The86manche

They are mj tail lights. Any in good shape fetch a pretty penny nowadays.

I think I'm buying from that stash. I have a friend who works for crown automotive who is helping to sell them and he messaged me. Getting 2 sets, one of each set for 300

And to wrap my night up i decided to cut the rocker open to see how it looked behind there. Not great. But what i was expecting. Got rocker panel? I bought a new rocker from A1Auto and was very happy with the quality. Full length non slip on and has the cutouts for the steppads. And its thick! Beefier than the stock rocker was.. er.. before the rust. I also removed some of the nose too. getting it ready for the rocker and also because i have replacement fenders. here!

I patched the last spot on the unibody behind the brace Again.. upsidedown.. Anyway, ground it down and wirebrushed the underside to clean it up and then sprayed some etch primer for coverage.

Weekend progress! Spent the whole weekend burning away and moving along at a good pace! Had to peel the seat brace back to patch a spot and fill in the gap. i can't explain why thats upsidedown.. And that is the floor all welded up! It was a good feeling seeing it solid again. At least the floor. I spent sunday welding the seat brace back etch priming grinding and seam sealing Last step will be por15 and then the interior gets put back together.

Lucky dog! I wish i had found that, would have jumped right on it!

As far as rear axle swaps go a lot of people like to swap in ford 8.8 rear axles. Sturdy, a multitude of gear ratios, and tons of them so cheap. However, spring perches would have to be welded. If youre a patient person comanches came equipped with a dana 44 and in 86 a dana 20 axle both are very stout and would bolt right in. Drawback is relarively rare and expensive. Theres someone on here selling an mj 44 axle actually. I bought one off of him and hes got one left. As for regearing youre better off buying a whole kit assentially. So you get new bearings and such. Ive never regeared an axle myself but from what ive seen its a bit of a process because it has to be done right. Shims and proper gear mesh.

Not as much of a score as finding mj parts but its a close second!

From there it was welding time. I used sections from my parts jeep for this. And piece by piece put it back together. The unibody ia in layers so i started with the inner structure and worked out. don't know why its upside down... Lots of POR15 inside everything i could get a brush into. And i bought stainless hardware for the crossmember and seat too. Rear seat brace area. Seat brace and spot on the floor was gone so more POR15 and patches Moved onto the front floor after finiahing the back half And how we are sitting now. After the floor is patched ill be moving onto the passenger rocker panel that is swiss cheese And i scored a nice set of fenders off an orvis i found in the junk yard i lucked out! Same color! The old ones are rotted at the bottom. And the hood was recently replaced off another of the same color as well.

So my friend gave me a parts jeep to help with my endeavors! Free with a title! Was a rust free 93. Original plan was to take this shell and make it the new orvis body. Sadly life got in the way so i took everything i needed and scraped it. Okay so now onto rust repairs! I wanted to start on the unibody section that the crossmember was hanging by a thread from. Pulled the seat and carped and started cutting the rust out. And i cut... And I'm still cutting.. Until finally the rust was no more. New ac option!

And with all that brings us up to speed on its current condition and the work i am and have been putting into it. Ive loved this jeep its been very reliable to me and never let me down. Its helped family out many times. Its grown on me. Its the second longest jeep i have owned. It is now pushing 200k And new england has sunk its salty teeth into her. The worst spots on the jeep. A lot of people would just theow this away at thia point. But i can't bring myself to do it. So I'm determined to fix it. And pass the jeep on to someone else when I'm done.

It was a challenge at first

Well some time later my younger brother had ran into life problems, no job, debt, and car motor locked up. So he had moved in with me and i lent him my orvis to use to help him get back on track. Only problem is.. he didnt really tell me when something went wrong.. until it broke. Like the brakes. He drove it until it was metal on metal. And that was the rear brakes. The front slides were stuck. So what was supposed to be pads and rotors turned into calipers.. and brake hoses... and brake lines.. Brake lines all the way up to rhe master cylinder.. But hey, the brakes were now new and serviced! So wouldnt have to deal with that again for a while. And then i got a call later at night some time later because the jeep made a metalic clanging sound when he started it. And he was almoat an hour away. Took the drive out expecting something minor only to find this. Harmonic balancer seperated and hit the fan. Thank god he wasnt driving. Radiator and motor were saved.

Rear control arms were replaced as well the lowers were rotting so i decided to do them all. And fuel filler neck was swiss cheese so i replaced that too. And one of the times i was visiting my buddy at his shop i left the jeep idling and the radiator ruptured. Turns out the PO mickey moused some glue to fix a radiator crack. don't know how it lasted at all but thankfully home was a half mile away at the time. So let it cool off and huffed it back. My buddy gave me a radiator out of hia parts jeep and i found out at one time he also had an orvis and had saved the body side moldings. He gave them to me for free as well! And yes thats a lightsaber

I also put new tires on. The old ones were junk and causing the viscous coupler to lock up. Turns out it was bad anyway. Got a used one from a buddy because i couldnt afford a new one and learned how to replace one.. and they suck. theres a plate on the tailshaft housing thats held on by two torx. That are thread locked. IF you can get them out your next trial is to spread a C clip that is holding a ball bearing in place while you try pulling on the housing. It then slides out and you habe more bearings and C clips to deal with but much easier than removing the housing.. And there is the vc. Reinstalling is the same painstaking process of spreading that c clip while you push the housing back on.. not fun.

Because i am a stickler for details i couldnt stand the bumper not matching like a week after putting it on. So i painted it. You can see the damage from what i had assumed was what put it in the auction in the first place. Poor thing. At least with the bumper on it looked much better. And yes i did put the red stripe back on too. I almoat didnt because it looked kinda nice. My ocd wouldnt let me though lol

The jeep even had its original valet key! Anyway, first thing i did when i got it was a trans tune up and a front diff fluid change. The diff fluid seemed kind of.. sooty like. It was weird but definitely bad so i was happy to change that. The trans fluid didnt look bad either but i didnt know when it was last done and being wary of the 42re wanted to give it its best shot at life in my hands. I remember the magnet was a porcupine but no chunks! I used castrol synthetic atf. After that i sprayed oil all over any of the rust spots i could see underneath. Passenger rocker was soft by the fender and a spot of the unibody was in the begining stages of rusting. I spent a good 5 hours at my work doing ball joints and cv axles in that jeep because i found out my ball joints were bad and i was already in there. Sadly i have no photos of this work. It was a long process and messy..(heh) After that i tackled the soft spot that was in the rocker. Something to juat get me to pass inspection and id take care of it much more properly later on Cut, por15 and weld It has surprisingly held up since the repair! Mostly. I have patch panels and a new rocker panel to deal with this soon. After that i addressed the cracked front bumper issue. Went to a junkyard and pulled a clean black bumper and while i was at it clipped from fog light pigtails as my fog lights were missing and i got my hands on some led pods I had also bought some new headlight housings too and slapped it all together. The little leds i had to wire myself and the fogs i soldered the pigtails to so i could use them with the factory plugs. Couldn't bring myself to cut the harness. HEADLIGHT NIGHT SHOT. I thought it was a cool pic.

So in my long list of never ending projects and things i start can't seem to finish.. I see one project start it and then see another haha This time its my 1995 jeep grand cherokee orvis edition I bought this jeep about 4 years ago now from IAA(insurance auto actions) for about $600 buyers fees included and basically sight unseen aside from photos. Sight said it ran but i knew nothing else. Had 150k on the clock and it was very original. These are the first photos i took after picking it up. Light smack to the nose, bumper was broken and hood and fender were bent. Fog lights were missing too. It was january so it looked like whoever owned it had hauled a tree away before it was taken away to auction. But that spare tire cover though! And underneath it.. a BRAND NEW full sized spare tire. Rim still had the green sticker on the lip and tire had the balance marks on the treads. Untouched since 1995! And still is to this day! At this point i have never owned a zj and never had seen an orvis either! I knew little about them except for the fact that 42re is crap and that the orvis edition was rare. Found out mine was even more so after finding production numbers for the years. 1 of 2xxx made in 95 with a 4.0 not a 5.2.

I am actually selling a swb sport bar for 600. A guy is buying it tomorrow. Qnd i don't have the mounts(sadly) and I'm in Massachusetts I also have a lwb that i paid 300 for with mounts! But that is for my truck

I would but I'm fixing her up to let her go sadly. Too many cars in the fleet and the money will go towards the restoration on my mj. I suppose i still could make a build thread at least..

Right?? I actually got this from an insurance auction 4 years ago. The old girl looked like it had been babied by however owned it and then some young punk drove it after. Never really did figure out its story but i have record from the auction. I was just happy to see the interior was as nice as it was. And did my damndest to keep those seats in good shape. The rear seat is even nicer

Thank you! Shes been showing her age so ive been working on bringing her back. This one is a 4.0! And its the only 4.0 orvis i have seen too. Most of them were 5.2 equiped. In 95 they only made roughly 2000 orvis with the 4.0

Nice zj! I also have one. Mines a 95 though pushing 200k Its a limited orvis edition. Smoothest jeep ive ever owned.

Nice! So clean. So new. I have a nos 'jeep' decal in red i just can't bring myself to use lol

No, youre not the only one. It seems its an update to the forum and so i cannot access my own profile or view messages.