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1998 Cherokee 4.0 Ltd - Project


Fourpot

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Don't know the reason but have had 4 XJ's so far all lifted. 2 earlier ones pulled straight after alignment both 98 and later always pulled to the left even after alignment

 

Only in a Jeep

Driven 40 miles since the lift now and runnning straight, steering is light but with plenty of feel. Welding now done. Will re-check every nut and bolt this weekend and re-check alignment.    I understand that most cars are built with an inherent drift to the nearside, so that if the driver falls ill (or alseep, or is texting or putting on make-up or working their ipod) the car will not drift into a head-on with anything coming the other way.  Future cars will automatically stop, lock the doors and fill up with lethal gas if the driver is on their mobile or texting.

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You could use your LHD trackbar and one of your RHD trackbars cut the threaded end off the LHD one and cut the axle end off the stock one then weld a small steel tube sleeve over to join them.

[/quote

LHD adjustable track bar arrived today. Hmm, it's a 'heavy duty' adjustable track bar, so it has actually 4mm greater diameter than the stock one. May have to sleeve the stock end to make it the same diameter as the LHD one, then sleeve over both?  :scratch:

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Today I have re-torqued all the nuts and bolts and re-checked the steering alignment. She steers just nicely still.. and straight. Got over to the other side of a road and she drifts just ever so slightly with the camber to the right. so I'm happy with that. Castor angle though is 9.5 + deg, which is maybe a bit much really, there's no sense of having to work hard to get the car to turn and the pinion angle looks no different to the stock on my 2.5 Cherokee, so I'll just have to see how it goes.

 

Hadn't looked at the welding until today as I'd picked the car up in the dark. Nice and solid. I drilled three holes to locate the battery tray with some shiny new bolts, Waxoyled everything and now have a secure battery.

 

As I'm off down to Warwickshire on Wednesday for the rust-proofing, I checked the oil (engine and diffs etc) and coolant. Well the oil is nice, the coolant was just water, so drained and flushed that out and filled her up with some new pink stuff.  The Haynes manual says to re-fill the straight six through the expansion bottle, but looking at it, I can't see how that'd work. Anyway, I filled it up via the radiator cap, all works fine including the heater!

 

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Changing the rocker cover gasket seems to have cured the oil leak that was ending up dripping off the back of the engine. Phew! probably not the rear main seal then!

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  • 2 weeks later...
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Damn, still getting drips of oil down the back of the engine, coming out at the engine/gearbox join. Hmm engine out?

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Can you not get to the rear main seal with just the gearbox out? Haven't done one on a 4.0L before though so can't be a 100%

 

Only in a Jeep

 

 

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Can you not get to the rear main seal with just the gearbox out? Haven't done one on a 4.0L before though so can't be a 100%

 

Only in a Jeep

 

Hadn't thought of doing that, good idea!.  I'll size up the situation, though I'm kind of looking forward to the 'excuse' to get the engine out. May be easier to fit new manifolds with it out and also may have a go at porting the head or at least clean it up and re-grind the valves and have a look at the cylinders too.. and.. and....

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Can you not get to the rear main seal with just the gearbox out? Haven't done one on a 4.0L before though so can't be a 100%

 

Only in a Jeep

 

Happy days!  On the 4.0 litre lump you can change the rear main seal with the engine and gearbox in place, just have to drop the sump and the rearmost crank clamp (and a bar thing that goes along the crank clamps) and it can be prised out and a new one shoved in, because it's a two piece seal. The only difficulty is that the front axle is normally removed to make it easy to drop the sump. Hmm, options - as I am about the change the UCAs, I may take the opportunity to do it all at once or..., just lift the car so the axle droops, which, as it has a 3" lift, will mean a lot more room under the sump than usual.  Actually I think I'll try and do it without touching the axle. I'm waiting for my RHD adjustable track bar to arrive in January so I'll do the axle work then, but the leak needs fixing pronto.

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If you need a bit more room unbolt the shocks and anti roll bar might give you that extra bit of wiggle room to get the sump clear

 

Only in a Jeep

 

 

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If you need a bit more room unbolt the shocks and anti roll bar might give you that extra bit of wiggle room to get the sump clear

 

Only in a Jeep

 

Good shout...

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  • 1 month later...
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Got the rear main oil seal done. Not too difficult after all.  Didn't need to drop the axle or anything as long as the axle can hang free (i.e. support the car on its frame), the 3" lift I have has allowed the axle to dangle far enough down to get the sump out quite easily.

 

Getting the pan back on was a bit fiddly, I used a few very small cable ties through the bolt holes to secure the gasket in place on the pan while I offered it up to teh engine. Then once a few key bolts were in place, (not tightened) I could cut the cable ties and pull them out. Then do up all the bolts.

 

Now I'm onto the front seal, which one might imagine is an easier job. Er. no. Radiator out, aircon rad out, oil cooler out and eventually sod,it, front of car off!  Even then there's only limited space between the engine and the front cross member.  :grrrrrr:

 

All done now though  :icon_e_biggrin: and a new thermostat, housing and temp sender while I'm there.  Now if this thing still leaks oil... well...  :grrrrrr: :grrrrrr: :grrrrrr:

 

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  • 3 weeks later...
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Plumped for a new radiator as it was not really any more expensive than getting the old, core-leaking, tatty one fixed.  I'll get the engine running happily and check for leaks everywhere, before I put the body front back on. Taken the opportunity to clean out dirt and debris and smother Waxoyl in the nooks and crannies that will be sealed up again for another 18 years!

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Gave the inside a good clean, dry and then more Waxoyl everywhere. Nearly ready to start putting all the interior back in..

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Fresh oil, filter and coolant in, engine fired up and happily no leaks anywhere!  I'll flush and change the tranny fluid once the car's ready to be driven on the road, it definitely needs doing as the stuff that fell out of the cooler when I took it off was proper brown. Topped up the lost amount with a bit of fresh for now.

 

As it's been sitting on the garage floor for a couple of months now, I decided to fit the Smittybilt XRC rear bumper, the nearside one was easy, but the one that shares it's mounting bolts with the exhaust bracket and the fuel tank guard was a right pain! Sloshed Waxoyl over everything as I went as usual. Anyway, on now and looking nice I think?

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Put the front back on today, after tracing a bad earth (making the left indicators flash too fast) to a dirty connector. Cleaned, WD40'd and all lights working fine. I've got two leads left over from the original apron-mounted foglights, so I'll use these for when I put some foggers on the new front light bar (front XRC bumper and bar is a job for the coming weekend)

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I almost did the same thing.

Jeepey sell a RHD 4.5" - 6" adjustable one. This may not be of help now and you may already be aware of this but thought I would mention it.

Its made by rocky road outfitters, I've used it for a year now with no real complaints. If you do get one though and your 4.5" or above its good to take an oxy torch to the bar near the top were it connects to the chassis and bend it 20 degrees downward. This will give you considerable more articulation and take a lot of stress off of the tie rod (which is at fill lock with this lift and bar). Will post a pic if you are interested.

Anyway hope you get it sorted!

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I almost did the same thing.

Jeepey sell a RHD 4.5" - 6" adjustable one. This may not be of help now and you may already be aware of this but thought I would mention it.

Its made by rocky road outfitters, I've used it for a year now with no real complaints. If you do get one though and your 4.5" or above its good to take an oxy torch to the bar near the top were it connects to the chassis and bend it 20 degrees downward. This will give you considerable more articulation and take a lot of stress off of the tie rod (which is at fill lock with this lift and bar). Will post a pic if you are interested.

Anyway hope you get it sorted!

Interesting!  I decided to just do a 3" lift because, as with most things, there's a tipping point where just another inch means an extra set of problems, bigger budget and extras needed. 3" achieves what I want out of the car. Ultimately, when I win the lottery, I'll get a Wrangler and do really mad things with it :icon_eek:

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Yeah it gets crazy the further up you go, 3" is a nice lift with good ride quality.

The build looks like its coming along well though, always really good to strip these old things down and give them a new lease of life. Did and still doing the same with mine. My steering needs some attention.

Normally I take my wallet out of my pocket and just throw it at the jeep and a new part appears on it. Stopped working though, must be empty again!

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Yeah it gets crazy the further up you go, 3" is a nice lift with good ride quality.

The build looks like its coming along well though, always really good to strip these old things down and give them a new lease of life. Did and still doing the same with mine. My steering needs some attention.

Normally I take my wallet out of my pocket and just throw it at the jeep and a new part appears on it. Stopped working though, must be empty again!

ha ha.. I know that feeling, it's all slowing down a bit as I've just semi-retired to work fewer days per week, but every time something on the shopping list is bought, something else goes onto the list to fill the space!

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So, I decided to fit the XRC front bumper this morning and then, following lunch, go to the gym and then if it stays nice, go for a blast on the bike. Failed.

Following the (rather bad) Smittybilt instructions, the first job is to pull out the three big bolts that hold the steering gear box to the frame rail. Given that these are originally fitted using threadlock and have been there for 18 years, this was always going to be a 'fingers crossed' job.

Two bolts were persuaded to come out and one sheared. So the steering box has to come off or at least get to where I can pull the sheared stump out of it. Luckily I could just undo the steering rod nut and drop it out of the pitman arm and wriggle the box down without undoing the hoses (an advantage I think of right-hand drive is that the hoses are very long). There is a cast aluminium bracket with integral spacers between the frame and the steering box that was so brittle it just snapped off, except for the part where the sheared stud was. I had to cut the rest of the bracket off to get at the stud.  Got the stud out reasonably easily, but now have to fab a new bracket or (I think I've found one in the USA) get another one.  Cracked on with the bumper bracket on the nearside, which requires a bit of drilling so all nearly done, just need that aluminium bracket to reassemble then put the bumper on.  Anyway, I found lots of dirt and damp behind the steering box so cleaned it all out and sloshed Waxoyl everywhere. One 'plus' out the situation.

That took all bluddy day, so I'll have to stay fat for a bit longer and the bike will have to wait another day for a good run out.

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The front seats need a lot of TLC. The squabs need re-upholstering and after separating the seats from the sub-frames (that have all the electric motors and sliding mechanisms), I decided these needed cleaning up too. Used some de-greaser and wire brushing to clean them up, then re-painted with Hammerite and re-greased the moving parts. Sending seats away this week.

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Today's job was to take the covers off the seat bases ready to take to trimmers. Never anything so simple though... Now, I think one of the old girl's previous owners/drivers may have been a bit 'heavy'. Apart from the trashed seat cover, the steel frame was snapped and cracked - so badly that a whole piece was missing in one place! So out comes the recently acquired MIG unit for my first crack at welding, fabricate a patch and job done..  I'll call my welding efforts 'structurally sound', but I don't think I'll get any calls from Mulliner Park Ward!

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The welding will get better keep practising. Word of warning don't practice on the uniframe it's pretty thin steel just ask me how I know [emoji1]

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The welding will get better keep practising. Word of warning don't practice on the uniframe it's pretty thin steel just ask me how I know [emoji1]

 

Ha ha, yes I had a few goes with some bits of sheet steel the same thickness.  I'm glad I had the could of bits of bodywork done by a professional!  There's a bit needs doing on the roof of my 2.5, I may have a crack at that.  It's my 11th wedding anniversary this year and the 11th anniversary 'substance' is steel. I plan to make a sort of small horse sculpture for the good missus, it's not until July so I'll probably take 20 goes at it, or give up and use rivets.

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