Picked this up yesterday. It's gonna be my new summer toy / project car / winter car. 2001 sport, 4.0 5spd with 160k on the clock. The sheet metal on it is in really good shape, hardly any rust. The frame is in pretty good shape as well. I'll have to do a little patch work but theres plenty of good metal to work with.
First thing I did was to really inspect the frame rails to see what I'm working with. Driver's side was much better than the passenger. Put some drain holes in it to help mitigate the problem a little bit. The passenger side was kind enough to create it's own. I didn't drop the skid plate so once I do that I'll have a better idea of the overall condition.
Used the steel cable with chain method on the drill for cleaning up the inside of the frame rails a bit then powerwashed them out and ran a magnet through it to get all the rust and gunk out. If you've never done this I'd reccomend it, there's a thread on here somewhere. (unless you're one of those lucky people that don't live in the rust belt). I pulled out so much gunk and hunks of rust out of there it wasn't even funny.
The plans are to pull the body off the frame, strip it, patch it, undercoat it and then to repaint the body. I'm trying to rustproof this thing the best that I can so It will keep going another 14 years. Still trying to decide on a color for the repaint.
I'm a little limited with what I can do at this point. In the process of getting a workshop and garage zoned/approved/built so I can really only work in the driveway at this point. I may go ahead and gut the interior and spray my liner in but I'll have to see if the compressor I have can put out enough CFM to spray.
Let the fun and money pit begin! Here are some crappy cell phone pictures.
I'll update my progress whenever I start to get going on things.
I was finally able to do some work the past couple of days. I decided that I'm going to paint it hydro blue with some blue and black accents throughout.
I got a new jammer in the dash, nothing fancy, just a pretty basic pioneer. Put new kicker speakers in the dash and the soundbar.
Swapped out my dash and hvac bulbs for blue LEDS (the iphone pictures don't really do it justice, it looks awesome and was very easy to do). I didn't think that the needles would look all that great since they're red but it looks better than I thought it would.
The brakes had a horrible squeak in them when I got the jeep. I bought some new pads for it and then whenever I went to change them the rotors were in pretty bad shape so I went ahead and put new rotors on as well. Squeak free and should be good to go in that department for a while.
I got my raptorliner kit in for the tub. Im planning to start gutting and prepping the interior tomorrow and hopefully spray it either monday or tuesday if the weather cooperates.
Thanks guys. I haven't had a project car in a while and am having a lot of having something to wrench on again. Here are some pictures of the interior gutted. I only broke one bolt so I'll consider that a success.
After lots of grinding, wire wheeling, naval jellying, sanding etc... I got the floorboards de rusted. It was all just surface rust and wasn't too bad. I've just got to get the rest of the tub sanded and then I'll be ready to mask and spray.
I finally got the tub sprayed. Prepping it took a lot longer than I thought it would and only being able to do a couple hours a night after work added on about a week.
Anyone who's ever done this or any kind of paintwork before knows the prep work is the most important (and time consuming)part, once your'e spraying you can't really mess this stuff up. I've done some truck beds with it in the past with good results and this turned out great as well.
The crappy primer I used had the rust coming back through the next day. I ordered some rust encapsulator from eastwood like 4 weeks ago and it got here a few days ago finally (apparently they had a fire at their warehouse or something). Had to sand it all back down and respray it with that.
I will say, make sure you break down the gun and actually clean it after every coat. I thought I could get away with just running some lacquer thinner through it after the first coat and on my 2nd the gun got clogged up and I had to stop and clean it.
I used a 1.6hp, 4.5 gal 5.0 cfm little compressor and It worked just fine. I was kind of concerned going into it that it wouldn't be able to handle it but it worked great ( I did use an inline filter due to the compressor running a lot and creating a lot of moisture in the line).
I've got it out in the sun and am probably going to let it sit for another day or two before I start putting everything back together. Hopefully I remember where everything goes!
Also a helpful little tip, anytime you're doing some work, throw your fasteners in some vinegar and let them soak while you work. Does a great job of removing rust/gunk/grime and they come out looking new.
A coat of anti-seize on reassembly and they'll be good to go for a long time.
I bought an 01 Jeep and had a axle seal leaking and (failed state inspection) and I bought a new seal for a dana 35 and went to take the diff cover and found I have dana 44s both front and rear is your like that I may run 35s on it instead of 33s
I installed the Sound Ordinance B-8PTD powered sub in my center console. Made a huge difference in how the stereo sounds, just enough bass but nothing obnoxious.
Also pulled the trigger on a 2" BDS lift kit. Now I'm just trying to figure out what wheel/tire combo I'm going to go with, planning on running 32's.
Got the lift installed, it was definitely a pain. I've got some driveline vibes now which I didn't think I'd have an issue with using only a 2" lift so thats the next thing I've got to figure out. Also still trying to locate a frame for a swap.
Ordered some Mamba MR1's and some 32x11.5-15 Mickey Thompson ATZ P3's. I've got the tires in but the wheels were backordered so hopefully they'll get here soon.
Replaced my old soft top with a new Trektop NX and picked up set of full doors.
Got LED headlights and tail lights, make a world of difference at night. Also painted my headlight bezels.
Until the breakdown and painting can begin its just gonna be a Frankenstein jeep. At this point I'm probably just going to buy a new frame as I'm not having much like finding any used ones close to me.
Well the tear down has begun! All in all in went pretty smoothly, took me about two days to get the tub off he frame. If I ever run into any of the jeep engineers that were involved in the TJ design I'm going to politely punch them in the face. I ended up breaking two of the body mount bolts. Gonna have see what I can do to get them out, I really don't want to cut up the top aide of my tub if I don't have to.
Was planning to buy a New frame from mopar. Placed the order and got an email a couple days later saying frames were no longer available. Well then take it off your damn website! I'd been calling Midwest and daveys for the past few months trying to find a used one with no luck. The day I got the email I couldn't get a new one I called daveys and sure enough they had one. Put a deposit on it and should get it in the next week or two.
Plan is to have the frame and underside of the tub sandblasted and sprayed with mastercoat. Once all that gets done I can start doing bodywork and getting everything ready to paint.
Thankfully my dad's letting me use his garage and lift. It's definitely made things a lot easier. I've got a lot of respect for guys that do this in their driveways.
Haven't updated in a while. Took the 14 hour trip to Davey's in the snow with bald tires on the old truck, that was an experience. Got my new frame off a 2005 Rubicon, came from out west somewhere and it's in great shape.
I got tired of the local sandblaster not being able to get me in so I said screw it and got one myself and went to town. Took a while to get it dialed in and find the right sized media but once I did it works fantastic. Watching all that cancerous rust dissapear before your eyes is awesome.
I've got about half the frame done, hard to see what you're doing at night with only shop lights, but that bare steel sure is pretty.
I've been hitting the tub with my needle scaler to get all the heavy stuff and the undercoating off. Overall it's in pretty good condition. I'll probably have to fix the middle body mount on the passenger side, it's not through yet but it's really thin. We'll see what it looks like when I blast it. Thats where one of the broken bolts is at.
The only thing holding me back is time. I wish I could take a month off work and just get this thing knocked out.
Got the new frame all blasted and coated. Pulled the axles off the old one, blasted and painted those. Got the motor pulled and switched over as well.
All new control arms, new tie rod, steering, stabilizer, new hubs, new ujoints on the driveshafts and axle shafts, new axle seals, new ball joints, new exhaust, got a new steering box to match up with the different year frame.
Had to drill holes in the new skid to get the transmission to bolt to it. I can't get the rear track bar to go in, not sure if I'm gonna get an adjustable or a bracket yet.
I also added several holes to the frame in front of and behind all control arm mounts for drainage. All thats left is to run all the new lines and it should be good to go.
I've started blasting the underside of the tub and figuring out what I need to do to fix my body mounts. That will be the next project. Once those are fixed I can get the underside of the tub painted and start on bodywork and paint and hopefully get this stupid thing back on the road!
Thank you for the link .You have inspired me to stay at our shop on a holiday and start sandblasting,
The frame on mine looks good see more when I get rid of all the rust. I am very lucky that I work in our family shop and can do this build using all the toys in shop. Love the ideal of coating interior of tub will strip it next week and start that process. Looking forward to following the rest of your build.
Thank you sir, hopefully it turns out like it looks in my head! Maybe I'll attempt to tackle a trailer like yours when I'm done, that thing is awesome.
Well the underside of the tub is complete minus getting some seam sealer and filling in some gaps to hopefully keep things a little more dry than the factory did. Got the new torque boxes welded on and got the underside coated.
Old boxes cut out and blasted.
All nice and painted.
Now it's time to flip her right side up, blast the rest of the body and get started on bodywork.
I wish I could do this to my Jeep! I just need to finish school and get a new daily driver first. How are the Quadratec lights? I've been eyeballing the set as my first lighting upgrade.
I'd buy them again. Install was super easy, they're very bright. Major improvement over the crappy stock ones. Only thing I don't like is how quadratec has to put their logo on everything but with the color scheme I'm going with it looks ok.
Finished blasting the body. Overall it's pretty straight. Parts of the jeep had been repainted at some point so I'm relieved there wasn't a ton of filler and problems underneath. Just a few dings here and there to fix.
Finished blasting the rest of the body panels, bondo'd and sanded everything down and got it primed. Gonna let it dry over night then block it and spray some color on this baby finally! The hood and the fenders were pretty beat up on the backside with a ton of filler so for a couple hundred bucks I decided to just save some time and get some new ones. Should be here in a couple of days.
This is awesome man! Jeeps gonna look great! Do you know where that thread is for cleaning the gunk out of the frame? This is something I need to do to mine!
I don't remember which specific one, there are a bunch of them out there. I've found that google searching wranglerforum.com and then whatever it is you're looking for tends to get better results than using the search function here.
Your workmanship is very impressive HP.
I'm fortunate that the 99 i bought didnt have any body rust, but as my jeep came from a desert area (near Yakima WA) the inside of the frame has compacted dust and sand.
Your trick to clean rust out should work on sand too. I didnt notice, but did you say how you painted inside the frame?
Ya you have a great looking jeep!
I haven't done it yet, not exactly sure what route I'm going to go with that yet. I've got some of eastwoods internal frame and had been planning on doing that but the masterseries paint I used everywhere else has come out with an internal frame paint as well so I might give that a shot. Whatever I end up doing will probably have fluid film put over top of it.
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