A few months back I stumbled across an 05 TJ that the owner was tired of working on. We had talked about selling the CJ5 when it’s done for something with better road manners and to wheel until I finish the CYJ. And as much as my wife loves that old Jeep and I do too, she isn’t a huge fan of driving a 3spd and no power steering.
The PO had chased the 42RLE issues of it sticking in 2nd gear and going into limp mode and honestly I think he got hosed by whomever worked on it for him. They swapped in a new transmission instead of addressing the known ECU issues. When it came back it had a slight tick too. Add to that the steering was wore slap out. It had a drop pitman arm on it that made things mildly terrifying above 60.
We showed up, agreed on a price that I think gave him sellers remorse and took them to dinner to ease the pain.
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Overall the bones were there
05 4.0/42RLE
135k
3.5” rough country springs
Adjustable front lower control arms
Fox Shocks
Tcase drop
4.56 gears
35’s on 20’s
Amazon bumpers and LED’s
Superwinch 9500
First thing to go were the heavy 20’s in favor of some 35x12.50 Yokohama MT’s on 15x8 soft 8’s.
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During the wheel/tire swap some of the studs were wrecked from the deep offset aluminum wheels and too many uggaduggas. About 5 in total between the 4 wheels.
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It drove a little better after that but there was still a lot of play so thanks to
@tobaccoroad4wd for ordering me up a Currie Currectlync kit to go with the OEM pitman arm I had already grabbed from the parts store.
Old and busted
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Fresh
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After an alignment and then driving about 1000 miles the little tick I had ignored thinking it was a little piston slap on #6 had turned into a knock one night on the way back from an ice cream run to Mayberry. The stethoscope pointed me toward the trans. Sweet, no piston slap. Shit. Transmission. Dreading dropping the trans, @jodytreadway suggested checking the torque converter bolts which can be done through the inspection cover. Sure enough. All of them were at least a thread loose or more and not a drop of loctite in sight. 45 min later, no noise and the little vibration at idle was gone.
With things running properly now, focus was on the fun stuff we bought it for. Wheelin and weekend cruising. We loaded it up with our camping gear and went overlanding to FloydFest for 3 days to see some awesome music including Turnpike Troubadours
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Leaving FloydFest in the inevitable downpour of a music festival, 4wd was used and low range wouldn’t engage. Not shocking given the tcase drop and the wonderful homemade linkage it was sporting.
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That crap got thrown in the trash and a Savvy cable shifter went in.
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Next was addressing the miles of wire and switches that didn’t work for the Amazon LED’s. I ripped the pods and small bar off the bumper and left the big windshield bar simply because it’s there and the brackets had kind rubbed the windshield frame a good bit underneath. That got wired back into a relay pod and mounted on the console with room for more stuff should I add it later on.
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Removed the Chinese rear bumper in favor of the Motobilt unit that was originally on the CJ5 and cleaned up where the tire carrier was.
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That’s how it sits now heading into this weekend’s wrench fest.
Spartan locker and chromos for the Dana 30 and some Core control arms since the bushings in the stock arms are pretty worked.
