Criket's garage

[criket]

Looking good man, should thrown a stroker I6 in there!! Any idea on final lift/wheels/tires etc..?

Sent from my SGH-T999 using Tapatalk 2

Thanks man. I tried to talk Ricky into a stroker kit but that was alittle outta his range. It would've been a great time to do it.

The lift he has on it is a 4" unknown lift. The PO put the lift on and the dealer painted EVERYTHING underneath black. So it covered up any stickers or part numbers. The wheels he has American Racing 5 spokes and 33" Duratracs. I need to take a picture of it from the side so you can see. It is a very good looking jeep....when it's all together, lol

The only lift we are adding is a 1.25" body lift and a 1" motor mount lift. This summer we plan to go to URE since he has never been.

[06JeepXKHEMI]

Nice man looking forward to those pics.. Those I6's are great motors been dying to try out a stroker, must be an absolute tq monster!!

[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 finshed 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]

And I can't forget about my little boy. I bought him a new car seat for the jeep and we also did some test fitting. It's Simpson brand, the guys that make drag racing suits and safety equipment. I think he likes it, lol.

[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.

[06JeepXKHEMI]

Man I love watching these types of projects.. I really want to get a TJ, even more an LJ and build her up, I've always had something for them...

Sent from my SGH-T999 using Tapatalk 2

[criket]

Man I love watching these types of projects.. I really want to get a TJ, even more an LJ and build her up, I've always had something for them...

Sent from my SGH-T999 using Tapatalk 2

Thanks for following man.Yea this has been a great project. I've learned a lot from working on this TJ. One thing I do know though, if you ever get a TJ, get standard, metric, external torx, internal torx, and any other tool they sell because a TJ takes them ALL! LOL

If I have some money in the next couple of weeks, my WK is going in the garage for a few things. We'll see how the financials hold up. Stay tuned.

[06JeepXKHEMI]

hahaha Ill keep that in mind, funny thats not the first time Ive read that, I watch builds on JF.com for inspiration!! Ill be looking for your updates on the WK!

[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.