1994 Hunter Green SE “Back to Stock” Thread

[ACKyj]

The jeep looks great. Nice work. I'm not of fan of the front bumper end caps but otherwise i think you did a great job bringing it back to stock! The tire/wheel combination looks great as well.

 

[machoheadgames]

The jeep looks great. Nice work. I'm not of fan of the front bumper end caps but otherwise i think you did a great job bringing it back to stock! The tire/wheel combination looks great as well.

Thanks, I'm happy with how it has turned out. Just continuing on to tidy up the final loose ends. It feels endless, but slowly I am getting there. At least it's drivable now.

 

[machoheadgames]

In the quest to solve never ending exhaust issues, I wanted to eliminate more variables from the equation. I wasn’t a huge fan of the Banks header - not to say I wouldn’t recommend it, it was overall a fine product, but it wasn’t quite my cup of tea.

My biggest complaint was the donut gasket getting mangled up while installed. I’m not sure if this is my fault or the exhaust’s fault, but I couldn’t get the downpipe to install in a way that landed squarely on the gasket. As such, the downpipe dug into the gasket and ate it up. With just a few heat cycles and some miles, it worked deeper and then the bolts were loose. The gasket was so mangled up that the connection couldn’t really seal properly anymore…..this wasn’t causing any known problems, but the idea of that connection not being seated perfectly was making me itch.



Minor thing but ever since I installed that header, I noticed audible expansion and contraction noises when temperature changed (i.e. warming up & cooling down). Neither my stock Mopar or the replacement Dorman did that. All exhaust makes some noise, but this was more noticeable than normal. I tend to wonder if it was adding to my rubbing problems due to heat expansion.

Last thing, the OE manifold used studs and flanged lock nuts. I prefer this for easier assembly…not that I work on exhaust all the time (well, lately I work on it more than I should), but it’s nice to not need 5 hands when you do need to take apart and put something back together. I struggled with the loose gasket, bolts/washers/nuts, and still properly seating the pipe to the donut all at once. It was a job that needed several hands.

So enter the Mopar. I spent too much on it and haven’t been able to drive with it yet, but I think and hope it was a decent choice.

04883385 - Exhaust Manifold (1999 with expansion joints)
J4007109 - (2x) Studs for manifold
J4005142 - (2x) Nuts for manifold
52005431 - Donut gasket

It arrived last week and so before heading out of town, I installed the studs. Easy job using a nut, some washers, and some ratchets and wrenches.





I got the intake manifold ready to remove mostly last night and then removed it and swapped the manifold this morning. Easy job when you know all the nuts and connectors by memory.





Can’t report back and won’t be able to for a bit longer as now I need to dive into the t-case once again. I’m thinking the t-case I bought years ago for parts (using lots of those parts in my 94 case) may be bad. Maybe the main shaft is bent. I am still hearing the high frequency of the bearing style noise, so I am thinking maybe the main shaft was damaged and has noticeable runout making the driveshaft rub the rail come bushing or something. I honestly don’t know, but whatever the issue is, I’m tired of it.

So now I’m rebuilding the new 95 t-case, and that awaits a few parts. Since I need to remove the tcase that’s in the jeep, I am going to pull the transmission mount at the same time and work on the exhaust. The donut gasket and downpipe are not put together yet, and with the exhaust being in place during the install of the manifold, I couldn’t get the gasket in. So while I have the tcase out and skid plate off again, I’m going to go ahead and put some more work into the exhaust since it’s easy to get to at that point anyways.

Still need to finish the Smittybilt bumper install which I need to drop the tank for. That bumper is so annoying to install that I’m waiting until I can drive again and then I’ll move it to the other side of the garage. It’s too tight where it’s parked currently.

Not really much else going on. I still keep pushing the interior finish up because I insist on waiting until the bones are proven solid to drive on. I won’t have that confirmed until whatever the high pitched noise is, goes away…I really think it’s the tcase. Hope to see soon.

 

[machoheadgames]

Good news. The t-case seems to have solved my issue. It was an expensive project, but I no longer have any noise. I used the following:

• 1995 2.5L AX5 T-case
• Mopar 23-spline long input gear - 04796965 (purchased new)
• True neutral shift plate (Omix, purchased years ago)
• JB conversions rebuild kit
• TJ backup light switch
• Mopar rear bearing retainer (the one off the 1995 was nasty caked with mud) - 83503573
• Mopar TJ/XJ front driveshaft yoke for double cardan factory shaft - 04798120
• Crown seal for TJ/XJ double cardan shaft - 04798112
• Crown extension housing tail cone - 83503156 (came with slip yoke support bushing)
• Duralast 4370n rear output shaft seal (for now), going to get a more stock looking seal soon

I used a long input gear because A) it was available new and B), it’s advantageous because it will fit the automatics and the 23-spline manuals each with no issues. I didn’t need the long gear, short worked just fine but my factory short gear was the early cut which won’t work in a 95 t-case, so I had to make a purchase regardless. So if I had to buy something, it seemed to make sense to go with the universal option in case I sold to someone else later. Interestingly enough, Mopar started using the long gear anyways on both auto and manual 4.0s in the 1998ish TJ. It might have even been as early as 1997, but I know that the early 1997 AX15s received short gears like the YJ AX15s did.

I wish I knew what the actual problem was from the other transfer case, which as a reminder, was my original transfer case but had a 6 pinion planetary, a stock main shaft and rear housing out of a 1988, and an Allstate gear tail cone that had numerous bushings installed since I kept wearing them out.

I am thinking the main shaft maybe was bent or something. Not really sure. I’ll still keep all the parts around because it never hurts to have these hard to find parts, and maybe somebody else will need something that I can sell to for a good deal for both of us. Annoying to spend so much time and money on a t-case but at least the problem appears to be gone now.





Next up I still need to do a final brake bleed although they do work and lock up the tires. I need to reinstall all the dash trim panels and secure the wiring, I need to clean out the interior, install fog lights, and a few other minor things. And dust it off.

After that, I should pretty much be just driving it unless I find things I want to tweak.

One last thing I’m looking at doing is going back to the factory 1330 yoke to make it stock. I already bought one because I found the factory part (04746835) as new old stock. While I don’t need to do this, I prefer to keep as many things year specific as I can. The only additional cost at this point would be the matching driveshaft. I think I have a bit of a driveshaft imbalance anyways, so I feel it could be beneficial to do this regardless. I have just the tiniest buzz at 75-80 mph. Could be the angles and maybe it gets better or goes away as the suspension settles in, but for now it’s a bit annoying.

I also tore up my 1310 yoke and shredded the sides during crush sleeve install, because of all the impacting I did. So I bought a yoke holder tool, which when I finally go to swap the yoke, should make it a cake walk to crush the next crush sleeve without marring up my nice new 1330 yoke. So I may work on that Saturday/Sunday.

 

[machoheadgames]

Totally unnecessary, but since I found the 1330 yoke, I decided to go ahead and swap it today. I had nothing better to do. Now my driveshaft can officially be “1994” year-correct. In the meantime I got a conversion u-joint, but soon I’ll order up a shaft either from eBay or Tom Wood’s.

I would have done this back during the original axle builds (and moved over to the new axles recently) but I couldn’t find a stock yoke back then. I did originally order one from Denny’s, but it seemed to have some weird runout that made me nervous, so I went with the 1310 at the time. Well, now it is correct for the year.

 

[machoheadgames]

Fog lights have been remounted. Not sure if I’ve said it before but these are the now discontinued Gravity G4 fog lights in amber by KC Hilites.



I previously had these on my Warn bumper, which had holes for lights already drilled. I set the wiring to the proper length for that application. Now that I’m back to a stock style bumper, no holes were available.

The stock setup for YJ fog lights on non-Renegade models is to bolt a bracket up where the bumper end caps go, which then provides a mount for the light. The light sits on top of a roughly 1/4” spacer on top of the bracket. The factory brackets are not available, but there was a guy on Etsy named DogFoxIndustries making replicas, so I bought a pair a while back:

https://www.etsy.com/listing/1295839704/?ref=share_ios_native_control

The fitment was perfect. I went with gloss black and they are nice quality and the finish is great. No complaints about them.

The KCs sit a bit low, so I bought a couple spacers, flange bolts, and flange nuts from Ace Hardware.



Overall I like how it turned out, though I’m not a huge fan of the wiring coming out of the right side of each light. It looks asymmetrical. I did not extend any wiring for this installation, I am going to go back and do that at a later time. I just wanted them on so I would have less loose parts lying around. These lights are discontinued and I’m not sure if I’ll keep them forever or not. Might switch it up to something else, but I don’t know what. I love Rigid products, but they look so modern that they don’t always fit in with something classic like a YJ. However, my headlights are new and modern anyways, so halogen fogs would look weird. For now I’ll leave these.

 

[machoheadgames]

Ordered and received the Tom Wood’s shaft. Looks like nice quality. I like how they use a full size 1330 u-joint and not the conversion type.

Interestingly, they use a 2” tube instead of the factory 2.5” tube. I imagine they do this because it’s simplest for them, as they build tons of shafts with 2” tube, so it’s easier to use what they have in stock. Doesn’t matter to me as long as it works. Shawn Wood actually told me that they’re easier to balance when narrower too, because the weights are closer to the centerline, so ultimately you’re balancing less weight at shorter distances. Probably negligible but interesting to know anyways.

Hopefully no more 75 mph highway vibes, if I do have them then I’ll need to put some weight out back to try and weigh down the springs to break them in and lessen the angles a bit.

 

[machoheadgames]

Long post of progress updates. Starting to make some more headway, but naturally, with a few hangups along the way.

I still have some driveline vibes, but I haven’t had a chance to really weigh down the rear yet. I have no rear bumper at the moment, and I haven’t even filled the tank up yet. Thinking about the tank got me thinking about an option: Warn fuel tank skid. I bought one 5 years ago, but it didn’t work out because I was going to use an MTS fuel tank, which is a differently shaped tank than stock. The MTS really doesn’t work on anything besides the MTS tank skid, which is built by Warrior products. So to install that tank, I went with the Warrior skid. I returned the Warn at the time (Amazon purchase).

I didn’t like the lack of a slosh box in the MTS tank, so when I had the tank out for some other reason (to fix the hose on the aftermarket fuel pumps that is known to bust), I went back to the stock tank and sold off the MTS tank and skid. I reinstalled the stock tank with the stock skid.

So now I’m totally back to stock. My skid was rusty and I wanted to add weight to the rear anyways, so I ordered up a Warn skid again, part 66550. I received it yesterday and installed it last night/this morning. Overall it’s a nice product.

Fitment was good, the straps were essentially too short but I just barely got them hooked up and threaded a few turns each. It’ll definitely ride. There were 3 different OEM skid plate part numbers, as well as like 10 plastic tank part numbers, so I imagine there may be some fitment variances and this skid is advertised to fit all 87-95, so I’m not really surprised if it’s not 100% perfect. It did bolt up perfectly to the frame though. Very nice and square.






As my weight varies as I experiment with different things, I wanted to make sure my leaf springs could actually flex at the shackles properly. The stock rubber bushings are okay, but they tend to twist and retain torsion forces which eventually rips them apart. I installed some Energy Suspension poly bushings with their super tacky grease and now the shackles are super smooth. They should stay quiet since that grease is ridiculously sticky and will never drip off. I ordered a front shackle kit to match now so the whole suspension can always equalize better than with rubber.

While the tank was out, it was time to look at the exhaust, since I had to disassemble half of the exhaust to clear the tank coming down anyways.

I took the cat off and measured from the alignment nub to the end of the downpipe. It was just a hair over 1.5”. I measured on the cat from where it necks down (where the downpipe would essentially bottom out) and marked a little less than 1.5” forward of the necking so that I knew my max amount of anti rotation slot to grind. This would allow for absolute maximum adjustability. Some quick work with the 4.5” grinding disc and some files to clean it up and I had the biggest slot I could utilize.



Once I got the tank back in this morning, I started to reassemble the exhaust. It is now hanging from all hangers and just needs to be tightened up at all joints to eliminate slop and make sure it clears everything.

Don’t want to be too optimistic, but I think I have FINALLY fixed my issue. Even with heat expansion, that gap seems so big that I think I have plenty of clearance. Disregard the weird slant in the pipe, that is because things are sagging while the clamps are loose. Once I get it all snugged up, it should look pretty normal.



I still also have the Magnaflow exhaust, if that ended up being a better option. Now that I’ve slid the cat so far forward, I could potentially fine tune the Magnaflow and get it installed. I liked the design of it better, but the sound of Banks better, so gonna roll with banks for now. The funny thing is, with the cat moved so far forward, I bet the Borla would work now…lol. Maybe someday I’ll try it out again, but I’ll be buying it from Summit if I do that again. I sure did like the way it sounded.

Now for bumpers. The Smittybilt rear still isn’t working out. I don’t remember how much I’ve talked about it here because I’ve talked about it privately with several - thanks to anyone who listens to my bitching. It doesn’t bolt up properly due to lower frame tie in tabs which are really what provide any strength the bumper has. Without those tabs the rear crossmember would rip right off of frame in a recovery. Which I may not ever do, but I probably will do some trails in the near future, and so I want things to work. Anyways, the Smittybilt will not sit flush against the crossmember because of the odd shape of these tabs. Not sure if it’s too much welding slag or what, but it’s definitely no good.



When you go to put in the 8 crossmember bolts, first off, they don’t all go in. The ones that you can get in will eventually get tight (even though they’re not fully threaded in. Some of them thread in normally but as they pull the bumper up to the crossmember harder, they cause my frame to start squeaking like it’s under a bunch of stress. I’m about done with this thing.

In the spirit of all things Warn, I ordered a rear bumper which is back ordered but due for production on August 18. Warn makes a good bumper and I sure have strong hopes that this one will fit right. So far every other bumper I’ve tried has fit fine, and it’s only been the most recent tow hitch and the latest Smitty that I’ve tried that didn’t work.

Since I’m going with Warn, I put the front back to the Warn also. That is asinine since I just finally finished the stock front, but it is what it is. I wanted matching looks since I have the matching front already. So that is back to how it was before and just waiting on the rear to show up. At least it looks good…and it fits perfectly.



One thing I’m working through is the Tom Wood’s shaft. It is leaking. I can’t tell if it’s coming out of the end of the slip yoke by the u-joint, or if it’s a sealing issue. I intend to figure it out and then work it out with TW, but I don’t want to deal with it yet. I FINALLY found a good condition used stock 94-95 4.0 manual driveshaft, so I ordered that for cheap. Gonna put new u-joints in it, and steal my new slip yoke from the old stock 87-93 driveshaft. Even if I end up using the TW long term, it won’t be bad at all to have the stock application shaft available to use as a spare.



If this shaft works without leaking, then I’ll know I have a TW problem and can work it out accordingly. I don’t want them wasting effort on it if it’s not their problem and I don’t want to spend my time and money shipping it yet if it’s not bad. So this provides me an easier way to establish a baseline, and I gain a good spare in the process.

So that’s about it for now. It’s so hot out that I’m not really missing any good driving time anyways. I’m just glad some of the pesky things that have bothered me for a while are finally starting to reach their conclusions. I am getting closer and closer to being able to drive it at will and finally stop working on it.

I don’t know when it’ll happen but at some point I want to get some different fog lights. The KCs are cool but they are pretty weak. I might pick up a set of Rigid 360 SAE white/yellow combos. Those are cool and don’t take away from the old school look. Think I’d wire them up to do both colors at once, all the time.

 

[machoheadgames]

Great news: exhaust problems are now solved. With the cat slot being fully utilized (cat slid as far forward as it will go), I have plenty of clearance for the tailpipe to slide back as heat expansion occurs. Seems like maybe 1/4” is needed, and now I have about an inch.

Cold:



Warm:



Overall the Banks sounds great and I’m happy with it. Maybe someday if I have issues with rust or something like that I’ll try out Borla…I’m confident that with this amount of adjustability, I could install pretty much any catback that had length problems now. But overall Banks looks better at the tailpipe, it’s only a smidge louder, and the overall build quality is fine between either. So I have no concerns either way and I’m happy to keep Banks.

Still have driveline vibes, but that is because I now have no bumper. While my gas tank skid is 40ish lbs heavier than it was, the lack of a bumper puts me net lighter than I was before I removed the 65 lb bumper. I may grab 200 lbs worth of concrete tomorrow and throw it in the back to see what happens. I’ve said it before, I drove this Jeep with the same setup, and even deeper 4.56 gears, but with the ARB bumper, and I noticed no vibes. Both on the 30” and 28” tires. So I feel like it’s possible…but maybe I didn’t drive fast enough on the highway that time. I was putting along and not actively doing any testing or looking for anything specific. I definitely feel minor vibes every time I hit 70+ now.

Absolute worst case I’ll go back to the SYE if I can’t get it to work out in stock form. I refuse to do a t-case drop or anything else special. It’s either full stock or back to SYE. At least I have all the parts available to do that if I wanted to. Except for a correct length DC driveshaft.

 

[machoheadgames]

I received the factory '94-'95 6 cylinder manual driveshaft. Looks good, as the listing showed.



I put it together with the new u-joints (Spicer 5-1310x & 5-1330x) and used my 2-3-12411x Spicer slip yoke from the '87-'93 factory driveshaft.



It was a bit of a bitch, and the 1330 joint ended up a bit tight, but I think with some use it will loosen up fine. I installed it...hopefully this is my last time to touch a driveshaft for a while.



Doing this swap gave me the opportunity to finally look into the Tom Wood's shaft and see what's going on with it. I removed it and found that indeed, the slip yoke is leaking at the rear side, and letting ATF get into the u-joint area. Still not really sure if the TW shaft has vibe problems or not, but for now, I am requesting a return. It's not TW's fault, the defective part is just a slip yoke that I'm sure is probably a Spicer part or similar. But since I now don't need the driveshaft since I have the factory one, it would be nice to just get the money back.





I've noticed that as I drive around, my fuel gauge is bouncing up and down quite a bit. I read that when this happens, it's actually a gauge malfunction and not the sending unit. I found a NOS Mopar fuel gauge and ordered it. It came in today and I installed it easily. I'll see how it does next time I drive.




Last update for today is that I installed my Energy Suspension poly body mount kit this morning. No headaches with it. It seems to have fixed my body lean, where I went from about 0.5" difference from left fender flare above the tire vs the right fender flare, to now only having 1/4" difference. I can live with the 1/4", but the 1/2" was too noticeable. Haven't driven on those yet either, so no opinions yet on vibes or discomfort due to them being poly. Hopefully it's no big deal so I can forget about them and move on.



Lastly, still waiting for the Warn rear bumper. Hopefully it ships in a week and a half. I'm afraid to fill my tank up until I know I'm done dropping the tank for bumper related reasons. Otherwise I'll have to go drive the tank down to E.

 

[machoheadgames]

Well, I have some news. The new driveshaft by far has the best outcome on vibrations out of the 3 shafts I’ve tried. The Tom Wood shaft I had the least fortunate luck with, and it had the leak issue. I ended up sending it back. Thankfully they have a good return policy and I got a full refund and was provided a return label.

I still have a small rumble when the Jeep is unloaded and only has the hardtop on it. I threw in three 80 lb concrete bags and there is pretty much no rumble after that. It must just barely fix the angles enough to where they are good enough to no longer vibe. I’m not really sure.

The new fuel gauge bounced around like crazy. It is indeed OEM from 1999, I’m hoping with time it might “heal”. Maybe some use will get it to act normal. Not sure yet, just keeping an eye on it for now. My stock gauge seems to be about back to normal, so maybe I’m in the clear regardless.

The best news: my Warn bumper finally arrived after about a month of waiting. It fit 100% perfectly. Every bolt lined up 100% where it was supposed to. It was actually the best out of all jumpers I’ve tried…ARB needed a tiny bit of filing on one or two holes.

Here are some photos. I think it turned out really well.



The only snag with the Warn was that they intend on you to use 3/16” spacers between the bottom of the frame and the lower tabs. Those spacers were left out so I am waiting on them. No big deal, the bumper is still on there plenty good with the 8 bolts for now. This confirms the current Smittybilt bumper I got was bad. I’m going to try my luck on a late return. I’m hopeful that maybe with the long lead time they told me for a replacement and the fact that I haven’t just sat here forever doing nothing, maybe they’ll let me do a late return.

Example of the tabs:



One of my JW Speaker headlights is flickering, which is a shame. I like the lights on the road a lot, but I think I am going away from them and am going to go back to H4s. I previously had Hella H4 ECE, but I wasn’t a fan of that pattern. I ordered a set of DOT/SAE this time. I miss the stock look, and they will be good enough for headlights. I will get a warranty return on the JW’s and then sell them. They’ve still got a year and a half of warranty left.

Not sure what I’m doing about the driveshaft vibes yet. When the rear is loaded down, it’s fine. But I intend to have the hardtop off eventually and I don’t want to have to keep concrete bags in the back forever lol. I am leaning towards going back to the SYE, as much as it pains me to say that after all the transfer case work. But that will be an easy swap back. If and when I do that, I will be getting a driveshaft from Denny’s. They have a 10k rpm driveshaft balancer. They will take into account all the factors of my setup and balance it to well above that target rpm to make sure it works. That double cardan shaft should live an easy life at stock height. Barely any angle.

I am debating putting some lights in the Warn bumper. I really want to but I’m hesitant. Not really sure what light I like. Actually, I know what I like but I think it’s too deep. The Warn bumper is somewhat shallow. I believe the Rigid D-series flush mounts that I want will bottom out on the frame crossmember. So I am either leaning towards Rigid Ignites (small), or maybe using the Baja Designs S1 that I previously had in the ARB bumper.

I put the Ignites in my neighbor’s dodge a while back. They look especially tiny here, but that’s a large truck and a giant chrome bumper. I don’t think they’d look weird on the Warn bumper.



And here are the Baja Design S1s as a reminder. They are good lights but I don’t really like the way they look. So I don’t know what to do.



That’s about it for now. Considering SYE, happy with bumper, waiting on new headlights. Otherwise, I’m almost done messing with things. It would drive really well if I had no driveline vibes. So I think I’m headed in the right direction. It’s taking longer than expected to get done, as always.

 

[machoheadgames]

Well, I guess I can say “scratch that” to the idea of putting lights in the Warn bumper. This bumper design is in such a way that even the lights with minimal thickness either don’t fit of barely fit. I received the Rigid Ignite lights and can tell they will bottom out on the frame crossmember when the bumper is bolted up. It’s a shame but oh well. I have nice bright lights for backing up in the reverse buckets of my tail lights anyways. I didn’t need these at all, just wanted them.



So the bumper is back on with no plans to touch it again. I received the spacers for the lower bumper tabs, so now those are installed and all is well.

I found a good condition used Eaton E-Locker for the front axle. It was $650, so I bought it. That’s a lot better than $1400+ tax/ship when new. Don’t even really know if I’ll need it but if and when I start wheeling with my JL/JK buddies, they’re all gonna be on 3-6” larger tires than I. If I start high centering on everything due to my small tires and low ground clearance, it would be good if the lockers could at least get me out of that.

One of the stator tabs on the locker was bent from shipping. Sadly this seems to happen to many of them. Thankfully it wasn’t anything I couldn’t bend back. Hoping to install this locker sometime tomorrow and maybe this week. I have all the proper carrier bearings and shims for the install. Just need to summon up the energy to get out there and do the work.



Not much else to report on for now. It was 70° today and it felt glorious to drive this beast again in that type of weather.

 

[Caveman]

Greetings! Is that original paint? If so, it looks pretty good for being 30+ years old and being formulated when auto paints were transitioning to more eco-friendly formulations! I have a 94 YJ SE in the same color that I bought new in 1994. I've driven it regularly since then, and kept it fairly close to stock, although it has some subtle mods. I've made some similar choices to yours over the years, but done a few things differently as well. For one thing, I don't want to repaint yet, and I've got some significant fading in top-facing areas, so I've gotten creative with some matte black wrap and some black diamond plate. It looks much better than it sounds! It's right about 142K right now, and has required surprisingly little mechanical work over the years, just the usual suspects like radiator, water pump, alternator, maintenance...
I thought about posting a pic here in your thread, but didn't want to take your thread over!

 

[machoheadgames]

Greetings! Is that original paint? If so, it looks pretty good for being 30+ years old and being formulated when auto paints were transitioning to more eco-friendly formulations! I have a 94 YJ SE in the same color that I bought new in 1994. I've driven it regularly since then, and kept it fairly close to stock, although it has some subtle mods. I've made some similar choices to yours over the years, but done a few things differently as well. For one thing, I don't want to repaint yet, and I've got some significant fading in top-facing areas, so I've gotten creative with some matte black wrap and some black diamond plate. It looks much better than it sounds! It's right about 142K right now, and has required surprisingly little mechanical work over the years, just the usual suspects like radiator, water pump, alternator, maintenance...
I thought about posting a pic here in your thread, but didn't want to take your thread over!

Hi - yes, it is original paint. Where it is undisturbed it still looks pretty great. The doors have some fading from the sun and there is a portion of the windshield frame where the paint was wiped right off by an 18 wheeler tire blowout where a large chunk of rubber was thrown at my direction. The 18 wheeler was headed the other direction and it was a 2-lane, so I was the lucky receiver of that. Other than that the paint is good. I think it was 1996 when the big changes to paint happened? My friend’s dad has a 96 ram that is horrible all over the hood. My hood is still pretty great aside from a few chips.

The wrap over bad areas is a decent way to go. My hardtop could use some touch up’s. Lots of white no-paint spots on it, it’s a black top.

I’m not anti mod but any mods I do at this point are very heavily weighed as pros and cons before I do it. Stuff like stereo, LEDs, lockers, added lights, bumpers, etc, I’m all good with. I just can’t stand the altered handling by lifts, and don’t care to run larger tires enough to deal with it.

Feel free to post up a pic, it won’t hijack my thread at all. I love hunter green!

 

[Caveman]

I have a similar philosophy of mods, though perhaps with just a bit more tolerance for compromising ride. I run a 1.5" BD lift with Daystar shackles and bushings that can be greased, 3.73 gears, and 30" BFG A/Ts, also Teraflex sway bar disconnects. All have been on for many years. I remember the stock ride being a bit smoother, but I really have no complaints about the current set up.

 

[machoheadgames]

I have a similar philosophy of mods, though perhaps with just a bit more tolerance for compromising ride. I run a 1.5" BD lift with Daystar shackles and bushings that can be greased, 3.73 gears, and 30" BFG A/Ts, also Teraflex sway bar disconnects. All have been on for many years. I remember the stock ride being a bit smoother, but I really have no complaints about the current set up.

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I see no issues with that setup at all. I honestly forget about the small lift options like the one you have. They aren’t very common. Hear more about 2.5” which is too much for what I wanted. For 30’s, 1.5” is about perfect and yours looks great and should barely affect the handling. All my 2.5” lifts were more like 3” or so and it really affected the handling enough for me to not be happy. Just loose steering because of tie rod roll. So when I was going back to stock I was looking for the most dramatic reduction in any of that behavior and so it just made sense to go whole hog with all original. Which then made me realize why I didn’t really like 30” tires, because they really need more clearance than stock height in my opinion. Aside from that and the needing to stop leaf spring rub by adjusting bump stops, I preferred the 30’s. I slapped them on the other day to see how they ran with my 4.10 gears and they were great. That would have been a good combo had I made room for the tires by going with a lift like yours.

Hell, I’m looking to possibly install an SYE again anyways because of high driveshaft speeds and getting some slight vibes, so I’m not all stock anyways.

That’s a great looking Jeep. I love those wheels.

 

[Caveman]

Thanks! When my OEM steelies (just like the ones you now have) started to get a little rusty, I found these (all 5!) for $75 each by the side of the road and snapped them up. The steelies are in my storage unit waiting to be powder coated someday. I was lucky enough not to need center caps for the aluminum wheels!

I did a fair amount of research before opting for this lift back in 2005 b/c I didn't want to lift twice. I dropped the T-case 1.5" when I lifted it, so I haven't had any trouble with vibration.

I plan to keep following your thread in case I need to do any of the things you've ended up doing in the future. Your write-ups are really detailed and useful!

 

[TRevs]

am going to go back to H4s. I previously had Hella H4 ECE, but I wasn’t a fan of that pattern. I ordered a set of DOT/SAE this time. I miss the stock look, and they will be good enough for headlights.

I have H4’s on the LJ and I think I might get them for the YJ too. It has some basic LED headlamps that are ok, but I like a stock glass look better.

The main issue is I’m going through turn signal flashers about one per year. The first one flashed very slowly then died completely. The second kne has hyperflashed since I got it but now over several seconds it flashes slower and then stays solid.

Since the headlights have an integrated turn signal, the headlights are in the turn signal circuit and i think that is causing the hyperflash, and maybe premature failure. So I’m thinking go the Hella H4 halogens. Some people apparently put in a relay for the headlamps; is that recommended? The FSM wiring diagram shows a relay in the dash for the high beams only

 

[Caveman]

I've got the Rampage H4 housings on mine, but what made the biggest difference in lighting quality was wiring the headlights directly to the battery with the Putco relays and harness so that power to the headlights is no longer routed through the wiring to the dash switch. You could create the harness yourself, but the pre-made harness made it an easy modification.

 

[machoheadgames]

I have H4’s on the LJ and I think I might get them for the YJ too. It has some basic LED headlamps that are ok, but I like a stock glass look better.

The main issue is I’m going through turn signal flashers about one per year. The first one flashed very slowly then died completely. The second kne has hyperflashed since I got it but now over several seconds it flashes slower and then stays solid.

Since the headlights have an integrated turn signal, the headlights are in the turn signal circuit and i think that is causing the hyperflash, and maybe premature failure. So I’m thinking go the Hella H4 halogens. Some people apparently put in a relay for the headlamps; is that recommended? The FSM wiring diagram shows a relay in the dash for the high beams only

I'm not super impressed with the H4s but I do like the way they look a lot better. The YJ doesn't really drive at night anyways, so headlights are not all that important in their effectiveness, and these definitely work well enough for what night travel they may actually see.

Hard to say on the turn signals but I would definitely cut the wires that go to the turn signals on the headlights to remove those from the equation, and heat shrink the wire to cap it off.

Relays for stock headlights and anything higher amperage than stock (aka H4) is a very good idea to add relays, and I would say for H4s relays are pretty much required, otherwise you will burn up the circuit breaker in the headlight switch.

There are actually no relays in stock form, the high beam relay you are thinking of is labeled as such, but it is actually only part of the fog light circuit. It is simply there to cut off the fogs when high beams are turned on. It has nothing to do with actually providing proper relay power to the high or low beam circuits. As such, you would want to add 2 relays, one for each beam level to set it up right for relays.