Airborne Janitor

I had mentioned before that this truck was in a front end collision, and after spending a few years with this truck I believe someone smashed the front end and got it stuck in a giant mudhole, same night I wonder? There was so much mud and dirt packed into the frame rails when I got it. The previously repaired tear in the rear of the frame was probably from idiots putting a hook in there and trying to yank the MJ free. The front end around the bumper mounts show the same type of damage. Now I'm not planning on wheeling the piss out of this truck, I want it mainly for a work rig and sometimes DD. But I do want to put a winch bumper on it, and there's no way these compromised mounts are gonna fly. So I ordered the front unibody stiffener from Hooligan Offroad and the side stiffeners from Dirtbound and prepped them with weld-thru primer. Pulled the front end out as well as all of the crappy old piece together suspension. Pulled the header panel too to have more room for welding. I had to use oxyfuel and a hammer & prybar to get the passenger unibody somewhat straight. It still looks like $#!&, but its straight enough to weld the stiffener plate onto.

Well another year's gone by and my MJ is still not driveable. I was hoping to get it road worthy by year's end but I'm having to push that back a month or two. In the MJ's downtime I was able to put the interior back together and start ordering parts.

I once cut a plastic bottle in half and taped it to the back end of the case to keep some of the fluid in.

Its a small world sometimes! I bet if I ran into anyone you would've known they would've been well above my pay grade!

Cool, I'm 10 years behind you. I got to 2/75 B Co Oct 2008 and deployed 3 months later. Nice to know of a fellow Ranger on this board. Small world sometimes.

I still have the blanks. Sorry my schedule went all over the place when things started going into quarantine. I hope to get back to these prototypes soon in a month. I apologize for the delay.

Thanks man. Yup I was in 2/75, I actually wanted to stay on the east coast because I'm from VA. RIP had different plans for me and now I've set my roots down here in WA. When were you in 3/75?

I degreased the frame and took a chipping hammer to the thousands of weld BBs and whiskers that were left from AMC/Chryco. I was really surprised at how poor the quality of welds were all over this frame. As a welder myself I never would've let this truck drive off the line like this but thats me. Masked off the truck with old bed sheets and went to spraying. Then with the help of the neighbors I put the bed back on. I recently put new tires and wheels on my XJ, so I swapped them over for fun. I wasn't planning to go past 31s on this truck, but damn the look of those 33s is growing on me! So now if I decide to run with 33s I'll have to rethink my game plan in regards to suspension setup and gearing....

I made it a goal to repaint the frame and put the bed back on by summer's end. Just as I was prepping the frame for a POR15 treatment I found this "tear" that I had forgotten about. Looks like someone attached a tow hook to the hole in the frame and sardine canned a piece out. Now I could've been lazy and just left it be, but then my OCD would kick in and drive me crazy, so I jumped into the world of amateur frame repair. Its not perfect, but I'm pretty happy with the results for my first attempt at this type of repair. Just don't put a square on it!

I drilled out the holes in the hinges next size up and installed larger roll pins.

I'm keeping my bench for my dog too! I had a 97 Tacoma with a bench he used to love riding in. That's a cool dog, reminds me of mine.

Just checking in on this project. Still need to tweak the top sticker a little more, but I'm getting closer to the finish line. This virus craze the last few weeks has had me pushing alot of personal projects to the right.

I got it running! Theres out I wasnt lined up with the correct cam tooth, just had to advance the oil pump driveshaft clockwise a tiny bit. I also found this picture which helped give me a better visual of rotor/dist placement at TDC. After doing the process so many times I guess I'm an expert in Renix dist replacement now. 😀😥☹🤷‍♂️ Now to replace my 98 XJ distributor....

Yes it was, I did fix that. I should note all these parts were in good working order when I parked it. They have less than 20 miles on them, as my MJ has been sitting for awhile.

I was wondering that too, but I made sure #1 cylinder was at TDC and it lined up with the 0 mark on the timing like it was supposed to. The balancer def does not look like that.

89 MJ 4.0L renix. Not the original motor, has an HO block but everything else is renix era (I think). MJ was starting and running fine. It would sometimes buck a bit when starting and I noticed the distributor was clocked quite a bit off from other 4.0s I've seen, so I decided to do cruisers #12 and #13 tips on TDC and distributor indexing. (Old photo, notice distributor clocking. #1 terminal where #4 terminal "should" be) While I had the distributor out I noticed someone had already cut the mounting tab off. The pulse ring was super rusty so I took it off and cleaned with it a wire wheel. There was also a bit of oil and mud inside the distributor so I cleaned that up best I could. Set #1 cylinder to TDC, did the finger pressure test, checked piston location and lined up the harmonic balancer mark to the 0 timing mark. Reinstalled distributor and wires, starter works but it won't turn over. There is spark at the plugs and fuel pressure at the pump. I've redone the process half a dozen times to no avail. I even just started clocking the distributor in various places to see if I could get any attempt to turn over and still nothing. Its driving me crazy, I hope I can get some answers. Thanks. (Last non working setup: #1 set to TDC, rotor at 5 o'clock, trailing end of rotor at #1 terminal per inspection window in cap)

Yup I get it, but with the vinyl I use you would be looking at the backside, which usually is duller in color and full of small air pockets once applied. No one would be happy with the end result.

It won't look right. There may be interior cling vinyl out there but I've never dealt with it.

Outside. I use Oracle 651 vinyl that's supposed to be rated for 6 years outdoor use before fading. Like any vinyl sticker it won't last forever in the elements, but it does a great job for what it is.

First prototype. Not quite lined up as much as I wanted, but this was a test run. Will get back at it soon.

Hard to say how bad the rust is. Looks like you got quite a bit to punch through there. I would keep hacking away at it until you find some solid steel that you can actually weld to, then make the call. Patch panel and stiffener sounds like a good idea, or welding in some thicker angle iron.

I was thinking it was overhyped until organizations like the NCAA were ready to lose billions of dollars by playing it safe. Italy had over 500 deaths in 24hrs. The question I keep asking is would the rates of infection/death be worse if the media wasnt hyping it up so much? I hate our mainstream media but this is much bigger than them and our borders. And even if the virus doesnt take off theres no doubt the economic shock its had worldwide. Buckle up for the next recession either way.

Got the design finished. Going to try to have a couple stickers cut up this weekend.

Good to know. Thanks.

I've used duplicolor brand adhesive promoter with SEM color coat with good results. Currently painting my interior trim to match my XJ doors. Original color was the lighter gray.