Muffin - 1997 Jeep Wrangler(TJ)

I wasn't exaggerating, these things have been done for a while.

♩ ♪ ♫ ♬ Hello Death Wobble my old friend... ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬

I had the steering handled, had new-to-me coil springs, all I needed were bushings and shocks.

Every time I've replaced Jeep, front, upper, control arm, axle bushings, I say something like, "If I ever have to do that again, it'll be too soon."  However, I have replaced enough of them now, to be relatively quick about it. 

The driver's side bushing was actually easy to just knock out with a min sledge and a big socket.  A piece of all-thread, and some nuts just to hold the socket centered on the bushing, and commence beating.  I think it popped out on the 3rd or 4th whack.

The passenger side bushing, well the passenger side bushing was a pain, especially after being lead into a false since of accomplishment with the driver's side bushing.  It just laughed at my attempts to remove it with a socket and hammer.  I wound up taking a hole saw, and my wrist breaker, 110v, drill, to remove the center of the bushing.  Then I used my sawzall to cut some reliefs in the remaining shell of the bushing.  That allowed me to use a long flat screw driver (it's intended purpose of course ) and a hammer, to deform the bushing shell until it was small enough to remove.

Fun times!

If I ever have to do that again it'll be too soon. 

I'm reading and following along....keep it coming.

While I don't believe I'm suffering from early stages of death wobble, I've got an annoying vibration from the front end that kicks in around 55mph+

Wheels have been rebalanced and I've rotated them and the issue persists. Due to how infrequently I drive the Jeep these days, I've not really looked into it much.

Considering it was born in December of '96, a lot of the rubber parts are just flat out toast due to age.

Your technique will help the process of refreshing the front end on mine.

Replacement bushings came in various forms.

Those front axle, upper control arm, bushings got replaced with new, OE equivalent, Moog, Clevite style, bushings.

Lower control arm bushings came in the form of new, Superlift, lower control arms, Superlift part # 5079.  I wouldn't say these were my 1st choice, but the price was right.  Technically Superlift claims these are for a 3 to 4 inch lift, I guess I'm a half inch short with my 2.5" springs.  Meh.  You know when you look at something on eBay, then a day or two later you get an email that the thing you looked at is now cheaper, yeah, well I got one of those emails for these arms.  I figured, "really, how much difference could 1/2 an inch make?"  Spoiler alert, none, they worked out great.

Polyurethane bushings, and grease zerks in each end of the lower control arms.

Frame side, upper, control arm bushings, also came in the form of new control arms.

Core4x4 adjustable control arms, with OE style Clevite bushings on the frame end.  I used these exact arms on our XJ, and was pleased with them.  I've got a buddy that had them on one of his Jeeps with no complaints.  I went with adjustable arms, so I wouldn't have to rely so much on eccentric bolts for alignment, I had the caster set with these arms.  They seem to work well with the Superlift lower arms.

Finally, the shocks...  The old Ranchos had to go.  I probably shopped and researched these longer than anything else.  I really had my heart set on some Bilstein 5100s, but I ran into that whole, not wanting to put some $$$ parts on that I'm just going to replace, conundrum again.  I even made some want ads on some Jeep groups in search of some used monotube TJ shocks, with almost no response for weeks.  The handful of messages I got were obvious scammers.

I decided I'd be buying new shocks.  I was tempted to just go through the Gabriel or Monroe catalog and find something that'd fit, but decided to not be a complete tight ass, and get something more appropriate instead.  I may have bought some Doetsch 8000s if their website ever worked, they've got pretty mixed reviews though, so I may have dodged a bullet. 

I had pretty well made up my mind to just buy some Skyjacker Hydros, but while on Skyjacker's website I came across their Black Max shocks.  Black Max is still a twin tube hydraulic shock, basically a Hydro 7000 that's a little larger in diameter, for more fluid volume, can handle more heat, has a foam cell in the shock body to stop fluid cavitation, and, of course, they're black.  Plus they're only a few dollars more than the standard Hydros, so what the heck.

 I think OME springs are listed at 1-1/2" to 2", which is about what I got for lift. And I don't have a winch up front. Hope you get what you want out of them. They ride great, though! 

One last look at the old setup.  I think the coil spacers went in around '02-ish.  The Ranchos shortly after.

Progress!

Coil spring comparison, old OE versus "new" OME!

Rancho vs. Black Max.  Yep, the Black Max are "upside down."  Weird that the stud is on the body and the eye is on the shaft, so when mounted, they're upside down compared to just about every other shock.  Skyjacker says they can be mounted in whatever orientation you want, so I guess it's okay.  Never had a shock with the boot on the bottom before.

They obviously come with boots, bar pins, and poly bushings.  Pro tip, put the bar pin in the bushing before putting it in the eye, and put the boot on before you put the bar pin or bushing in the eye.  I'll admit to nothing.

I had to get creative to remove the passenger side shock.

I sure am glad my leg wasn't under that!

I sprayed some rattle can black on the spring buckets, and reused the Daystar bump stops.

It was a long day, and a few hours into the next even, but before I knew it, I had a mostly refreshed front suspension.

You didn't think I'd do all of that work, and not do something with the front track bar did you?

Rusty to the rescue!  I used a Rubicon Express adjustable track bar on our XJ, and while I like it, it required modification to the upper mount for it to fit, since the RE track bar uses a heim joint and bolt on the frame side.  The Rusty's adjustable track bar, as you can see uses an OE style tie rod end, and mounts to the frame just like stock.

I put in a 14.5 hour day, and was exhausted, but I had a whole new front suspension and steering!  I even torqued all the fasteners to spec with the suspension supporting the weight of the Jeep, unheard of I know.  I will say 130 ft lbs, laying on my back at 1:00 in the morning, exhausted from a full day plus of wrenching, was more than I could muster with my "little" torque wrench.  Thankfully my "big" torque wrench is about 8" longer, and provided just enough extra leverage to "click."  There's never been a more satisfying "click!"

Just read the whole thread, I can't believe I missed this until now!

Good read, keep it up. Don't forget details about the new garage/house :)

I thank you for not using photobucket or replacing all the broken links. That has been the death of many an old thread and I was elated when I opened up this 5 year old thread and saw pictures.

ValourUnbound said:

Just read the whole thread, I can't believe I missed this until now!

Good read, keep it up. Don't forget details about the new garage/house :)

I thank you for not using photobucket or replacing all the broken links. That has been the death of many an old thread and I was elated when I opened up this 5 year old thread and saw pictures.

Thanks!

I had been a Photobucket user for at least a decade when they went full King George.  There was no way I was paying what they were asking.  I still get emails from them just about daily, about bandwidth limits. 

I didn't want to go through this again, I figured all of the other free hosting options will eventually be a similar risk to Photobucket, and GRM wasn't hosting photos themselves yet.  So, I decided to buy my own domain, and host my own photos.  Keith Tanner, here on GRM, and a few of my IT professional friends all recommended Bluehost, so I bought a domain, set up a photo hosting site, and went through most of my threads fixing Photobucket's screw-up.

Very cool thread.  I just found in for the first time, took a few days to read through it all, and gotta say it's pretty cool.  Cool Jeep, Cool thread.  Very cool that you've kept the project and the progress updated through these 5 years or so AND that your photos work (as has been mentioned previously).

I've never been a jeep guy, but now I want one.  (...even though I don't want to pay the Jeep tax.)

ClemSparks said:

Very cool thread.  I just found in for the first time, took a few days to read through it all, and gotta say it's pretty cool.  Cool Jeep, Cool thread.  Very cool that you've kept the project and the progress updated through these 5 years or so AND that your photos work (as has been mentioned previously).

I've never been a jeep guy, but now I want one.  (...even though I don't want to pay the Jeep tax.)

Thanks!

Jeep tax on TJs isn't as bad as it was, the JLs and JTs have driven the TJ market down even more than the JKs did.  I've seen a lot of well equipped (lift, tires, gears, etc.) 4 cylinder TJs for <$5K.

I had an appointment for an alignment at 4:00 PM at the local shop I frequently use for tires/alignment, but that was wishful thinking, since I was still torquing fasteners at 1:00 AM the following morning.

I tried rescheduling with the local shop, but they couldn't get me in the next morning, and I was leaving for Rocktoberfest the same day.  My next option was the local Jeep & Ram dealer, they promised they could get me in, and out quick, so I made an appointment for 9:00 AM the day I was leaving for Rocktoberfest.

I managed to get 4 hours of sleep, and went back to packing, and prepping.

I gave Muffin a quick Ajax bath in the rain, mostly to get my dirty hand and finger prints off of it, but it hadn't been washed in a few years, so it was starting to grow stuff.

I hopped in Muffin, and headed to the dealer.  Alignment was off, but pretty good for simply laying the new steering components next to the old components and "eyeballing it."

Pretty sure this is a first, for sure a first since I've owed Muffin.  Muffin at a dealership for service?!?!?  Gasp!!!

I was annoyed, my dealership visit for a front end alignment, that I had an appointment for, was a 2+ hour ordeal.  However, I did meet with the shop foreman to discuss what I had done to the Jeep and what my expectations were before they got started.  While they took their sweet time, they did do what I asked, set caster with my new adjustable upper control arms, and tightened all the jam nuts on everything, even the new track bar.

While there they stuck a OBD reader on Muffin and told me that she had a couple recalls.  I chuckled and pointed out that Muffin is 22 years old.  Apparently they wanted to inspect the catalytic converter and reprogram the ECM for emissions.  I declined both, since Muffin has had an aftermarket cat for ~17 years, may have been related to the recall, since the original cat matrix broke up and clogged the exhaust.  Muffin is horse power challenged enough as-is so I didn't think I'd benefit much from an emissions tune.

I was pleased enough with the alignment, they could have gotten the steering wheel straighter, but it's pretty close.  Muffin rode like a whole new Jeep, tight steering, tracked straight, no wandering.   I had just gotten used to a little wobble around 45 mph.  Now I've had to get used to no wobble at all.

I left the dealer, stopped by the house to finish loading up, and hit the road for the 2 hour trip to Rocktoberfest.

Glad they got you taken care of.

The last time I took mine to a dealer for a simple state inspection (don't get me started on those), the idiots couldn't get it started despite me telling them of the kill switch that had been installed after the alarm was disabled for shipping the vehicle back to the states in 2002. Not sure why that was done either; our Expedition didn't receive that treatment going back to Europe, or coming back to the states in '09.

Eagerly awaiting pics from the event!

In reply to Azryael :

Boy time flies, I didn't take a lot of photos, but I did get a few videos.

This fella was in the competition, lost steering, drove up the creek bank, and flopped over.  No one was hurt.

A little night wheeling.

These next few are all us playing around in that same creek bed that buggie flopped over in that photo above.  I let my buddy Curtis drive Muffin, I was filming.
 

My buddy Evan has an exo caged, flat bed, 22RE, Yota on 35" tires, that he's pretty much fearless in, same one that flopped over in that winching video on the previous page.  He tackled one of the more difficult trails, Pure Hell, and did great, until a rock repositioned one of his factory tow hooks into the botom of his radiator.

Haven't done any real work on Muffin lately, I did discover an new intake manifold leak.  Not looking forward to fixing it again, this will be the 4th time in the 20 years I've owned the thing.  I don't know if this is just status quo for a non-crossflow head that uses the same hardware and gasket for both intake & exhaust manifold, or I've got a warped manifold?  There is a Mopar part # that is an intake manifold only gasket, and I've read some chatter about Jeep eventually using that, and not using an exhaust manifold gasket at all.  Not sure how accurate that is, everyone I know with a 2.5l TJ has a one piece gasket for both manifolds?

Muffin's exhaust manifold is cracked too, I can get a new OE style cast manifold or a stainless eBay header for about the same price, or what I'll probably do is drill out both ends of the crack and braze it.

Otherwise, Muffin has just been our farm truck, over the past few months we've cleared the spot on our property where we'll be building our shop/apartment.  Muffin has diligently served the role of transport, tree skidder, and mobile tool box well.

I've got a buddy that does chainsaw carvings, so Muffin and the Warn skidded out a bunch of cedar trees for him.

As we've cleared trees, Muffin and that winch have been super handy.

 

Story time:

Fall of 2008, I was visiting my grandparents, my late grandfather, "Pa Tom," motioned for me to come over to the bed of his truck, and said, "here Lee you like to tinker on stuff, see if you can fix this," as he handed me his old Husqvarna 51 chainsaw. Grandpa's old saw had finally died, and he'd replaced it with a new one.  We lost grandpa to a sudden heart attack mid summer of 2009.

I never put a lot of effort into the saw, a random few times, over the years, I'd tinkered with it, but never got much past confirming, indeed it didn't run. This broken saw had been with me for over 10 years, moved to a few different homes, and even across the country and back again.  The saw's sentimental value is worth more than any dollar amount, so I've just taken it with me, where ever I lived.  I was always going to get to it some day...

I should probably quit cluttering Muffin's thread with property stuff, but we're using Muffin a lot on our property.

I had a 20' shipping container delivered recently.  We need dry lockable storage, since all of our tools and supplies are 30 miles away every time we're out there working.  We've already boxed up a lot of non-essential stuff that's going to reside in the box for a while too.

It's been raining basically every week, a couple days a week for the past 2 years, our property is a swamp.

Story time again:

I met the delivery driver at the end of the driveway, drove him down to where we wanted the box, showed him at least 4 options of places he could drop it, let him choose. I told him if he got stuck I could get him out and not to worry about ruts. However, I didn't expect him to come to a complete stop rear wheels in the ditch, and the trailer fully tilted with 1/3 of the box still on the trailer...

It's like we got done looking around, I told him not to worry about getting stuck, and he said, "Challenge accepted!"

My folk's farm is about 2 miles from our place, dad knew we were having the container delivered, and had rolled up on his little 4x4 Kubota 3700 about the time we'd decided where we were going to put the box. I said something like, "I'm glad you’re here, but hopefully we won't need that."

…We needed the Kubota and then some.

The Kubota just spun its wheels. So dad tells me to run down to his house and get his John Deere 2755, I ask if the keys are in it, he thinks and decides, it'll probably need jumped so he hoped in the Jeep with me.

Indeed the John Deere was dead.  We got the jumper cables out of his Tundra.  Pulled the top off the battery box.  The box was full of oil soaked hay residue, the terminals are coated with oil, dust, grime, hay.  I think, "There’s no way I'll get a good connection on these terminals."  I remembered I had a can of brake cleaner in the Jeep...

I hose the terminals off, blow on them to evaporate the brake cleaner, because I know it's flammable, and a spark will set it off.  To be extra cautious I hook the jumper cable up to the tractor's battery first, to avoid sparks. However, I didn't pay any attention to the other end of the jumper cables, where both ends were touching each other...

I hook the positive lead on, then as soon as I touch the negative lead to the battery, instant sparks followed by flames, a lot of flames.  I hollered up to dad, in the cab of the tractor, "Hey, you have a fire extinguisher?"  Instead of handing me the fire extinguisher he leans over the hood to look at what's going on, sees the 12" flames shooting up from the battery box, his eyes bug out, he goes back in the cab to grab the fire extinguisher.  

I guess he was planning on coming around the tractor and extinguishing it himself, but he caught his jacket on the door handle, and almost fell.  To free himself he needed both hands, so he tossed me the fire extinguisher across the hood.  I look for a pin, there isn't one?  I quickly study the mechanics of the the thing, it's the kind you push forward the safety with your thumb, and can then squeeze the handle.  After I figure it out, I point the nozzle at the battery box, and the oil soaked, hay, covered side of the engine that's now also on fire... Nothing. I tried again in vain, shook the extinguisher, turned it upside down as if that would help.  I look at the pressure gauge, and it's almost entirely in red.

I start digging through the Jeep for something, anything.  Dad sprints to the house 60 yards away.  I grabbed a blaze orange t-shirt from the Jeep, I still had from cutting trees during deer season, and started batting the flames with it.  I wasn't making much headway.  I was trying to think of what I could use.  I remembered Julie sticking a few 12oz water bottles under the seat last time we were out at the property working.  I found the bottles, 3-1/2 bottles of Kroger brand water.  I poured 2 in their entirety on the battery, and conservatively doused a 3rd on other parts of the tractor.  I had the fire just about out, when dad returned with a 5 gall bucket of what I assume was rain water.

So we jump started the tractor.

Then we got the singed John Deere stuck trying to get the dully unstuck...

Thankfully the John Deere wasn't stuck as bad as the delivery truck, I was able to pull dad and the John Deere out with the Kubota.  We attempted to pull the truck out with the Kubota and John Deere hooked together pulling at the same time, but just made deeper ruts and eventually broke a strap.

What saved the day?

I tied Muffin off to a stump, with a D-ring in the hitch on her rear bumper, put a snatch block on the delivery truck, and slowly tugged the truck and trailer out, with the rebuilt Warn!

I had to reposition a few times, and when we ran out of stumps, I was anchoring off of the John Deere.

Muffin saved the day!

I think I just about burned up the spool in solenoid though.

Here's some video of the escapades.  Unfortunately, I don't have any video of the fire.

Part 1 is an exercise in futility with the tractors:

Part 2 is Muffin the super hero:

Just got done reading your whole thread. I hope to own something long as you and create so many memories with it. 

I just had to jump start a truck over lunch. You had me a bit nervous. That guy really wanted to take you up on getting his truck stuck it looks like.

Professor_Brap (Forum Supporter) said:

Just got done reading your whole thread. I hope to own something long as you and create so many memories with it. 

That's quite an endeavor, thanks and condolences for suffering through that.

I'll for sure be paying closer attention to the other end of the jumper cables from here on out.  May not be so cavalier with the brake cleaner either.

Yeah, when he stopped where he did, my internal dialogue was, well, colorful.  After the fire though, all I could to was shake my head and chuckle.  What a day, I couldn't have scripeted any of it to play out like it did, if I'd tried.

Almost a year with no updates.  I didn't get to go to Roctoberfest in '20, they had a modified version due to COVID, but I didn't go because my silly sister decided to get married the same weekend, and I was asked to be a groomsman, despite numerous objections.

Roctoberfest is normally the motivation to fix, upgrade, fiddle with whatever needs to be fiddled with in preparation for the trip every year.

Muffin was used a lot through the summer, but mostly parked for the winter.  We had the same snow storm that shut down TX come through AR and reek havoc here too.  AR doesn't get the national news coverage TX does.

We stayed home for most of the week of the snowmageddon, but did have to get out once.  Muffin did fine, but had sat so long I had to charge the battery.  Just this week I hopped in to move her out of the way, and again the battery didn't have enough juice to crank.  Shameful I know.

So Muffin got a shamefully, necessary, quality of life upgrade, in the form of a solar battery charger.

I've used these stand-alone Battery Tender solar charge controllers a few times.  You can use these, a 10W panel from Amazon, and make a solar charger that's double the output and 1/2 the cost of the prebuilt Battery Tender solar chargers.  They're great for infrequently used equipment, I usually make the charger and panel removable, but decided to mount the charge controller to the Jeep, and just make the solar panel removable.

I mounted the charge controller in the dash, behind/under the glove box.  If you're looking at this picture and thinking, "surely he didn't screw that thing directly to the HVAC duct," you're not new here, of course I did.  Output to the battery goes out the firewall through the foam sealing off the heater hoses.

Input from the solar panel snakes up through the center stack, and comes out in the ash tray.

Set the panel on the dash and let the sun do its thing.

Yeah, I still need a windshield.

I found some abraded wires while spelunking in the dash.  Someone here noted that if you soldered wires together and forgot to put your heat shrink tubing on first, you could split the heat shrink, put it on the wire, and superglue the split closed.  I was skeptical, but be-damned, it worked!  I use adhesive lined heat shrink, not sure if it would work as good on the regular stuff.

Also I think I may have finally gotten rid of my mouse piss smell.  It wasn't terrible, but it was always there.  I pulled the fuse block out from behind the glove box when snaking the wire from the charge controller to the battery, and discovered this lovely mouse nest.  I suspect it's been there since the beginning of this thread.  I've never had that fuse block out before and never been that deep into that side of the dash before.  Gross!

During the snow driving, did you find your rear locker made it a handful on the slick road?

I've always figured I'd prefer a "locker" in front on a vehicle that's mostly road driven (I realize Muffin isn't necessarily mostly road driven).  The reason for my  thought is I've done some field racing in RWD cars with welded differentials and there is no "straight" mode anymore.  Anytime a wheel spins they both spin and things go, most literally, sideways.  This is fun when driving off road.  I figure it would be a little more "code brown" when trying to get to the grocery store in a snow storm ;)

My experience is pretty limited though and this is all just me thinking...and I'm probably not considering everything.

In reply to ClemSparks :

Locked rear and short wheelbase is pretty sketch on ice but not so bad in snow and slush.  Selectable locker on both ends is the best solution.  My "lunchbox" lockers ratchet to allow the differential, to ya know, differentiate around turns.  That actually works sometimes but they remain locked most of the time.

The bigger issue is the lack of antilock brakes.  I took Jewels to her dental appointment in Muffin during the beginning of Snowmageddon '21, made the ~4 mile trek from our house to the dentist no issue, despite the county/city having not plowed anything.  Then I got to the dentist office, their parking lot was a literal sheet of ice.  I came into the parking lot slowly, but not slow enough, brakes locked up, did nothing, Muffin was now skating, and headed for a new Lexus SUV (whatever the Lexus version of the Sequoia is), it felt like forever, time slowed down, Jewels had enough time to emote her concern.  Then it dawned on me, take my foot off the brake, turn the wheel, give it some throttle and drive out of it.  That worked as it should, but it took me way too long to remember how to handle that situation, I just don't drive in snow/ice enough for it to be muscle-memory, and I'm okay with that.

I appreciate that feedback.  I have that same sinking feeling about once a year driving in slick conditions for the first time.  A pro driver told me something one time that stuck with me:  "It doesn't feel fast.  Until you screw up."

Coincidentally, I have my eye on the same tires, I think, as you have on there (or whatever the current Kumho A/T tire is) for my Wrongler project.

Keep letting us know what's going on with Muffin.  We're watching :)