bracket? Easy. Cut up the HO bottle/ fuse center bracket and drill a couple new holes. I separated the HO fuse bracket into its 2 pieces (drilled out the rivets) and then cut out another section to keep just the bottle bracket and clear the Renix bracket. Then move the Renix bracket up the pinch rail thing on the wheelhouse panel about 2 1/2" - 3"and drill new holes for it.

 

[Gojira94]

Then, what about the coil and module? There's the fuse block half of the bottle mount to work with, and bolt to the passenger side engine mount bracket:

I can see I'll need to put a small rubber cup under the bottle's locator... nipple...
and the coil/ module will sit kind of like this:

Except flip it the other way and trim it first and then drill some holes for the module to mount to:

Drill holes where it sits here, and bolt it to this plate, something like this:

Then the other end can be drilled to fit onto these existing holes in the engine mount bracket, which I think are for the Renix coil/ module bracket anyway. I'll keep that original piece in a drawer...

If I have to pull the coil/ module wiring out of the harness and split it off into its own loom I'm fine with that. Won't know until it's pretty much all in there. I think the wiring around the solenoid/ relays will be 100% fine without modification.

 

[Gojira94]

I finalized the brackets for Renix PDC, coil/ module and HO coolant bottle. In HO models, the locator nipple on the bottom of coolant bottle fits in the hole to the upper coil mount. Renix years these are capped off. Every HO XJ I've ever seen in the boneyard has a ton of moisture and crud jammed down in there, which traps moisture in the void above the bumpstop mount. So I mounted the bottle a little higher in its bracket with the hole capped underneath it and used a rubber grommet as a cushion. The coil bracket is a piece of the PDC bracket reused and bolted to the pass, side engine mount bracket. All the metal got cleaned up and painted with engine enamel.

 

[Gojira94]

New clutch master- 91-96. Works with internal slave up through 93 and external through 96. I'm internal slave for now, with plans to go external at some point later. The 91-93 clutch hose works for this and I've already got one in great shape, though it's from a YJ and I can make it work pretty easily. HO has a .011" larger bore than the Renix .688" It also has the rubber sleeve all the way through the firewall and has a positive stop. Perfect fit and rod angle on the Renix clutch pedal assembly.

 

[Gojira94]

Modified cruise vacuum dump valve bracket. I used a leftover scrap of the HO PDC/ coolant bottle bracket to accommodate the GM style switch for cruise system power and brake light (95-96 brake booster setup with no grinding on the rod).

 

[Bebop]

This is soooo clean.
You should put it on BAT after you're done, I'm sure you could make some $$$

 

[Gojira94]

This is soooo clean.
You should put it on BAT after you're done, I'm sure you could make some $$$

Thanks! This is the first and only 4WD I've ever owned after doing years of hot rods and street trucks. I plan to keep it and continue doing minor updates as time and money allow. Mainly replace the D35 with something a bit stronger and re-gear, some strengthening of the housings, etc. Right now I'm just focused on getting it moving under its own power and shaking it down to daily reliable. I have @Shreddinlettuce to thank for the good deal on the drivetrain from his 93 YJ. I hope he's ok. Swannanoa is almost completely wiped off the map.

 

[Gojira94]

Getting the interior of the firewall sorted out. Got all the rust out of the area below the clutch master and shot paint on everything above the foot well. Kind of sloppy with runs, I got a little heavy with it. Exposed edges are getting another cleaning and dressing with weld-through primer.

 

[Gojira94]

Passenger side, kind of the same, working my way back.

 

[Gojira94]

Lower cowl and hood seal track done.

 

[Gojira94]

Floor patch fitting and under cab cleanup underway in earnest. I ordered the C2C XJ front halves quite a while back, before Keyparts started making the MJ versions. So I knew there would be more than minor modification to make them work. I did get the Keyparts longitudinal floor support, so there's that at least, for the section I need. Driver's side main panel is almost done. Made a template for the section above it, so much rot from the previous clutch master.

Still some weld-through primer prep to do on the bottom side, but it's close to ready.

Cab bottom side- A blunt flat blade screwdriver to remove the overburden of crud and old undercoat, followed by a generous wash with odorless mineral spirits.

 

[ghost]

Just about every 80's - 90's manual XJ or MJ has that same rot. At least that has been my experience.

 

[Gojira94]

More progress on the floors today. Still have to patch the longitudinal brace but I’m almost ready to burn stuff in…

 

[Gojira94]

Finally done and ready to start burning them in. I haven't welded since the end of the 90s, working at a shop that had equipment. One of the kids that works for me at job #2 has a prodigy friend and I've seen his work. I'm having him do it.

Driver's side:

Passenger side:

 

[Gojira94]

I see 2 places I missed I need to go back and strip off the black paint on the patches, now that I'm looking at it again (pics 2 & 5 above).

 

[Gojira94]

Floor, top side progress... inner rockers still need some attention in a few spots, nothing major. Two pinholes I reamed out a bit to address on the passenger side footwell:

Found water intrusion in the passenger rear corner that did this next to the passenger inner rocker. I'm just going to patch it with a small piece of steel and JB Weld epoxy, as the metal's too thin to weld where the 3 holes are:

Rear corner on the passenger side- all that seam sealer needs to come out to assess what's what. The circled spot is where the water's been coming in to rot the passenger side:

Rear driver's corner also needs some digging in and addressing:

 

[Gojira94]

Thankfully nothing horrible going on in the passenger or driver rear corners.

But I'll want to clean and reseal the floor seam on the bottom rear. Looks like the rust is crawling up from below on the rear edge of the floor panel behind the driver's seat...

 

[Gojira94]

Passenger rear corner- no real issues here. Clean off the light rust scale and seam seal the hell out of it. Now working on the driver's side looking for the same.

 

[Gojira94]

Topside of floor... is DONE. Now onto doing exploratory forays into the bottom seams for cleaning, addressing any small rust spots and likely pathways for water intrusion and sealing them up.

 

[Gojira94]

Bottom side. Some decent progress. Found a few small spots of very minor rust, like size of a nickel or smaller. The dirt that remains in crevices is a sandy sort, mixed with cast off fluids and softened factory undercoat. The last challenge is getting all that out of the space between the seatbelt anchor straps and the floor. Guitar string or piano wire should help get that out, followed by a spritz of brake cleaner to flush it out. Then some more seam sealer work, a black enamel over all of it, followed by fresh undercoat.