'91 4.0 2WD "The Silver Bullet"

[Brewinghokie]

Howdy! Only starting this thread a year and a half late but better late then never.. except it means less photos around or at least easily accessible so will take some time to go back and add them.

 

I called this truck the Silver Bullet because well it is silver, sleek, and I brew craft (real) beer for a living so beer is always on my mind. I saw silver and thought for a somewhat sporty package in the Eliminator, Silver Bullet that go down fast was fitting... it also helps that it had been a hot minute since I had driven a manual (muchless one that acts like these do) and immediately chripped some tires and created some smoke :)

 

I bought this truck down in Mt. Olive, NC, not far from the legendary pickle factory from a gentleman that had bought it out in Kansas City where it spent most of it's life towed behind an RV with a retired couple. I bought it with around 131,000 miles (currently has almost 133,000) on it in very good shape with a little floor pan and bed rust, a need for an entire suspension replacement (most of it was seemingly 30 year old original factory parts), a few oil leaks needing fixed, a clutch replacement, and entirely too much money to restore.

 

The goal of this truck is to keep mostly stock as a 2wd, maybe a 4.0, maybe a 4.7 stroker, and most likely a 5.3 LS down the road with no lift, and a sleeper truck that shows well but is also fun to drive.

 

So far the truck has received a bunch of things so let's dive in to the what I affectionally have been calling the money pit lately

 

- an entirely new front suspension... twice as I went stupid and cheap the first time and didn't replace all the rubber components or control arms at first and just lived with the death wobble because this truck doesn't go out in winter weather or as long as salt is on the roads. It has only gotten 1,000 to 1,500 miles ish since I bought it in 11/20. Well, when it came out of the garage this winter this spring, the death wobble was ridiculous and as a result I decided to start completely fresh with everything new.

 

I put some Gabriel shocks, that have been on a couple hundred miles and they ride excellent, new upper and lower control arms (I did the WJ lower control arm mod), upper control arm bushings that were a massive PITA, sway bar links, new springs, the whole shebang on at the same time. Last summer, I did the rear leaf springs as one of them broke on the frame side and wobbled around like a mofo and completely unsafe. Those rear leaf springs were replacement with General springs that have been great but it took forever and a half to rear the shackle bolts out as the were well rusted in place. A torch, sawzall, and grinder took care of that... eventually.  I had to replace the driver side shackle, read on here which to replace with from the parts store and did so, don't remember off the top of my head but feel like it was a F-150 or something.

 

I just finished up the front suspension 2 weeks ago and have been looking around for a newer 2wd beam axle (around here they are hard to find as most XJs are 4x4) as I wanted the newer brake system. The week after I finished the suspension, the junkyard an hour away received a 2wd 99 XJ the same weekend as a 50% sale so took the Silver Bullet on the hour long trip and I tell ya, it drove like a brand new vehicle but still stopped like a turd. Went and pulled the axle in no time but damn did it kick my out of shape butt trying to pull it and the heavy cart back up the hill. The following day, I sprayed Rustoleum Rust Reformer, primer, and paint on it (good black finish) on it as it was super windy and dried fairly quick... need to note that I didn't care too much about the finish as long as it looked half decent. Before the axle was to be installed I quickly installed new upper control arm bushings as I was not going to do that inside the truck again anytime soon. The axle will begin to be installed this week along with new calipers, rotors, pads and a 96 booster and master cylinder!

 

The engine has run great, especially with a new set of spark plugs (still need to do the distributor), has had great oil pressure if not a little high compared to what I thought a 30 year old motor would have but that's great I suppose. The oil filter adapter of course leaked and got a new set of gaskets, valve cover leaked like crazy and got swapped to a newer 97 valve cover from the junkyard because I couldn't find elbows and CCV tubing that fit very well for the 91 so just swapped it. The new valve cover leaked like crazy because of alignment issues and therefore causing a smoke show from dripping on the exhaust but after the 4th time I finally got it to seal up with no leaks. I ended up having to put a small dab of RTV on a couple spots to hold the gasket in place without moving while installing the valve cover.

 

The oil pan leaked some when I bought it but not bad for 30 years old but then like crazy after having the clutch replaced and eventually from the drain plug after a quick change valve barely cross threaded. So after a lot of cursing at the engineers who designed the damn thing, the new oil pan went back into place and is leak free.

 

Of course the headlight harness has been done, along with new H4 Euro housings that are fantastic lights without being overbearing and don't blind other drivers. 

 

The radiator got replaced when the heater control valve decided to just bust and spray hot coolant all over the place one day as the old coolant was disgusting and everything was very rust colored and the overflow blow had 2 inches of gunk in the bottom.  Went with a CSF standard replacement radiator, new t-stat and housing, and a very long but gentle flushing of heater core and block with tons of stuff removed. Went ahead and replacement the sticky idler pully and slapped a new belt on her then. However realized the other day that one of the bottom studs didn't mount correctly so I need to pull the radiator and redo it... which that explained why it was sitting so weird on the fill cap/airbox side.

 

I've been at this long enough tonight. i'll go through photos and receipts and add in what I missed along with future progress soon!

 

CC Build Sheet

CC posting of the listing 

[Pete M]

oh, yeah, it definitely needs more pics.