Hi all,
For those of you who don't know me, my name is Rick. I am the Quadratec Forum rep. My ex and I split up last year after 6 years, I had to sell my JKU, our house, etc.:
I was Jeep-less for 4 months. Thankfully, I am back, this time with Jeep #10, my 5th Wrangler, 2nd TJ. She is a 1998, 4.0L, 5 speed, 186k (though prior owner said he did a swap to an engine with less than 60k), YJ wheels, tiny tires, Bushwacker flares. I picked her up for $3000:
The salesman from where I purchased the Jeep (Also a Jeep guy) stated it could only be driven in 4WD. He wasn't sure why. I poked around down there for a bit prior to purchasing it. I came to the conclusion that the rear was shot, whether it was the spider gears, ring gears, or something else. No problem D35's with 3.07's are a dime a dozen. My buddy had a few in his garage so we decided to do a quick swap. First, we wanted to pop the cover to see what was going on:
Spidergears chipped. Ring gear unbolted. Basically no fluid. Interesting. We proceeded with the swap:
This only took about 3 hours. The rear lower control arm was the easiest to remove:
As you can see, she has some frame rust. This is pretty typical for TJ's in rust belt regions such as here outside of Philly:
Thankfully we sell Auto Rust brand products:
Auto Rust Technicians Parts & Accessories | Quadratec
So I am able to repair the rusted frame sections as needed.
We also rebuilt the front driveshaft as it was completely shot due to the prior owner driving only in 4WD for some time:
This weekend is step 1 of the frame repair work! Looking forward to finally having a 4 link setup again
Will post more progress photos soon. Hoping to build this similar to my prior TJ:
Stay tuned!
-Rick
For those of you who don't know me, my name is Rick. I am the Quadratec Forum rep. My ex and I split up last year after 6 years, I had to sell my JKU, our house, etc.:
I was Jeep-less for 4 months. Thankfully, I am back, this time with Jeep #10, my 5th Wrangler, 2nd TJ. She is a 1998, 4.0L, 5 speed, 186k (though prior owner said he did a swap to an engine with less than 60k), YJ wheels, tiny tires, Bushwacker flares. I picked her up for $3000:
The salesman from where I purchased the Jeep (Also a Jeep guy) stated it could only be driven in 4WD. He wasn't sure why. I poked around down there for a bit prior to purchasing it. I came to the conclusion that the rear was shot, whether it was the spider gears, ring gears, or something else. No problem D35's with 3.07's are a dime a dozen. My buddy had a few in his garage so we decided to do a quick swap. First, we wanted to pop the cover to see what was going on:
Spidergears chipped. Ring gear unbolted. Basically no fluid. Interesting. We proceeded with the swap:
This only took about 3 hours. The rear lower control arm was the easiest to remove:
As you can see, she has some frame rust. This is pretty typical for TJ's in rust belt regions such as here outside of Philly:
Thankfully we sell Auto Rust brand products:
Auto Rust Technicians Parts & Accessories | Quadratec
So I am able to repair the rusted frame sections as needed.
We also rebuilt the front driveshaft as it was completely shot due to the prior owner driving only in 4WD for some time:
This weekend is step 1 of the frame repair work! Looking forward to finally having a 4 link setup again
Will post more progress photos soon. Hoping to build this similar to my prior TJ:
Stay tuned!
-Rick