I have a 2000 jeep wrangler 4.0. I recently swamped it out and my dad and i got it running good again, so now its time to work from top down and make it into the great jeep it can be! First off, The body is in bad shape rusting out at just about every body mount, so I picked up a new tub for just 475$ (which is a great deal!) it is rust free, the only problem with it is that the PO got in a wreck with his jeep so the front right body mount is a little off set. Other than that, which is a minor fix, it is in great shape! We are beginning to take off the old tub tomorrow and planning to work on it through the summer and put in a few new parts, along with a few mods ill keep a build thread and update it through the process
I haven't posted much on this in a while, but I've done some minor things to my jeep since my last post. As my dad mentioned we raised the steering shaft bracket up an inch. I also modified my rear bumper. We put lower mounting brackets on it to make it a solid bumper for recovery:
I also relocated my CB mount onto my bumper so it would be more sturdy and painted the bumper in bedliner:
And I made some paracord grab handles:
And finally i have been noticing that my shifter is really loose and is having trouble getting out of second gear. We pulled of the shifter and noticed that there was a piece missing in the pivoting mechanism that we hope to get from the dealer sometime this week. There was also water in my transmission fluid so we''ll flush that out and clean all the parts and cross our fingers that that fixes my shifting issue's.
We pulled the shifter tower and disassembled it. The problem was immediately apparent. One of the bushings was missing.
A call to the dealership produced bad news. The shifter was only a available as an assembly.......and discontinued. Of course no parts store is going to carry this. Our options were:
Find one at a junkyard and hope they'd separate it from the trans.
Order a B&M short throw shifter for $220.
As a shot in the dark I stopped by a transmission shop to ask their advice. As luck would have it they received a Jeep shifter last week. Upon inspection the upper shaft was different but the lower shaft and internals were identical. The owner sold it to me for $7. I cleaned up the bushings and they look brand new.
We will install tomorrow when it's warmer, relatively.
So we got the shifter all put back together this weekend. Its amazing how well it shifts when its not missing any pieces! I also put my shift boot on that I got from Fett customs. It wasnt the righy shade of green so I painted it and it looks great now. Very simple install and compliments my interior.
When I bedlined the tub I just painted over the Jeep sticker on the side. So I decided to custom make my own decals cause stickers won't stick to bedliner. I cut the word Jeep out of diamond plate using a plasma cutter. Then I dressed them up with a file and wired wheel and painted them. I riveted them to the tub where the Jeep sticker was and painted the rivets using a Q-tip. Looks pretty good and adds a little more green to the exterior:
In order to tell that I am going for the monster theme I bought a decal from a local shop. I've gotta say, it was hard to put on seems how my whole jeep is bedliner and it doesn't stick to bedliner. First I clear coated over the bedliner hoping it would stick good to the clear coat. Well it barely stuck. So then I thought using the heat gun would make it adhere to the paint. Which worked a little but still was not on their very good. So I decided to put a clear coat over it and it should stick. Which worked. Two cans of paint and about 8 coats later it was stuck on there pretty good. With the bedliner being rough there is a texture to the sticker and a few wrinkles, but It adds character
By the way, I then clear coated the whole raised part of the hood to make it look good
So with 16 days left before I leave for basic, I pulled the trigger on getting a lift. I purchased the Zone 4.25 combo kit. My dad and I installed it in roughly 8 hours. The total lift in the front was only 1.5" due to the fact I had coil springs from an XJ to raise it a bit. But in the rear I gained a total of 5", the factory springs were worn. The lift looks great and gives me a ton more clearance, however after test driving it for the first time it had horrible driveshaft vibes at about 20mph. The Zone kit claims that I shouldn't need to do a TC drop bc of the MML. I was wondering if it was possible mine could be an exception or that it could be something else? I read that it could be bc of a bad tranny mount. I would just like someone else's input on what it could be. If anyone has experience with this lift any advice would be much appreciated. Thanks
Me and my father decided that it was deffinitly drive line issues. The kit says that you shouldn't have to do a TC drop, however we had to because the driveshaft was on a terrible bind. So we used the pucks from the body lift ( already had an inch BL) as spacers and lowered the TC 1.25". Now it drives great. I didnt order quick discos because I figured its not too hard to just take off 2 bolts. But I should have plenty of room in the wheel wells to disconnect if need be. It drives much better than stock and looks much more aggressive!
Great looking Jeep man, was wondering if you could put up the measurements from your trimmed fenders? Love the look and want to try cutting the stock ones myself.
Btw, what branch did you enlist in?
I didnt trim my stock fenders. I bought smittybilt tube fenders that requires using your old fenders and cutting them. And the Marines!
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