Skorpyo

Lookin good! Keep up the good work and posts!

It's funny you should mention that. I had scrapped the idea of a cowl intake for that exact reason. I hadn't decided yet what I was going to do for the air intake. Short run will be to leave it as is, but long run was to route it to a better "colder" air setup. I really like what you did with yours, defintely inspires me to keep thinking about it! Thanks Don! PS. I also scored a snorkel for the XJ recently so I'm going to use the box from the MJ to set it up and that gives me a better cone filter mount to swap into the MJ. I'm going to reroute all the hardline hoses too cause they look silly running all over the engine to avoid an airbox that's not their anymore...

That's awesome! Love the plate! I was checking your build thread too, your paint is lookin killer! That's on my list for 2019 since the paint on mine is really dulled out and chipping in some spots. I might try and buff it up some before I get it repainted cause the wife says it's a cool truck, but ugly... Can't argue with her. I actually followed what this guy did to clean up his seats: I used purple power on the vinyl, lots of it, and the fabric I ran on the gentle cycle in the washing machine about 3 times each until I was satisfied, then let them air dry. Good luck!

On Saturday I officially called the main phase of this project done. I finished stripping the doors I bought of their power pieces (windows and locks), discarded the carcasses and got the MJ out of the garage. After a few adjustments to the e-brakes we took it for several spins around the neighborhood and couldn't' find any issues. Next step will be to bring it home and button up a few little things before it goes to inspection. I need to swap out the lugnuts, adjust the headlights, since one is misaligned, and adjust the steering wheel alignment. Glad to have it finished and ready to go back on the road. There's a pile of pieces to go into the MJ next so I'll do better about taking photos when I do them :-).

Haha, Don't sell your self short! My father-in-law isn't too far behind you and I'm always leaning on him on this project. Flaring brake lines is definitely one of my least favorite tasks, but mostly because it's just tedious. Thanks for the kind words and keep on Jeepin!

Worked on the rig on Sunday, first time since early January. Pulled the old e-brake main cable and swapped in a new one. Man, that was a bigger job than I had expected. I had to pull the driver seat and my freshly installed carpet came up with it since two bolts unthreaded from the body rather than from the nut! After some finagaling I finally got the seat out and the rest of the job went alright. I'll have to see how well it's actuating the emergency brakes on the 8.8, but I am not getting a lot of movement on the adjuster arms. Once its out of the garage I'll have to check that out. Meanwhile my buddy swapped out the thermostat, we'd notice it was never closing and sure enough it was stuck open. He managed to botch the job and actually forgot to put in the thermostat all together! We had it all back buttoned up and I asked him "Hey, isn't that the new thermostat?" and he said "Yeah... and the old ones over there..." Doh! Back apart and then done right. She burped and burped and burped and finally got to running right. Meanwhile I started stripping down the power window/lock doors I picked up last month for a song. I pulled all of the power window components out of one and was working on drilling out the rivets on the power lock actuator when I ran out of time. Hope to get back to working on it on Thursday and get the doors stripped out so I can get rid of the carcasses. I'm going to just set all of that aside for a bit until I'm ready to do the swap to power everything. On the plus side, the donor doors had great seals and trim so I'm gonna pull all of that too and eventually swap it onto the ELIMIN8R. I've almost finished the new farm table for the wife, so that'll be out of the garage soon and I'll have room to bring the MJ home and finally be able to tinker with it at will. Almost bought an XJ over the weekend. Guy was unloading a 2001 for $600 with 204K on it. It was the grey color I love, but with 2 Jeeps already, and a DD and the wife's Rav4 I couldn't really fit it into my suburban neighborhood, and I've got about 1500 other projects going so... Bummer though cause it looked like a great XJ.

So which one is the younger one, donor or recipient?

Nice! Always cool to watch a unique build thread come together. Welcome and good luck!

Been there, done that... I think the XJ/MJ was designed to be a mess changing the oil. Sure you can drain the pain pretty cleanly, but when that filter comes off, it's all over the control arms...

I moved to Orlando in '92 when I started HS, I remember watching them from there too. I also remember waking up once from hearing one. Pretty cool to see, even from that distance. Very cool you got to get so close for a launch!

As a Southern Californian, I'll withhold my stereotype comments about all of your home towns... I think it's a looks piece only. The fact that it has no rear bars is odd. Unless you're hauling ladders, and have a full ladder rack, I don't see much of a use for a roof rack on a pickup since it's such a small space. Just my .02.

I regret trading in my first XJ so much that I still spend each week checking online for it to see if it turns up for sale. I didn't think much of it at the time, but I was young, impetuous and didn't have the skills I do now to maintain a vehicle. Just my experience and take from it what you will. And I only had the XJ for 5 years...

In trying to think of articles that would help reduce the myriad of repeated questions: Axle swap options, consolidated brake options (discs, boosters, valve/delete), vacuum diagrams and functions, lift/tire/gear combos, TPS/CPS/IAC/TB checking, No-Start/Stumble/Idle issue check diagram with logic flow, Seat/Bracket swap options. I'm sure there are more pressing ones, but that's off the top of my head.

I've always hit up advance auto for batteries since they always have at least 20% off if you purchase online and pickup in store. Recently I found a 30% off batteries coupon on retailmenot. Cut the battery down quite a bit. Plus with their club thing I had a $20 coupon. With some digging I can usually get a better deal there than most other places. Oh, and they replaced my wifes battery that was on a 3-year warranty, after it threw a fail code, without any issues, easy peasy. Just a personal preference, but not sure if they have Advance Auto out your way.

Yeah, i've been to both and they're decent, but don't always have what I'm looking for so I thought I'd give car-part.com a try... I do like the Stafford one, but the Fredericksburg one usually puts decent jeeps in their reserve lot so you can't pick them, and then charges more for their parts. Plus the idea of getting a part mailed to me is great since I don't always have time to run to a yard.

Oh, ok, that might be an easier mod than the 97+ power windows to the old door. Interesting mod. Good luck!

Ok, so I've never used car-part.com and I cannot for the life of me figure out if it's just a service to tell you what's near you or to be able to order parts from JYs or what... I tried to use the "request quote" feature multiple times for parts and I never get any reply. Prices outside of my area are sooooo much cheaper that it'd probably save me money even if they ship the part to me. But I cannot get any response... Am I doing this wrong?

I picked up a durango box recently and am working on getting a WJ pump for the XJ (wheeling rig). I was going to also use the boostwerks steering brace which they confirmed works with the durango box. I'm hoping to tackle that in the spring as I wrap up the MJ project. Let me know how you make out, or if I do it before then I'll let you know.

Here's some recent ideas posted on security kill switches. Another suggested adding a factory rocker switch as a kill switch as it would be easily accessible, but not obvious. Something like a rear wiper or a power/comfort switch from an XJ.

So the 8.8 is a popular swap for lots of reasons and while I have done this myself (with an AX-15 swap for 4wd and an 8.8 rear) it's really a personal preference. There are pros and cons of the 8.8 and it comes down to what you're able and wanting to do really. I'd recommend you search the DIY Index for the other 8.8 articles too: https://comancheclub.com/forums/topic/48710-diy-projects-writeups-master-search-index/ Here's my list of pros and cons: Pros: 1. Widely available in lots of different configurations (I found a 3.73 with an LSD) so finding a 4.10 is not impossible 2. Disc brakes on most of them available 3. Good aftermarket support 4. A huge upgrade over the D35 in strength 5. Debated to be as strong as a D44 6. Easy to find JY parts 7. Same bolt patters as our MJs Cons: 1. ~1.75" narrower than a stock MJ axle. Some folks run them as is, some use adapters to widen them. I did the latter 2. Off-center pinion so some say this leads to U-Joints wearing out sooner with the additional angle changes to a center driveline 3. Uses a plate and flange setup so you'll need a new driveshaft setup to fit (not a huge problem) 4. C-clip axles (many don't care for these as your axle slides out if you bust an axle wheeling) 5. E-Brake setup is a little different (Lokar clips are a popular solution) 6. Requires you to weld on new perches and shock mounts vs using an MJ ready axle, like a D44 (which are hard to find) I personally am very happy with my 8.8, but it's not for everyone. Good luck!

Most people swap in power windows from 84-96 donors, but a lot of people also just swap the doors from a 97+ XJ since they are relatively easy to do and come with everything wired in. I'm not certain you can easily swap in 97+ full windows into the 96- doors since the lock/power control mechanisms are under the vent/fixed window and would interfere with the full sized window. The 97+ moved the power controls to the arm-rest to accommodate the larger window, and they have two rails for the window versus the one in the earlier models. I'm not saying it can't be done, but it would be a lot more work than swapping in power windows from a OBS XJ or swapping doors from a 97+ XJ. Vent windows can be found online and in JYs, but they are prone to leaking, at least so I've heard, and are often removed for that reason. I had them in my old XJ and never had a leak problem so I must have been lucky. I am currently looking for them for my MJ eventually as well. The anvil grey would look great, check out the Trailhawk thread in this forum too for a great example of that color:

I haven't done this swap, but if you have an extended line and block there's no reason you can't use it for your discs. You'd just need to bend new hard lines to the caliper hoses. I did the same thing on my 8.8 swap. You'll just need a brake line flare kit, hard line and fittings to match the caliper hoses and distribution block.

Great story and love the truck! Nice score finding it and making it happen.

Lookin good! So the world wants to know, are you keeping the camo or are you gonna repaint? Nice score finding 2-door XJ seats in camel. There's a good article in the DIY on reconditioning seats. I did mine following that guide and they came out stellar. Keep up the good work!

So how did you get it down to the actual day it rolled off the line? Mine just says "12-88" on the door sticker.