Under Pressure

Tails

Well-Known Member
Joined
Nov 10, 2016
Location
Kernersville
Rewind to four years ago. I was the East Coast coordinator for Patriot Therapy/True Patriot. I had no money and was trying hard just to survive life. I decided to sell my TJ just to keep the lights on for a few more months. I always missed the sport but didn’t think I would get back into it. I loved this forum so continued to read it but again thought I would never get back into it.

Fast forward to Easter this year. Some friends of mine invited me to Moab during Easter Jeep Safari. Even thought I was riding shotgun I had the time of my life. The bug had bitten again!

Over the last four years my wife and I have been doing the Dave Ramsey thing. We have successfully paid off over 75,000$ in debt. I received the go ahead to begin looking for a Jeep to get back into the sport as long as I don’t go tofar overboard. I put word out to my friends that I was looking for a well priced good platform Jeep. By this time @josh$$ had just sold his TJ and I was kicking myself for not jumping on it.

Middle of May I receive a phone call from my friend that I went to Moab with saying he had found me a Jeep. I asked about it and he told me that his shop had built it at the end of 2018. He said it was rust free and had a lot of quality parts he said the guy was selling it for a 1/4 of what he built it for.I said “send me pictures and info on it.” I asked why he was selling it so cheap and was told it’s had low oil pressure for years. They were just running 20w50 in the engine and it ran fine, but it would need a new engine sooner then later. I received these pictures….


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The pictures peaked my interest. I showed the pictures to my wife and she said “if you want it buy it.” As a guy that been married for more then a day, I thought this was a trick. After a few days she asked when the Jeep was coming home? I immediately called my buddy and said I wanted the Jeep. He called the owner and was told that the owner needed to keep it a few weeks to find a new vehicle. I agreed since I was leaving the next week to take my daughter to Universal Studios. When I returned home I drove to Greensboro with the check. I still hadn’t seen it in person yet. The guy couldn’t meet me that day so I left the check and drive home but not without receiving it’s invoice from 2018. I now knew everything that had been done to it. A few days later I got a call to come pick up my Jeep. I went up and it truly was in great condition. We put it on the lift and saw a rear axle shaft was leaking. When we pull the shaft it was bent so we put a new shaft that was laying around the shop in. It was time to do the drive back to Fayetteville. Leaving the shop it had a hesitation for a second and then snapped out of it. After that it drove extremely smooth. I drove it around Fayetteville and would occasionally get the hesitation again. So I replaced the upstream O2 sensor and it fixed the hesitation. Now it drives great. I named it Under Pressure due to the low oil pressure.

That brings us to today. Here is the list of what all has been done to it so far:

New top, method wheel, 35’s, Hyline read bumper carrier with swing out tire carrier, 4 in teraflex long arm kit, JCR front bumper, warn winch, poison spyder fenders, 4.56 gears, true trac in rear, pro comp led headlights, SYE with a Tom woods driveshaft, full bed rug kit, seat covers, black magic brake kit, painted mustang grey (was purple), poison spyder rockers, banks monster exhaust, banks header, and a lot of misc maintenance items.

plan going forward is rebuild the engine, 1 ton stearing upgrade, new rear axle to get rid of the 35, true trac in the 30. Rock hard roll cage, and seats with harnesses. This is all stage 1 of build just to get me back into the hang of everything.

Sorry for such a long read, posts going forward should be shorter. Here is another picture or two of it.

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Welcome back!!
 
I mean..this is nice and all. But you're totally a homo for not being at Kairos this weekend :huggy:

I'm buying the first round on your return tour...you BETTER be at the ranch fool 😘
 
Few months back, I drove my Jeep to my buddys shop in Greensboro. We fixed the AC, gave it a brake job, and replaced the shocks. While looking it over I noticed oil in the coolant. I flushed the system and realized the time was coming for the new engine really soon. I drove it the two hours back to Fayetteville and it drove fine. About two weeks later, I was driving it and lost all power. I made it home without a tow and parked the Jeep.

A couple of weeks ago I placed a order with golen to get a stroker motor. I was informed that they are 9-12 months out at the current moment. I said that’s fine and placed my order. Two weeks ago my FIL and I went to Uwharrie to ride 4wheelers. While there we met up with a guy that owns a shop here in Fayetteville. We started talking about engines and he informed me that he had a Tboned 98 xj. That got the wheels turning. Today I went to this guys shop and gave him a check to buy and deliver the XJ to my house.

Here is the game plan for what’s to come…. I have cancelled my order for the stroker for the time being. I am going to pull the engine and AW4 and drop into my TJ. I also found a Dana 300 that’s been converted to 4.?:1 with twin sticks already. That transfer will go behind this setup.

More to follow…….
 
Few months back, I drove my Jeep to my buddys shop in Greensboro. We fixed the AC, gave it a brake job, and replaced the shocks. While looking it over I noticed oil in the coolant. I flushed the system and realized the time was coming for the new engine really soon. I drove it the two hours back to Fayetteville and it drove fine. About two weeks later, I was driving it and lost all power. I made it home without a tow and parked the Jeep.

A couple of weeks ago I placed a order with golen to get a stroker motor. I was informed that they are 9-12 months out at the current moment. I said that’s fine and placed my order. Two weeks ago my FIL and I went to Uwharrie to ride 4wheelers. While there we met up with a guy that owns a shop here in Fayetteville. We started talking about engines and he informed me that he had a Tboned 98 xj. That got the wheels turning. Today I went to this guys shop and gave him a check to buy and deliver the XJ to my house.

Here is the game plan for what’s to come…. I have cancelled my order for the stroker for the time being. I am going to pull the engine and AW4 and drop into my TJ. I also found a Dana 300 that’s been converted to 4.?:1 with twin sticks already. That transfer will go behind this setup.

More to follow…….
Dude, while the engine is out, go ahead and stroke it!
 
I also found a Dana 300 that’s been converted to 4.?:1 with twin sticks already. That transfer will go behind this setup.
Do what interests you but I did all of the work to put a flipped 4:1 dana 300 in my jeep and it sort of sucked balls. Keeping that thing from leaking drove me nuts. If you trailer everywhere then it isn't a big deal, but I didn't like the thought of driving down the highway and having gear oil seep out of those shifter rails. If they relocated the shifter rails then go for it :beer:
 
Going into a engine intimidates me and I don’t have anyone local that I know of to help me. The machine shops in Fayetteville are garbage and I still have a 200k mile engine at the end of the day. That’s why I was going to pay the money for a golen. This transmission swap is already pushing my comfort zone.
 
Going into a engine intimidates me and I don’t have anyone local that I know of to help me. The machine shops in Fayetteville are garbage and I still have a 200k mile engine at the end of the day. That’s why I was going to pay the money for a golen. This transmission swap is already pushing my comfort zone.
Understood. Also, I ran a flipped D300 for years and never had an issue with leaks from the shift rails.
 
Time to do a update. Back in November I purchased a 98 Cherokee that had been t-boned. The Cherokee was delivered to my house where it sat until Christmas Eve. On Christmas Eve, @Mulishajoe and @jeepin' jen came and picked it up and took it to their house. The XJ was supposed to go to broken skull in January but they had a few setbacks and well weather was not permitting. I eventually got the call to have my Jeep at broken skull on the 16th of February. @Mulishajoe was nice enough to deliver after he got off work and the fun has begun.

We pulled the XJ into the shop to begin removing anything and everything that was worth anything. We planned on a week for tear down but @Jason W. @josh$$ @k5-1402 and myself made short work of this thing. I believe I can speak for them that tear down on a vehicle that nobody cares about may be the most fun way to tear down a vehicle. “Oh that wire harness is in the way? Do we need it? Where is the sawzall?” May have been said. As my other post says if you need anything for a XJ speak now.

Tomorrow @Keith1138 will be helping me get my TJ to broken skull so we can start on tear down of it. Then it’s time to put it all together and finally after 4-5 years have a working happy Jeep again. HUGE HUGE THANK YOU TO EVERYONE THAT HAS HELPED SO FAR!!! I can’t wait to get on the trails this year

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I can't wait to see this TJ on the trail!!!
 
Waiting till the hiccups are out and then I’ll update. I don’t want to jinx myself. Hopefully within the next 48 hrs.
 
So my plan of the AW4 and Dana 300 was changed a few months ago. Eventually I’ll go AW4 and atlas but for the time being, I enjoy a manual and decided to keep it manual.

So we gutted the Cherokee and kept everything for the swap in the future, however we took the 4.0 and did a major refresh of it. Whoever owned the Cherokee before me took fantastic care of it. Well we got the engine, transmission with a new clutch and seals and the 231 in. With the 231 we did a new chain, seals, and a teraflex 2low kit. Everything went together a lot better then we expected and she fired right up. After addressing a few minor leaks she was purring like a kitten. While in the shop, we fixed a winch problem I had, upgraded tie rod, added off road lights, and a CB.

Built Dana 44 is being prepared for the rear and then I’ll start building the high pinion 30. More to follow….
 
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