Team-Built TJ Part 1

You can lift your Jeep with just any old lift kit, but you might not like the results

today on Xtreme 4x4, we transform a wobbly weak TJ into a dual purpose powerhouse all with the help of a coast to coast crew of dedicated auto techs.

Not too long ago, we got an email from a viewer about his Jeep TJ. He done some modifications to it

and he hasn't driven it in over two years because of some death wobble and some under power issues.

So we told him to bring it on by the shop. We have a look at it

right away. We knew what the problem was. A huge spacer lift out front and a four cylinder engine underneath the hood meant that first of all, it did

have the power, it needed to get up to speed. And second of all, when it did, well, the caster was messed up and you'd pick up death wobble every time you drove down the highway.

After spending the day driving around with him, we told him we could help him out with a couple of these problems. Had him leave the Jeep here. We told him we're only gonna fix a couple of things. What he doesn't know we're gonna fix everything underneath this Jeep in one shot for a job that big. We had to call in some friends.

The crews for this project are all auto zone commercial customers and believe it or not, they want a contest to come to the power block and show off their skills.

This week we have Curtis and Russell from

Shanna Auto Repair

and Jim and Ross from Russell

Electric.

Hey,

good to meet you. Good to meet you too, man. Thanks for coming in. Rounding out the pack,

Richard from Airtech Fuel

Pump. All right. So you had a look at the Jeep. What do you think?

It's a job?

It's a job.

It needs some work, needs some love. It's his first real Jeep first. Real off Roader. He's not a real hardcore off Roader, but he wants to get there. You guys uh might not know what these guys do with these trucks all the time.

So I got a little, you know, a little video here just to give you an idea.

Nope.

Wow,

that's crazy.

Any questions so far?

No,

you got it too easy.

This is last year's Jeep basically started the same way. Bone Stock PJ. Built it up.

It's pretty hardcore. It's kind of like a full on throw down two buggy wheeler with just a Jeep body wrapped around it.

This one we're going a little bit more tame because he still wants to drive on the street every day.

So we're going to go with a smaller tire, a little bit different axle combination

and an off the shelf lift kit. So the plan here is basically take this thing and still leave tags on it. Still pass emission, still be perfectly reliable and really, really easy to drive,

but be able to hit

big stuff like this.

That's awesome.

Let's go throw some wedges

this old truck for tying a snug

ready,

stripping a vehicle to a bare frame is not what these guys do on a normal day to day basis

that goes in the garbage pile too.

But with their mechanical skill, it doesn't take long to strip this jeep apart.

And before you know it,

they're into the spirit of tear down extreme style.

No, no, no, no, no. Pick that

up, throw that on that pile.

Yeah,

how we do it?

I bet you've got about 20 bucks and change in here.

Next step, roll the jeep over to the left and pull the body off.

It's turning it

there go

plastic gas tank. We got a metal skid pan here to protect it and see where it's done its job.

The tank still intact. Do you see here where it ran over a rock dented? It didn't hurt the tank a bit

to tuck forwards

and with the body out of the way, the tear down continues, basically, everything's going to come off this frame and make our garbage pile just a little bit bigger

up next Russell and Jim refresh our straight 6 4 L plus high tech link suspension.

Jeremy's Jeep was originally equipped with a 2.5 L four cylinder engine

on

a slight

incline.

So

yeah, I noticed that it doesn't like hills.

Um

If you get a good uh tail wind behind you

to up the power under the hood, a low mileage 2000 Jeep TJ 4 L was sourced from a local junkyard.

Now, we're sure this engine is perfect for Jeremy's Jeep

and so is Curtis. You're

good.

I call it,

but before dropping it into the frame,

Jim and Russell tear into it just to make sure.

Yeah,

we'll go ahead and take his valve cover off.

We can clean the,

look at the rocker arms. What kind of shape it's in

a lot better shape than I expected to see a

bit of build up. We should be able to clean it up and do fine.

It looks in really good shape these 4.0 hold up real well. People take care of them.

I don't think we'll have any problem with it.

The reveal.

All right. Well, to pick up and stuff there, that's always a good sign.

The

main bearing is in perfect shape. Look at that. Oh man, isn't it?

I'm well taken care of.

I'm gonna say hi to a big fan of y'all show. Hey, Chris,

cut your back, dude. I got to say hi to my people. Hi, Mama. And everybody back there in Buffalo

with the engine torn down the guys put together a parts list and called it into our local auto zone store

with this many guys in the shop while you're waiting for parts. Well, shenanigans are guaranteed to happen.

He's got addicted to throwing stuff from across the shop. That's how I used to launch grenades in the Marine Corps

I

grenade

while waiting for the engine parts to be delivered.

The entire crew jumped into stripping the frame.

Ross was the man with the cutting torch, removing all of the factory suspension brackets.

And Curtis never used the torch before a

little direction from Ross and it didn't take long for him to get hooked,

get right there.

It's just like butter.

That's like mother.

That's a beautiful thing.

Awesome.

That's the first time I ever used a torch

the first time.

Now

you're picking up

now. He's taking my equipment with a fire. I didn't do a good job.

My drilling is running, man. I wanna get back on that torch. Dude.

Once all the new parts arrive, it was time to replace all the necessary wear items that you would before swapping in an engine, a new oil pump,

thermostat gaskets

and a complete tune up top to bottom.

It's always easy to spot a highly skilled technician in the shop. They always pay attention to every detail, even gap in a spark plug

finished off with a set of heavy duty motor mounts from Brown Dog off road

designed to eliminate a common failure point for the TJ

and raise the engine one inch for additional ground clearance. All right guys, the steering system on this truck is completely different.

It's still power steering. I use a brand new high volume high pressure pump,

but we actually mount a steering ram on the front axle. And that way when he turns the wheel, we take fluid that comes out of the box on a separate set of lines and actually move the ra M back and forth just like a hydraulic ram on a snow plow on a tow truck. And it's that extra power that we use to turn the wheels.

And you can actually get these trucks buried into a, like a big notch

and turn the wheel and you can actually use the tires to push the whole front of the truck one way or the other.

Now to get that kind of power, we need a new pump. We got a complete kit.

It's from PSC. It's a pump, a new ra M big new reservoir, all the fluid lines. And when it's all hooked up, it's been specifically for this 4 L

to give us all the power we need for our 37 inch tall tires.

So it's your job to hook this up

and then the motor's done

I'll put it on there for you.

Our project will soon be a rolling chassis. Once we get a few 100 bolts into our bead locks,

we have Jeremy's TJ, completely stripped to a bare frame and upside down on the lip.

All right.

Drop attack there and attack there.

That should be good.

We'll throw some bars in it just to double check

the first step in setting up our Clayton off road long arm suspension is to install all the new brackets onto the frame.

Yeah, that'll work because that'll be right on the top of the

axle.

Once the mounts are finished welded,

the frame is then sprayed with a good coat of DPA color black black paint

I

35.

After installing a new clutch and pressure plate assembly,

the engine and transmission are bolted together.

The last new item to bolt on to our engine is a new d

last gold starter.

It comes with a great warranty. So Jeremy won't have to worry about it for the rest of the time he owns this Jeep.

Then the entire package is dropped into the frame rail and using the transmission mount as a locating device will weld in the frame side motor mounts,

converting this Jeep from a four cylinder to a six.

An upgrade needed for the drive train with our suspension set up is a slip Yoke Eliminator.

Now, Ross has seen us install many of these on the show

and easily completed the task of swapping in our advanced adapters kit.

I've been an avid fan since I was probably 10 years old.

So I'd always, I love getting up in the morning and watching them being here and getting my hands on it and seeing all the, the stuff, you know, behind the scenes and everything. It's a lot, you know, it's a lot of work

but to actually do it, you know, I've never been able to do anything like that on a four wheel drive vehicle. And it's always been something I've always wanted to do

with the case torn down.

The first step is to install a new input gear to match the six cylinder transmission.

Then Ross preps the main shaft,

installs the shift collars

and slides it into the case,

the rear case hop bolted up, followed by the new Speedo housing

and finish it off with the new fixed joke output.

So

up next to keep your engine running clean, you need clean fuel. We'll show you the right way to install your new fuel pump.

The job that all of our guests in the shop would perform regularly is replacing a factory fuel pump

with Richard from air techs in the shop. He chose to tackle the least glamorous job on the Jeep,

swap it in a new fuel pump to clean the outside of the tank.

Make sure that when we take the pump out of the tank, we don't drop any extra debris in

and we really don't need to worry about any liquids that come off this because this is just road grind. You clean the tank out, you use some mild detergent, just water. There's gonna be contaminants left in the tank. Small particles.

That's what I figured you're dealing with 30 micron strainer on the bottom of the module assembly

that

with the contaminants can plug that strainer up and it cause a pump of Cavia

from there. You get a low volume or low pressure issue. I be sure and clean the debris from around the pump. Make sure it doesn't fall into the tank.

The chemical additives that some people put in a tank can affect the rubber components or the pump itself.

Yeah, there's definitely some contain its, we've got a strainer, it's discolored here.

As you can see the extreme differences between the two strainers,

the old with the contamination and the new clean strainer

you

once cleaned, the tank is left in the sun to dry for a couple of hours.

The crew finishes off the rest of the suspension install by sliding in the spider tracks fabricated nine inch axle assembly and hooking up all the control arms.

Our tank is now ready for a new pump whenever we're putting this in, especially on some of the Chrysler applications,

there's no locating tab so we need to be sure and note the arrow that lines up with the locating tab on the tank and that's just for the fuel line on the top or make sure the fuel line comes out properly. And also the S

unit moves freely.

Building bead locks is never fun.

And after showing the guys how they go together,

we decided it was time to have friendly competition

one.

Now you guys will break you up in the teams and get you guys set up.

Gosh,

I do

off to a quick start. The Shana

crew gets into trouble early when their bead lock ring gets out of alignment.

But to keep this race as close as possible,

I've got a little plan.

000

no,

it was closed. But I think the,

I think the Russell Brothers fold it out in the end, man.

It's closed.

If they didn't have that gun problem, they wouldn't run away. I know what happened there though.

But all joking aside, this week has been one filled with a pile of work.

These guys certainly showed off their skills as mechanics

that could easily transform into hardcore off road builders.

All right guys, I think you did a great job this week knocked out of the park. We started with a full Jeep,

ended up with this. We got basically rolling chassis, new motor tranny transfer case suspension.

You know, it's a ton of work, but it got done.

Absolutely. Had a wonderful time. Thank all is well.

And from now on, uh this will be how you work on cars right. Body comes off first.

That's what we're gonna start doing from now on.

All right guys,

I wanna thank you for coming out. You know what? You did a great job,

pleasure having you here.

You know, you guys are welcome back. Anytime you want sling some wrenches, have some fun, tell some stories.

All right, we'll see you around guys.

Now. This is just the beginning for Jeremy's Jeep over the next three weeks will completely transform this rig into a hardcore off Roader for a glimpse of what's coming up next. Head on over to Power Block tv.com.