Project Blue Jeep

Decided I don’t have time or desire to tackle this thing until spring. Reinstalled the interior, been driving it gutted with just the driver seat for a few months lying to myself that I was gonna start the big projects. It’s much nicer and quieter and somehow rides better with an everything back in. And I definitely missed the sub and the cup holder.

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Random piece of carpet is structural right? 🤣
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Just kidding it’s getting a temp patch tacked in real quick until spring. Then the entire pan is getting replaced.

Just crossing the fingers it makes it til April or May before I have to start surgery on it.

I did actually get a lot of work done on stupid small things. Tracked down a steering issue, rebelled brakes, drilled the holes it was missing for the hardtop (the 01 has the rear mounting holes more forward for ease of getting to the bolt instead of having a roll bar in your way so my old hardtop didn’t line up right and I’ve just been driving around without all the bolts in. Did a few other small fixes, and then a quick rinse of all the leftover grime/salt.

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Not sure if it will help but I believe I still have driver/passenger floor pans for a previous TJ I ended up not needing. I’ll verify I still have them but they are yours if you want em!
 
Not sure if it will help but I believe I still have driver/passenger floor pans for a previous TJ I ended up not needing. I’ll verify I still have them but they are yours if you want em!

Thanks man. Sadly I already bought the panels or I’d take you up on that for sure


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Been down with the flu for a bit. Finally getting that desire to go back outside, one thing that’s been bugging me for the last month is the front tires won’t stay off the fenders. This is because the body mounts rusted and the body is sitting a bit lower than it should. As well as the shitty rough country coils sagging a lot. Both of these things will be fixed when warm, but for now, I grabbed the sawzall and did some clearancing.

I couldn’t even park on a snow mound right.
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I should not have started with the driver side, I have to look at this side and I learned a lot very quickly🤣
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Used a hole saw for the corners so they wouldn’t be jagged.
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Did the other ones, pass side I’m pretty happy with. I’ll touch up the driver side ones with a flap wheel where the blade got away from me. But That’s in storage so another day.
Rinsed the salt off
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I can now hit potholes without hearing plastic. Hooray.


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That’s the cleanest chop I’ve seen. A lot of fender trims look too minimal and bare to me. Perfect job in my opinion.


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The time has come.
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One bolt holding the driver side up.

It survived til winter was over. Weather is starting to look better. I’ll take that as a win.


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And so it begins.

Power washed everything possible.
Got as much loose shit off it as possible.
Also the mall was closed so had to improvise.

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Skid plate mount barely made it but still hanging on

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Got nakey
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And stripped
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Pb blasted every bolt I can see. Will get the rest of the tools from storage this week. Then teach myself to weld better the hard way.
 
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Glad you finally got some time to get into it. I know you've been wanting to get this done!

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Yeah, hopefully the weather stays just right for a few weeks and I can power through this shitty engineered problem.
Like, how hard is it to use good paint? or design a frame that doesnt trap everything inside of it?
 
Yeah, hopefully the weather stays just right for a few weeks and I can power through this shitty engineered problem.
Like, how hard is it to use good paint? or design a frame that doesnt trap everything inside of it?
Couple the design factor into the slurry they put on our roads in the winter and it's a recipe for rust.

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I got bored and took the sawzall to it no turning back
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Then found out the rear pan is pretty much ONLY glued in.
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This upper arm is barely holding on at all

Went and loaded up the tools
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Cleaned and organized garage
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Dropped the gas tank
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Pulled the driveshafts

Fought the skid plate
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Prepped the insides of the unpainted patch pieces. Hit them with farm/implement paint

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Ground down all the rust on skid plate and hit with the same.

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Skid plate will be replaced when it gets long armed (not this year) so not too worried about these rust spots between the frame bolts. It’s still sturdy.
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Then did all the other shit.
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The input is a bit gouged. Not pleased with that, gonna do some more research to the depth it sits into the crank as most of it is fine and fits the pilot bearing snugly. It’s just where it was riding on the edge of the broken race where it’s worn down .5mm on the mics
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Room to work now
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Washed out the bell of 20 years of grime and nasty shit.
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Called it a day.

The throwout bearing was definitely most of the noise. But the center piece of the clutch disc was loose and rattling like crazy as well, those two and the pilot bearing being just gone I’m pretty confident was all the noise it had, which I am happy when I find obvious answers so I don’t have to think about the noise being something else.

https://youtu.be/PE4puwYtg6g
 
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