All;
Bought my Jeep YJ back in January of 2019 and have done quite a bit of work to it up to this point. I'll try to remember it all and explain it below. Keeping this thread running and open as I continue to make changes and additions to the YJ.
Bought the Jeep, these were the details.
-1990 Jeep YJ
-AMC 258 IL6 4.2L
-AX-15 5 Speed Manual
-4" lift
-33" BFG Baja's
-Bilstein Shocks
-Corbeau Bucket Seats
-Full rock shields underneath
-10,000 lb winch
This is what she looked like when I picked it up. Knew I was going to do some pretty drastic changes to the look and service/overhaul it. This all came quicker than I thought when the rear axle took a sh*t. Was able to get it parked, do some troubleshooting, and tow it back to my place about a week later. Pulled the rear diff cover off and about 3 full teeth from the ring gear came out with the diff fluid. Cleaned out the housing, removed everything, and ordered replacement gears. Came to a crossroads at this point about weather or not I wanted to make a rock crawler or an offroading/overlanding/affordable Jeep. Decided on the second one, stuck with the Dana 35/30 combo, and decided to stick with the Dana 35 3.55 gears.
Attempted to do the rear axle myself, got all the tools for it, and spent about 3 hours a day for 2 weeks trying to properly space the thing. After that stretch of time, brought it in to a mech who was phenomenal who called me within minutes of me dropping it off and told me I had the wrong size carrier in the axle for the 3.55 gears. One of the previous owners must've done a regear and then gone back to the 3.55, didn't change the carrier, and that explains how and why, combined with an axle seal leak, caused the ring gear to pretty much explode.
Prior to me taking the Jeep to the shop, when it was up on Jack stands, I removed the soft top, doors, fender flares...pretty much everything but the tub, sanded it down so the paint would bite, and painted it grey with Rustoleum 2-in-1. Topped it with a matte coat and unmasked it. It turned out way better than I thought it would. Below is a picture of it on a trail pretty much right when I got it able to go.
Fast forward a few weeks, me and my buddy are offroading on a pretty narrow trail, me in my Jeep, him in his Tacoma and we get ourselves into a squirlly situation. His Tacoma, long for one of the turns, begins to slip a little down a pretty steep draw. I come back to winch him out and, as I'm winching, my Jeep sputters and dies. Great. Below is a picture of my friends Taco.
Long story short, Jeep came down after being jumped but stalled at the bottom. Taco was able to be saved by an awesome Facebook group I'm a part of made up of dudes with Jeeps.
Tracked the problem down to a bad ICM, did a quick swap, and it started up immediately. When replacing the ICM I also cut off the old front fenders and put on new Barricade Tube Front Flares. Below is the before/after.
Definitely made some mistakes on the front Fender cutting. Cut part of the inside fender a little too much and had to take some scrap aluminum to fill some holes as best as I could caused by that. Installing these fenders also resulted in me puncturing the vacuum reservoir when my hand slipped when drilling, whoops. Took Hefty bag, covered the hole, made sure to tape around all the edges, then Duct Taped it like crazy. Remounting the windshield wiper/coolant bottles was interesting. Below is a recent picture of me out on the trail with the both fenders installed and where she sits now. Some notes: I live in the desert so removed the windshield wipers completely: I carry around windex and a towel which works great. I have new Falken tires which are going on this week. After posting this I'm going to remove the sway bar and track bar from the front fender. One of my sway bar end links is broken and, with leaf springs, I want as much flex as I can get.
Within the next few weeks I'm planning to, in order:
-remove sway bar/track bar
-mount tires
-mount Barricade rear fenders
Look forward to continuing to build this, improve it, and adding to this thread.
Erik
Bought my Jeep YJ back in January of 2019 and have done quite a bit of work to it up to this point. I'll try to remember it all and explain it below. Keeping this thread running and open as I continue to make changes and additions to the YJ.
Bought the Jeep, these were the details.
-1990 Jeep YJ
-AMC 258 IL6 4.2L
-AX-15 5 Speed Manual
-4" lift
-33" BFG Baja's
-Bilstein Shocks
-Corbeau Bucket Seats
-Full rock shields underneath
-10,000 lb winch
This is what she looked like when I picked it up. Knew I was going to do some pretty drastic changes to the look and service/overhaul it. This all came quicker than I thought when the rear axle took a sh*t. Was able to get it parked, do some troubleshooting, and tow it back to my place about a week later. Pulled the rear diff cover off and about 3 full teeth from the ring gear came out with the diff fluid. Cleaned out the housing, removed everything, and ordered replacement gears. Came to a crossroads at this point about weather or not I wanted to make a rock crawler or an offroading/overlanding/affordable Jeep. Decided on the second one, stuck with the Dana 35/30 combo, and decided to stick with the Dana 35 3.55 gears.
Attempted to do the rear axle myself, got all the tools for it, and spent about 3 hours a day for 2 weeks trying to properly space the thing. After that stretch of time, brought it in to a mech who was phenomenal who called me within minutes of me dropping it off and told me I had the wrong size carrier in the axle for the 3.55 gears. One of the previous owners must've done a regear and then gone back to the 3.55, didn't change the carrier, and that explains how and why, combined with an axle seal leak, caused the ring gear to pretty much explode.
Prior to me taking the Jeep to the shop, when it was up on Jack stands, I removed the soft top, doors, fender flares...pretty much everything but the tub, sanded it down so the paint would bite, and painted it grey with Rustoleum 2-in-1. Topped it with a matte coat and unmasked it. It turned out way better than I thought it would. Below is a picture of it on a trail pretty much right when I got it able to go.
Fast forward a few weeks, me and my buddy are offroading on a pretty narrow trail, me in my Jeep, him in his Tacoma and we get ourselves into a squirlly situation. His Tacoma, long for one of the turns, begins to slip a little down a pretty steep draw. I come back to winch him out and, as I'm winching, my Jeep sputters and dies. Great. Below is a picture of my friends Taco.
Long story short, Jeep came down after being jumped but stalled at the bottom. Taco was able to be saved by an awesome Facebook group I'm a part of made up of dudes with Jeeps.
Tracked the problem down to a bad ICM, did a quick swap, and it started up immediately. When replacing the ICM I also cut off the old front fenders and put on new Barricade Tube Front Flares. Below is the before/after.
Definitely made some mistakes on the front Fender cutting. Cut part of the inside fender a little too much and had to take some scrap aluminum to fill some holes as best as I could caused by that. Installing these fenders also resulted in me puncturing the vacuum reservoir when my hand slipped when drilling, whoops. Took Hefty bag, covered the hole, made sure to tape around all the edges, then Duct Taped it like crazy. Remounting the windshield wiper/coolant bottles was interesting. Below is a recent picture of me out on the trail with the both fenders installed and where she sits now. Some notes: I live in the desert so removed the windshield wipers completely: I carry around windex and a towel which works great. I have new Falken tires which are going on this week. After posting this I'm going to remove the sway bar and track bar from the front fender. One of my sway bar end links is broken and, with leaf springs, I want as much flex as I can get.
Within the next few weeks I'm planning to, in order:
-remove sway bar/track bar
-mount tires
-mount Barricade rear fenders
Look forward to continuing to build this, improve it, and adding to this thread.
Erik
