Pearl: The Oddball 2 Door XJ

[Buddy Holly]

Be careful or you scratch your skottle

Is that what the kids call it these days?

 

[Buddy Holly]

HUGE shoutout to Tom Woods for their excellent service. I called them yesterday at lunch time to order a replacement boot for my driveshaft and they not only hustled to ship it out same day so it would show up today, they also threw in a spare boot kit for free and offered to install and clean/grease the driveshaft free of charge if I could get the Jeep to them during business hours (they are on my way up to my next job). Great company to deal with!

 

[Buddy Holly]

I think I may have found the coolest camping spot around Moab.

Packed up camp and headed to Little Moab to hang out with some friends. Mainly watched them do the fun stuff since I didn't want to push my luck with another beatdown.

I have a laundry list of repairs and upgrades to do before I hit the rubicon. Besides the front locker, I’d like to get some skid plates built and some unibody stiffeners welded on. An add-a-leaf in the rear will help too so I can shorten the shackles again. I have about a two week timeframe to get it all done before I have to leave and drive out west again. For now I get to enjoy Idaho Falls, ID for 3-4 weeks and start ordering parts so they can be waiting when I get home.

 

[Buddy Holly]

It’s been a while so I guess I should update. Idaho was cool, but I didn’t get to do much wheeling or camping.

With life getting crazy and hectic I ended up taking some time off after Idaho to go home and rest. This meant turning down the CA job and no Rubicon trip for me. I’ve still been able to get out and have fun though with local trips on the east coast. Among the bigger ones I went to OBX and went rock climbing in the New River Gorge. Somewhere in there I added an ARB awning because the tent wasn’t overlander enough. Maybe the Land Rover and 200 series Cruiser guys will talk to me now

Nothing is in any order, but here’s a pic dump

Next up is to fix the leaky rear main seal and bearing slap the front diff while the axle is out of the Jeep. I’ll throw the lunchbox locker in while I have the diff apart too. No big trips planned for a while, but I’m hoping I can go west again next spring. I miss Utah and Colorado dearly. For now I’ll keep to the east coast with some weekend trips here and there.

 

[Buddy Holly]

Web wheelers weekend was a success. I spent the last week building a rack for my trailer to mount the tent and awning so I could get back out and be ignorant like I used to. Having all that weight on the roof made it sketchy to wheel.

My old 33s fit with some spare spacers I had laying in the garage. I made the rack out of 1.25” hrew and random scrap I had laying around. The awning is on a telescoping mount with synthetic winch line tension cables to keep it from bending when up. I made a mount for my mountain bike so i can haul everything on there and keep the weight out of the Jeep. Kayak fits on there too.

Pulled multiple late nights last week to get things done. Finished up and left for URE Friday with the rack still hot from the welds, no paint, ready to party. Everything worked great, and the Jeep is back to where I’m comfortable getting ignorant with it.

 

[ghost]

It was great to meet you. I wish I would have taken the mini bike around and looked at the different rigs now....

 

[Buddy Holly]

It was great to meet you. I wish I would have taken the mini bike around and looked at the different rigs now....

Likewise! I should have browsed more too.

 

[Buddy Holly]

Some of y’all might find this kinda cool. As an addendum to the rack build I forgot the trailer has its own little story. I built this trailer in high school for my senior project for shop class. My parents fronted me the parts and materials as an early graduation present. I knew very little about welding at the time so it isn’t pretty, but it’s been abused and held up over 7 years. The rack rejuvenated me on fixing it up. I'd like to strip it apart to blast the frame so it can be properly painted, get some nice hardwood boards for the deck, and color match the wheels to the jeep. Anyways, here's what it looked like when I built it in 2013

 

[Buddy Holly]

Here’s a couple of things I’ve built over the past few weeks as well. They’re for a friend’s Jeep but hey, I built them so they can go here. Built some basic rock sliders for a 2 door Cherokee, and developed v1.0 of adapting a savvy TJ engine skid to an XJ. V2.0 will be on my Jeep with a better front mount than the engine block. I can tie to some factory nutserts on the unibody, but I ran out of time to do it on this one. This first Jeep’s version will never see any wheeling harder than a gravel road, so I’m not concerned about it.

 

[Buddy Holly]

Well to say I’m disappointed is a gross understatement. The brand new Novak ax15 I bought in May is hurt. Long story short I started hearing a weird ticking noise on Tuesday. It’s rpm and load dependent, and goes away in 4th gear which sounds like something on the countershaft came apart. Drained the oil and found what appear to be pieces of gear on the drain plug. There’s 10k on this trans since it was installed during my Moab trip. The guys at Novak said they’ve never had a trans come back that was actually broken, so I might be the first. Just my luck.

Keep in mind this is supposed to be the very best ax15 on the market, and rated for 500hp. I’m skeptical of the claims now considering I’ve been very nice to this unit and still have a bone stock 4.0. I’m strongly regretting not trying to find an nsg370 or nv3550 to swap in.

If there’s any good news in this, it would be that I broke my personal record for pulling a trans solo. 1 hour 40 minutes start to finish!

Anyways, the trans is out and it’s getting sent off to Novak tomorrow for them to disassemble and evaluate if this is a warranty claim. Hopefully I’ll know something by the end of the week. In the meantime I'll be borrowing one of @sammi_davis ’s rigs to daily while Pearl is down.

 

[ghost]

I'll be interested to know what they say. I find it hard to believe they have never had one come back....

 

[Buddy Holly]

I'll be interested to know what they say. I find it hard to believe they have never had one come back....

They’ve had plenty come back, but he said they’ve never had a legitimate warranty claim. Every single one they had come back was fine upon disassembly and inspection and the noise or issue was something else outside the trans. I find that hard to believe. I’m a little scared that they’re going to say it’s not damaged, just to avoid the warranty claim after they get it apart. Hence why I decided to ship it to them instead of have them send me a replacement right away and potentially get stuck with another $1700 bill

You guys will be the first to hear what shakes out.

 

[GotWood]

Are you using a throttle body spacer? That may have taken your HP past the 500 mark!

 

[Buddy Holly]

Are you using a throttle body spacer? That may have taken your HP past the 500 mark!

I thought it was all the stickers on the back window

 

[jankoid]

I’m strongly regretting not trying to find an nsg370

No you aren't. That transmission is total garbage. I have nothing else to add here.

 

[Buddy Holly]

Thought I posted the video of the trans noise before, but apparently not so here it is. Trans shipped Monday before last and I haven’t heard from Novak yet if they’ve received it or got it torn apart. Hopefully next week I’ll get some sort of answer.

 

[Buddy Holly]

Novak got the trans and after a week of waiting they called to tell me they couldn’t find anything wrong with it. They spun it on their machine and didn’t hear anything, and they couldn’t find anything after tearing it all apart. Of course when they spun it they didn’t apply a load, which is when it made the noise.

After talking with them they reluctantly agreed to send me another transmission if I paid for shipping. I agreed and paid the $120 to fedex it to me and confirmed that they would send it to my bosses house in Eden, NC where I shipped the broken one from. I got a notification from fedex yesterday that said it was going to be delivered and then noticed it was being delivered to Delaware. Somewhere along the way they forgot to send it to North Carolina and used the address they had on file which was my grandfather’s house in Wilmington, DE. So now I have to drive 6 hours one way to Delaware to get my transmission

This is the first time I think I’ve felt guilty over a company taking care of me. I had a broken trans and somehow they made me feel like they did me a favor that they in no way were obligated to do.

At this point, and especially after hearing their transmission guy describe another customer who had the exact same issue as I did with my ax15, I don’t trust these units anymore and I don’t trust Novak to warranty another one since they specifically said they shouldn’t be sending me a replacement. I’m going to throw this replacement on a shelf and keep it for a rainy day and go find a 6 speed to put in the XJ instead. Already have one lined up, just waiting for the guy to get it pulled out for me. I’m also going to grab my old, only slightly broken ax15 from my friend in Utah while I’m on my way out to California. Worst case I’ll rebuild that and throw that in when I get home

 

[Blaze]

If there’s any good news in this, it would be that I broke my personal record for pulling a trans solo. 1 hour 40 minutes start to finish!

Lies! I've seen you do it faster. Of course, without regard to being able to reassemble it on a wrecked junker. Still a record is a record.

 

[Shreddinlettuce]

Novak got the trans and after a week of waiting they called to tell me they couldn’t find anything wrong with it. They spun it on their machine and didn’t hear anything, and they couldn’t find anything after tearing it all apart. Of course when they spun it they didn’t apply a load, which is when it made the noise.

After talking with them they reluctantly agreed to send me another transmission if I paid for shipping. I agreed and paid the $120 to fedex it to me and confirmed that they would send it to my bosses house in Eden, NC where I shipped the broken one from. I got a notification from fedex yesterday that said it was going to be delivered and then noticed it was being delivered to Delaware. Somewhere along the way they forgot to send it to North Carolina and used the address they had on file which was my grandfather’s house in Wilmington, DE. So now I have to drive 6 hours one way to Delaware to get my transmission

This is the first time I think I’ve felt guilty over a company taking care of me. I had a broken trans and somehow they made me feel like they did me a favor that they in no way were obligated to do.

At this point, and especially after hearing their transmission guy describe another customer who had the exact same issue as I did with my ax15, I don’t trust these units anymore and I don’t trust Novak to warranty another one since they specifically said they shouldn’t be sending me a replacement. I’m going to throw this replacement on a shelf and keep it for a rainy day and go find a 6 speed to put in the XJ instead. Already have one lined up, just waiting for the guy to get it pulled out for me. I’m also going to grab my old, only slightly broken ax15 from my friend in Utah while I’m on my way out to California. Worst case I’ll rebuild that and throw that in when I get home

I have 4 working ax15’s, 3 used ones, one brand new in the wrapper, and a rebuild kit. They’re pretty simple to rebuild if you have a press for some of the bearings. I’d be willing to let one go for a reasonable price.

 

[ghost]

I have 4 working ax15’s, 3 used ones, one brand new in the wrapper, and a rebuild kit. They’re pretty simple to rebuild if you have a press for some of the bearings. I’d be willing to let one go for a reasonable price.

I have the ax5 rebuild manual but not the ax15. Do you have one or just experience?

 

[Shreddinlettuce]

I have the ax5 rebuild manual but not the ax15. Do you have one or just experience?

Check out YouTube, about 3 video series related to ax15 with full step by step. This is the most tolerable one

 

[Buddy Holly]

No pictures, but I bought an nsg370 and have it exactly 33.333333% installed. It’s bigger than an ax15 so I will have to cut the floor plan to clear the crank sensor, and raise a small area of the tunnel to clear the shifter tower in order to run the stock xj crossmember. Currently on my way out to California for work, so it will have to wait to be finished until I get back.

I sold the new warranty replacement transmission the day after it showed up. Not fucking around with something I won’t be able to warranty if it breaks again.

 

[Buddy Holly]

Well shit, I guess I should do an update since it’s almost been a year. Pearl sat halfway done until June this year because the 6 speed required me to cut the tunnel and passenger floor pan out to fit with my tucked crossmember. I didn’t feel like doing that much work so I bought the warranty ax15 back from my friend and we got her running in 4 hours.

As a few of you knew, I got a job for Holley in April doing tech support on EFI systems. The Jeep pretty much sat around since I worked from home. Well more recently, as in the last three weeks, I got a promotion and transferred to GearFX Driveline in Mooresville. So I got an apartment and moved out here to take the job. This meant fixing some issues on Pearl since Dale is in time out still after his trans mishap. I’m currently driving back to my parents’ place about every other weekend right now since all my tools are still with them.

I had triple electric fans that I removed when I had an overheating problem that ended up being a shitty aftermarket radiator. I replaced them with a hacked-in Volvo 2 speed fan and a factory xj auxiliary fan that ran off a janky relay setup but I always wanted to go back to the triple fans. I finally made the time to redo all of the wiring and fix everything properly. Attached all three shrouds to each other and made some quick tabs to mount them to the radiator like factory. Then I used an MSD solid state relay to control them with a BMW two speed fan temperature switch. I have the passenger fan to come on at 185 and the other two come on at 195. This ended up really clean and the fans actually turn off during normal use because they allow better airflow through than the old stuff. Very happy. The MSD relay is killer. They’re expensive but you’re missing out if you don’t have one. 4 individual channels that can be linked together to switch up to 160A continuously. I’ll get some finished pics today since I finished after dark yesterday.

By the way, Pearl is at 394k and on track to break 400k before the new year

 

[Buddy Holly]

Finished pictures as promised. The extra relay switches ground with the key which supplies the temp switch. That way the fans shut off when the key gets turned off, but I can manually trigger them with a switch inside if I want them to run with the engine off.

Nobody judge the red electrical tape it’s all I had.

 

[Shreddinlettuce]

Gettin all matchy matchy with those red fans and e tape, you need to throw some type r stickers on the side and a carbon fiber shift knob to join the club