Fun with an XJ

Various things kept me from working on the Jeep today, but the Jeep did work for me.

A couple of weeks ago, the Subaru-powered Westfalia suffered a stroke of some sort that resulted in a long ride home on the hook. It's getting a new engine, transmission and electrical system anyhow so I'm not bothering to diagnose.  But tonight I had to move it, solo. It's sitting in relatively loose gravel. I needed to do a Y turn and parallel park it beside a fence. This was in relatively tight quarters.

XJ to the rescue! I grabbed a tree strap, tied on to the tow hitch of the VW and the tow hitch of the XJ, dropped into low range for control and yanked it backwards out of the resting space. I discovered when I stopped that it was slightly downhill. Close, but no bonkage.

There's no tow point on the front of the VW (as I discovered in the middle of Utah, it's on the to-do list now) so I couldn't pull it forward. But that's okay, I have a push bar. I checked bumper heights and it was perfect. So I nosed the Jeep up the VW, gave it a little poosh forward. Then I had to go back again and I didn't feel like trying to turn the Jeep around, so I strapped the tow strap around the push bar and pulled back. Another push forward and my wife is going to be baffled when she gets home as to how the VW got parked where it is.

Thank you mister Jeep for your assistance.

If anyone in Atlanta is interested, I recently saw an ad on CL for police push bars buy-one-get-one-free at $70. Seemed a little sketchy, but if I was in town I might have called the guy. The photo showed a stack of them. If someone wants to look into it I'd split the cost on a pair.

Elsewhere in the world they call these "nudge bars."  I like that. Nudge. Nudge.

we have a couple of Police car reSale places here and there are Lots of them around. but no I don't,  but would happily help you out

It makes sense that there would be a lot of surplus of these around - every time a generation of cop cars gets sold off, you end up with all the parts that are pulled off. And there really isn't all that much demand. Just make sure you get ones that have a flat face, preferably with a rubber cover. A true police push/nudge bar should (like the Go Rhinos), but some of the aftermarket ones (like the one from Outland for the XJ)  just have a simple steel plate for the sides. Not as strong and very likely to damage the pushee.

Also, more cheers for proper steel bumpers with rubber on them. Had I tried this trick with a car with a plastic or painted bumper, we would likely have some paint damage.

No pictures, but I've been playing with the rear hatch. The actuator wasn't locking/unlocking, and since I haven't had the tumbler out to get the key matched to the other exterior locks, I figured I should take care of this. The actuator was trying, it just couldn't manage.

I swapped it out yesterday with a new one. The one I took out was not stock from the looks of it. And alas, the new one doesn't have the horsepower to flip the lock either. I lubed the latch when I had it out a week or so ago, so I don't think it's that. There was a visible splice (and a good one, with a heatshrinking butt connector) in the wiring, so now I'm wondering if it's got some voltage drop. There's not really any other linkage in the rear hatch.

Any thoughts or experience from those who know? I'm going to replace all the actuators because only one works 100% of the time, and I'm hoping to solve all the problems in one go. The doors have more complex linkages so I'll have to spend some time lubricating a number of points.

Hey, remember this project?

When I took off for the holidays, I left the XJ in the care of a coworker who has more R&P and AC experience than I do. He swapped a Traction-Lok LSD into the rear along with new shafts, as some dead bearings had taken out the others. He also dropped a Truetrac in the front. All the traction and perfect street manners. It feels much better to drive now that the rear wheels are not self-steering, and it’ll get an alignment and front end checkup by the pros this week.

On the AC front, he’s found a bunch of problems. It needed a new compressor, but then it was pulling too much vacuum on the low side. The hoses appeared to be okay, so we changed the condenser. No luck. There must be something else hiding. We’ll revisit that. 

“Roof basket” is one of the things that’s been on Eric’s “maybe” list, and when I came across one in a local gear exchange for a great price, I grabbed it. It’s a universal unit so I can unload it if it doesn’t work. It clamps on with simple clamps, but only had three. I wanted more, so I build a couple more. They’re aluminum to minimize corrosion. 

Its easy to reposition, but the current thinking is “all the way back”. And yes, it was further forward when it snowed last night. Now we get to load it up with stuff like shovels and sand ladders and jerry cans and hi-lifts and lights....

Roof racks (or baskets) give an instant safari/expedition/Camel Trophy look to just about everything!

On my '98 XJ, if the front crossbar was too far forward it would make noise or vibrate.

Looking good. For some reason a rack makes almost any SUV look better.  I have been toying with the idea of a roof rack on the ZJ. I still have the 6' long, massively overbuilt rack I fabbed for the Explorer, but it's way too much. It came with a serviceable Yakima bike rack on top, although I need to get adapters to carry either of my MTBs up there. I keep trying to figure out a basic wire, low profile rack slung under the Yakima cross bars but I haven't come up with anything I'm happy with yet.

Keith Tanner said:

No pictures, but I've been playing with the rear hatch. The actuator wasn't locking/unlocking, and since I haven't had the tumbler out to get the key matched to the other exterior locks, I figured I should take care of this. The actuator was trying, it just couldn't manage.

I swapped it out yesterday with a new one. The one I took out was not stock from the looks of it. And alas, the new one doesn't have the horsepower to flip the lock either. I lubed the latch when I had it out a week or so ago, so I don't think it's that. There was a visible splice (and a good one, with a heatshrinking butt connector) in the wiring, so now I'm wondering if it's got some voltage drop. There's not really any other linkage in the rear hatch.

Any thoughts or experience from those who know? I'm going to replace all the actuators because only one works 100% of the time, and I'm hoping to solve all the problems in one go. The doors have more complex linkages so I'll have to spend some time lubricating a number of points.

FYI, I had problems on the back of my XJ with the latch.  A replacement actuator form RockAuto was comically cheap and fixed the problem 100%  As for the doors, I pulled the door cards and lubricated everything and worked them a bunch of times to get everything moving freely.  Seems to be working OK now, even in the cold, but there are a lot of rods and links and my guess is that the actuators simply loose torque over time and can't push hard enough.   Not a big enough deal for me to worry about it, I just lube them twice a year.  

Maybe it's not clear in the writeup, but I replaced the actuator with a new one and pulled the lock to lube/repair it. Didn't help.

I have a full set of new actuators for every door now, I just haven't replaced any others yet. The passenger's front is working perfectly. The driver's front needs to be warm. The rear doors don't really work. I'll spend a Saturday scratching up my arms to swap all but the good one out.

In other news, the PS pump is intermittently noisy. Let the Jeep idle for a while, it makes a heck of a racket. I've tried fluid, I think it's time to swap out the pump. Since Eric doesn't have the facilities to work on this thing, the plan is to make it as bombproof as possible for when it makes the move north.

It might look like this thing is just a series of failures, but it's getting better and better all the time. Driving it to work this morning, I realized that a bunch of crashing and looseness over bumps is gone - that's a combination of the new rear bearings (they were pretty bad) and the new suspension, plus chasing down various problems.

Keith Tanner said:

 

It might look like this thing is just a series of failures, but it's getting better and better all the time. 

I'm feeling very much like that about my ZJ. It seems like every time I touch it I find some other problem that needs addressed, but then I realize how much better it is and feel better about it. I guess that's the nature of a project vehicle though. 

This is the fun part of a project vehicle. Every time you touch it, it gets better. I'll probably spend most of Saturday installing a bunch of little stuff like longer brake lines and chasing a rattle in the rear hatch. The latter in particular will make it seem much more like a good car, as it's the last rattle extant as far as I know and that sort of thing really colors your opinion.

Building this to be bombproof for the next decade is different than making it work well enough for the time being. I'm trying to anticipate problems as much as fix existing ones. Plus, of course, upgrades like the slippy diffs and the suspension. It's turning into a fun truck.

Doofus attack!

I found out in a recent (and rare) fit of precipitation that the wipers would not work on the intermittent setting. Turns out the delay modules is a known problem. In preparation for dealing with this, I looked up some pictures.

The modules have the same connector on each end, so they just plug into the circuit inline. They attach with Velcro. The end result is something that looks very much like an aftermarket doodad.

Back on page 2, near the end of October, I was digging around under the dash trying to figure out why I was getting occasional clicking and buzzing when I went to drive the Jeep. I found an aftermarket module and pulled it out. You can figure out where this is going.

In my defence, I googled one set of numbers on the box and found nothing. And the big Mopar sticker that normally says "INT WIPERS" was not there at all.

I removed two modules that day. I wonder what the other one was doing? I guess I'll have to dig it up and find out...

Keith Tanner said:

Doofus attack!

I found out in a recent (and rare) fit of precipitation that the wipers would not work on the intermittent setting. Turns out the delay modules is a known problem. In preparation for dealing with this, I looked up some pictures.

The modules have the same connector on each end, so they just plug into the circuit inline. They attach with Velcro. The end result is something that looks very much like an aftermarket doodad.

Back on page 2, near the end of October, I was digging around under the dash trying to figure out why I was getting occasional clicking and buzzing when I went to drive the Jeep. I found an aftermarket module and pulled it out. You can figure out where this is going.

In my defence, I googled one set of numbers on the box and found nothing. And the big Mopar sticker that normally says "INT WIPERS" was not there at all.

I removed two modules that day. I wonder what the other one was doing? I guess I'll have to dig it up and find out...

probably driving the rear door lock actuator.

No, because the rear door lock actuator tries. It just can’t manage to get the job done. The other module was attached with a sheet metal screw, but I’m starting to realize that this actually could have been factory...

Update!

I have Colorado plates. The temp tags expired. Okay, not exciting, but needed.

Slightly more exciting and still needed some some steering attention. The Jeep's steering didn't seem to be all that loose, but there was a big dead spot in the middle. I had some experts check it over, and they diagnosed bad toe out, bad bushings on the track rod and a sketchy lower ball joint. I should have identified the toe, I've felt it before - but it was masked by the general squishiness of the vehicle. At least, that's my excuse.

With all this sorted out, the thing feels much better. It's still not exactly razor sharp, but now it's more comfortable steering with one hand and the steering wheel is more obviously connected to the front wheels.

Caster checked out despite the lift, so that's good. It's at the low end of the normal range, but it is in the normal range. The alignment report for this thing is outside my usual realm of experience - axle setback and lateral offset. Weird.

So there's one more step forward. If it hadn't been raining, I would have taken some celebratory dirt shots. Our desert environment doesn't like being driven on when it's wet, so that'll have to wait.

Have you figured out what size tires you plan to run yet?

We’re sticking with the tires that are on it. They’re 29.5”, iirc. Well suited to the intended use, and it’s good rubber. 

Hows the speedo accuracy with the 29.5" tires? My XJ has factory size 235/75R15 which are theoretically 28.8" and my speedo is slightly fast.

Great build Keith!

I spent 40hrs a week working out of an XJ back in the early 90s...  Very capable vehicle and was high on my list when we were looking for 4x4s a few years ago.  Ended up with a '92 Bronco instead.

Here in AZ XJs are also very popular, though mostly rhino-lined and covered with LED lightbars.  Nice to see this build going in a different direction!

I have a serious amount of on-center play in the ZJ even after replacing all the moving bits in the front and having it aligned. I haven't replaced the track rod but I can't find any play in it at all. I plan on going through the factory steering box adjustment procedure but a new box may be in order. 

I'm told the inverted Y linkage design has an inherent dead spot in the center because of the geometry on the lower (drag link) pivot. When you turn the steering the drag link pivot has to roll vertically until it hits the limit of its travel before the steering moves. There's a company called RuffStuff Specialties that sells a Delrin bushing ring that goes in the joint to decrease the pivot while still allowing the required movement. They call it The Cure and it's available for Jeep setups and the larger 1 ton linkages. It's cheap and very well reviewed in the Jeep forums. I'll probably order one once I can take a few measurements on my tie rods - they don't have one that's "approved" for the V8 ZJ, but they can work with some modification. I just have to figure out which of the 2 is closer.

buzzboy said:

Hows the speedo accuracy with the 29.5" tires? My XJ has factory size 235/75R15 which are theoretically 28.8" and my speedo is slightly fast.

Pretty good. I checked it this morning with a GPS speedo and the gauge reads very slightly slow. Looks like a bit less than 5% - 40 mph indicated is just under 42 mph.

There are quite a few rockcrawler XJs around here. Plus tired and dusty ones that may or may not double as an abode. Plus pristine ones and quite a few that are just...cars. They're everywhere. About the only thing that there are more of is WJs. Man, I would have loved to own the Jeep dealership around here around the turn of the century.

For $19, The Cure sounds like a pretty decent thing to try. Thanks! The steering wheel is not perfectly straight (on average) so I was going to futz with the drag link anyhow.

Because I don't know Jeep steering names, I keep going back to this image as a reference. I shall now hotlink it here so it's easy to find.

Mystery module #2 is identified. It's the headlight delay module, keeps the lights on after you turn off the ignition if you turn the lights off after the ignition but not if you turn off the lights before turning off the ignition. Our WJ has this behavior as well and it's annoying. So mystery module #2 will not be reinstalled. Maybe I'll go looking for it in the WJ as well.

Modules mounted with sheet metal screws and velcro. Some connectors that are big spades, some that are Weatherpak. Very few wire anchors. The wiring harness on this thing - from the factory - looks like something that just kinda happened by accident, not that was designed. I'm assuming that was AMC, because my other cars from this era aren't this haphazard from a wiring standpoint.

In reply to Keith Tanner :

Nope, that's Chrysler they did that back then, many of my Chrysler designed and built cars from that period had similar harness challenges.