Muffin - 1997 Jeep Wrangler(TJ)

Have you had any issues with fuel pressure yet?

My '97 with somewhere slightly over 40,000 miles in the last two years has developed a hard starting tendency, and recently I measured the pressure and it loses rest pressure almost immediately when shut off. I've looked at simply a replacement pump, or just getting a replacement regulator, and the part quality seems to be hit or miss (more misses...), so I've been asking other TJ owners for feedback on a solid replacement that has served them well if they've encountered this issue.

I understand the fuel pump was supposed to be a "lifetime" unit, but we all know how that goes; just look at the "lifetime" ATF Mercedes was using for some time...

Nice looking TJ though, I haven't had the chance to hit half the kinds of trails that you have, but I have driven mine in several different countries.

In reply to Azryael :

The only fuel related issue I've had so far, was forgetting to put the fuel cap back on once.

Muffin does have an issue stumbling on first start when cold.  It'll hunt around for an idle, stumble, go way low RPM, hunt around some more, then either figure things out and idle normally, or die.  The process takes 15-30 seconds.  If it dies, usually when I start it back up, it's fine, might stumble for a second or two.  If it's up to temp, or even still warm-ish, it usually starts right up and idles normally, no drama.

No CEL, scan tool shows no pending codes.

Did it with the 2.5l throttle body, does it with the 4.0l throttle body, and it's even got a new IAC valve, none of it made a difference.

I thought maybe it was a vacuum leak, but, I have spent hours, looking for one, propane, brake cleaner, safe I know, haven't found anything.

I probably need to smoke it, and see if there is a leak, but, I've kind of just accepted it as one of Muffin's idiosyncrasies, part of what makes Muffin, Muffin.

Hmm, I did have an IACV issue, but replaced the valve and that issue went away.

Once I get mine started, hot or cold, it idles fine, and fuel pressure is as it should be. It's just now gotten to a point where both cold and hot starts are a struggle. System will prime to about 45psi when you turn the key to the ON position, and then quickly lose pressure.

Having to drop the tank to service the fuel tank is also a bit of a pain. Makes me wish Jeep would have made a simple cutout or something you can access by taking the rear seat bench out and pulling up the carpet.

Beyond that, I can't say it has any other quirks like Muffin, but it was my first car and I love the hell out of it and could never let it go. Since it's getting cold and precipitation is minimal here, I'm looking forward to taking the doors off and putting the top down for Winter (seems counterproductive, I know).

I do need to do something with the headlights, and either do what you did, or get one of those LED sealed deals. The light output is abysmal (they're the originals), and coming from Germany they aimed the lights way down and I've never gotten around to resolving it. I just supplement with the fogs.

So a few months back, I was shopping for a winch.  I'd been checking Craigslist and FB Marketplace daily without any luck for weeks, I was mostly finding junk, ATV winches, or old worn out winches priced at 95% of what I could buy a brand new one for.  Man people are dumb.  I'd decided I'd be sucking it up and buying a new Warn VR series, not my first choice, but it's probably the best of the Chinese winches.

I happened to check Marketplace just before leaving work one day, and one of my "top picks" was a Warn XD9000i that had been posted 2 hours prior, for a smoking price.  I reached out immediately, and was told I was second in line.  Bummer, I pressed, and told the seller I could be there in 30 minutes and pay asking price.  Turns out the buyer ahead of me was waiting on his pay check later in the week, and me being able to be there same day with cash convinced the seller to bump me to the head of the line.  

I did confirm that the winch works when I got it home.

Now that I had a winch I needed something to mount it to.

While it came mounted on a receiver hitch cradle, I wasn't interested in using that method to mount it to Muffin.

I had already shopped around for a while, so I had some ideas filed away.  I've had a Smittybilt rear bumper for at least a decade, of course they don't make the particular line of bumper I have any longer, so a new matching front bumper wasn't a real option.  I considered just putting a winch plate on the stock bumper, which lead me to searching for winch plates, and DIY options.  I was familiar with AtoZ Fabrication, though I'd never purchased from them, the owner is active on Pirate 4x4, and finding an affordable winch mount bumper there convinced me to pull the trigger, on Muffin's new winch mount bumper.

Turns out shipping a 3/16" thick hunk of metal from Pennsylvania to Arkansas is cost prohibitive.  Initial shipping was nearly as much as the cost of the bumper.  Thankfully, I have a friend who recently acquired a TJ (Montrose CO to NW Arkansas in a 4 Cylinder TJ on 35s, Sounds Like a Good Idea) and also needed a winch bumper.  I reached out to AtoZ Fab, and worked out a deal for a pair bumpers, shipping wasn't much more for 2 bumpers than 1, so splitting the shipping cost worked to our favor.

We also got the D-ring shackle mount option for the bumpers.

However, the D-Ring mounts stuck out too far for my liking.  This is as far in as they could go, without interfering with the bolts that mount the bumper to the frame.

So, I made some adjustments.

There, that's better.

That'll do.

Still plenty sticking through to weld to.

A little Rust-Oleum Hammered Black.

I added some Rugged Ridge Hooks too.  I had to modify them to fit, even though they claimed to be YJ/TJ hooks, chopped them down from 3 bolt holes to 2.  All new 1/2" grade 8 bolts too, no more stupid torx.

I did have to build some 3/16" shims for the sway bar bushing to mount level with the new bumper.

I mounted the roller fairlead with a Barnes 4WD Fairlead mount.  I'd read at least one review claiming they bent the fairlead mount, even though it's 3/16" thick too, so I added some gussets.

I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out.

With the winch mounted, I now needed to wire it.

I bought some 2 AWG cable and new "military" battery terminals for Muffin's yellow top Optima.  I originally bought the dual post Optima expecting to run the winch off the side terminals.  However, after doing some research, I found out that Optima says not to do that, only run heavy sustained loads like a winch off of the top posts.  The side posts are only for short duration loads like starting an engine.

Since the winch came with a quick disconnect on it, I decided I'd add one to Muffin as well, in case I ever need to remove the winch in the future.

Turns out, quick disconnects aren't universal, at least the one I bought on Amazon didn't fit the connector that came on my winch, so I had to replace the connector on the winch too.

I soldered and crimped all the connections, I don't have a crimper large enough for 2 AWG, however, I did put my 20 ton press on casters, so it's easier to move around.

I used the double zip-tie trick to keep the cables together.  I saw this on either Finnegan's Garage or Roadkill, maybe both.  It's so simple, yet looks good, and works great.

With the winch mounted and wired, I soon discovered why I got such a smoking deal on a XD9000i.  While the seller told me that he had it in his garage for 3 years, and the ad stated that it works, I didn't actually test anything before buying.  We loaded the winch in the trunk of the car, I handed the seller cash, we shook hands and parted ways.  However, it was cheap enough, I'm not sure I would have done anything different if I had attempted to free spool the winch before purchase.

With the winch mounted though, I discovered that I could not free spool it.  No matter how much effort I put into turning the selector lever, even tapping it with a mini sledge, I couldn't disengage the spool from the planetary.

I removed the set screw for the selector lever, pulled the lever out, and looked in the hole... rust, everything was covered with rust.  I squirted copious amounts of PB Blaster in the hole, in a vain attempt to free things up.  I knew better, but there was still that little part of me the hoped it might work.  When, of course, it didn't work, I broke out the long hex sockets, and pulled the planetary housing off of the winch.

The first thing I saw with the planetary housing off was this, obvious water line.  This winch has either been submerged, or seen a lot of rain.  My money is on it being under water.

I was apprehensive to look at the planetaries, I knew it couldn't be good, and I was right.

There really wasn't anything left that you could call grease in the gear set, what was maybe grease at one point was now hard and dry.  Rust and dried up grease, that's all a planetary set really needs for lube right?

I took apart what I could, I used a lot of PB Blaster, and all of the gears got washed out in a bucket of mineral spirits, with a lot of elbow grease and a wire brush.

I had made a lot of progress, had the gears clean, rust and old grease removed, but I still hadn't fixed the free spool issue.  That inner gear inside the housing on the left, in the picture below, that's what slides in and out to engage or disengage the planetary set from the spool.  I still couldn't move that sliding ring gear.

Then things got serious.  More PB Blaster, and a gear puller, got things motivated to move again.

With the sliding ring gear removed, I saw just how nasty it was.

While the housing is aluminum, the sliding ring gear is steel, but the dissimilar metals still found a way to corrode together.

After a solid 30 minutes with a wire wheel in the cordless drill, and 1/4 can of PB Blaster, I had the sliding ring gear "good enough."  It's pitted and ugly, but still functional.

I could now slide the ring gear in and out of the housing by hand.

I packed all of the gears full of Lucas Oil Red N Tacky #2, stacked all of the planetaries back together, and tested things out.
 

So with the sliding ring gear now, ya know, sliding.  I attempted to reinstall the planetary housing back onto the winch.

That's when I discovered a slight irregularity.  I wondered why 2 of the housing screws were shorter, and which hole they went in.  Of course I didn't notice the difference when removing them.

There's RTV all over the screws, because I used gray RTV in lieu of hunting down new gaskets when I put everything back together.

Then I discovered that all of the screws were originally the same length.  Those two short ones were broken.  This keeps getting better.  I guess they broke when I removed them?  They must have, since all of the screws were initially snug.

The housing is aluminum, and the screws are steel, maybe stainless, so I figured I could maybe use my metal hot glue gun (MIG) and weld some material to what was left of the screws.  Giving me something to grab with vice grips.

I had a 50% success rate.  I tried many more times to get the other one out, but the weld just snapped off, and I was starting to lose material from the aluminum housing around the hole, so I decided to punt.

I consulted some gear head/offroad friends, the consensus was that 9 out of 10 screws were enough, it was the bottom screw, no one would ever know... Yeah, I'd know.

I looked up Warn's parts diagram .pdf, found that the screws are a 10-24, 2.5" long cap head, hit up Mc Master Carr, ordered a 10 pack of their strongest and highest corrosion resistant flavor, and also ordered a 10-24 Helicoil kit.  Everyone love's Helicoils right?

A 10-24 screw is roughly 0.20" in diameter, a 10-24 Helicoil uses a 13/64" drill bit, so I started out with a 3/16" drill bit, in an extension, and used the existing hole in the housing as a pilot busing to drill out the broken bolt, and provide a pilot hole for the 13/64" drill bit.

Next up was the 13/64" drill bit.

Tappy, tap, tap.

Helicoil inserted, I used some green sleeve retainer Loctite, I couldn't find my red.  It should never come out.

And then there were 10 threaded holes again.

Then I discovered that the .pdf I got the screw size from was wrong.  I should have measured myself, instead of believing the internet.  2.5" is 1/4" too long, and interfere with the spool.



I didn't have time to order new screws again, so these all got trimmed to fit.  Ta-da, the winch works and has all 10 screws again!


 

Such a cool thread ... !

New-to-me winch installed, and fully functional I was fairly satisfied.

I picked up a cheap recovery kit; tree saver, D-rings, and a snatch block from Amazon.  I'm a mild wheeler, I've had a few butt puckering moments, but they're few and far between, I know I have to drive Muffin home, so I rarely get too wild.  The impetus for finally sticking a winch on the front of Muffin was to use her for skidding trees, and pulling snags when we start clearing our property.  I mean I've wanted one for basically as long as I've had Muffin, but it's never been a priority.

I had a friend tell me I'd probably never use it wheeling.  I know when it's time to get out and walk, or ride with someone else.

Then on the first weekend wheeling with the new winch, I had a buddy flop his Toyota on its side.

I was bringing up the rear of our group night wheeling.  Buddy in front of me got a little too high up the side of a cut out trail, and wound up testing out his new exo-cage.  Which worked quite well.

Snatch block and tree saver on a tree above, cable to a D-ring around the exo-cage, and the newly rehabbed XD9000i did its job!

When done, the Toyota driver told me, "I sure am glad you got all the bolts back in that winch." 

Havent checked in on this thread in probably years but this last page was a hell of a good story! Nicely done on the bumper mods and winch rehab!

einy said:

Such a cool thread ... !

 Thanks!

Vigo said:

Havent checked in on this thread in probably years but this last page was a hell of a good story! Nicely done on the bumper mods and winch rehab!

Thanks!

I sometimes wonder if anyone is still following along.  I know I read a lot of build threads without ever commenting, so I assume other folks do too. 

Though I enjoy going back through and reading Muffin's journey myself.  Speaking of, I went back through all of the previous pages, I think I've fixed all of the formatting issues.  One of the previous board "upgrades," must have done something funky.  There shouldn't be any photos floating mid text or unintentional, side by side photos, and I broke the walls of text back into their original paragraphs.  Should be good until the next board overall, maybe.

I really enjoy your Muffin stories (excellent work on the winch, btw) but I'm waiting for the house/shop/shooting range thread. Hint, hint. 

I finally read through all of this thread, and I really enjoyed seeing Muffin get fixed up. I guess that engine swap is still in the future plans, eh?

BTW I now have a strange desire to buy a square-headlight Wrangler.

llysgennad said:

I really enjoy your Muffin stories (excellent work on the winch, btw) but I'm waiting for the house/shop/shooting range thread. Hint, hint. 

You and me both.  I'll either make a new thread, or at least update here.  Some progress has been made, though that Christmas plan I proclaimed back at the first of the year, yeah, that ain't happening.  We have a plan, that needs some tweaking to finalize plumbing and electrical, but we are at least that much closer.  Also have you priced metal buildings, Jeebus tap dancing pickles are they expensive. 

First quote I got, for just the metal, frame, skin, roof, holes cut for doors and windows, no actual doors or windows, no slab, no erection, just the metal building pieces, was about what I had "budgeted" for having an entire building on a slab in the dry.

There was some discussion about it here: Design Lee's Shop & Apartment

slowbird said:

I finally read through all of this thread, and I really enjoyed seeing Muffin get fixed up. I guess that engine swap is still in the future plans, eh?

BTW I now have a strange desire to buy a square-headlight Wrangler.

Likely, I've got some friends putting ideas in my head every time I'm around them, I believe someone mentioned it in this thread too, but I've had a couple friends point out that I've got 3, yes three, Volvo Redblocks, and at least 2 of them don't have any purpose or clearly defined future, so it would be plausible to have a turbo Volvo TJ, haven't seen anyone do that yet.

I'm really intrigued by the GM Ecotecs too, especially the LSJ from the first gen SS Cobalt.

It won't just be an engine swap, it'll be a MAJOR Muffin Makeover.  While I haven't done a lot of major work to Muffin, at least none that y'all have seen yet , that hasn't stopped me from collecting parts.  I started to make a list, but I'll just say, I've already got axles, lockers, and some suspensions plans ironed out.

In the mean time, I've done some "get me by" upgrades and maintenance.  The 22 year old suspension bushings and tie rod ends, basically forced my hand to do, something.  Major Muffin Makeover is still post shop build and move.

Also, YJs need love too, I say scratch that itch.  Related... one of my good college friends is getting his YJ back, the ex-wife made him sell it, before she was the ex.  I won't lie, I resented her for making him do that.  Thankfully, the guy who bought it was a friend, and 10+ years later he's selling it back.  I did a lot of work, and learned a lot of stuff on and in that Jeep.  It's got a GM 4.3l V6, 700R4, Atlas II, Currie 9 rear with a Detroit, HP D30 front with a Lock Rite, Warn Black Diamond spring under lift kit, on 33" tires.  It's pretty much the perfect dual purpose daily driver/weekend wheeler.  I'm happy it's coming home!
 

Red block seems like a great choice for a Jeep!

So Rocktoberfest 2019 was quickly approaching, I've referenced the previous years events in the past.  I actually took 3 days off of work, for a 5 day weekend.  Wednesday & Thursday were dedicated to Muffin prep and packing, Friday-Sunday were for Rocktoberfest.  Nothing like waiting until the last minute right?

My buddy Brian had recently sold his ZJ and acquired a well equipped TJ (the Colorado road trip linked above).

Brian had put a used Aussie Locker in the D30 in the front of his ZJ, but pulled it out before he sold it.

Brian's new TJ had lockers in both ends already.  Some months back, Brian had borrowed a ball joint press from me, and tweaked it a little.  I wasn't messed up about it, but Brian felt bad.  Can you tell where this is going?  I think it was just an excuse, really Brian wanted Muffin to have a front locker, and he knew I'd never buy one for the D30.  So we "traded" a D30 Aussie Locker for a ball joint press. 

I'd had the locker in my possession for weeks, so the Tuesday evening before Rocktoberfest, I decided to finally install it.

I asked SWMBO for some nail polish she didn't wear, surprised she even had pink, she's not really a pink gal.

I marked my bearing caps so I could remember where they went.

So long spider gears, it's been real.

I don't know if it's necessary, but I figured the carrier and ring gear should probably wind up back in the same spot when I put it all together.  Unfortunately on a D30 you've got to remove the ring gear to get the carrier cross pin out.

Aussie Locker!

Getting those little die springs in their home is a lot of fun...

It was late enough on Tuesday night at this point, that I was tempted to just "send it," but I got the feeler gauge out, and looked up the spec for the gap in the Aussie Locker, it's supposed to be between, 0.14something" and 0.17something" so we're good.  Not bad for a used locker, being installed in at least its 3rd axle.



Then I went to bed.

The next morning, I cleaned all the threads out, holes and bolts, and put the ring gear back on with red Loctite.

G'day mate!

All buttoned up, and filled with some of Walmart's finest Supertech 80W-90.

So Muffin now makes clicky noises from both ends, and is a true 4x4!

I love the thread and the updates. It's a very enjoyable read. 

If I ever get out on the trails more, I want to do the same with mine.

Excited to hear your feedback on that locker.

rico750sxi_2 said:

I love the thread and the updates. It's a very enjoyable read. 

Thanks!

Azryael said:

If I ever get out on the trails more, I want to do the same with mine.

Excited to hear your feedback on that locker.

I've said many times that the rear locker was the best mod/upgrade I've done to the Jeep to date.

After being at Rocktoberfest last month, where it rained, no exaggeration or hyperbole, literally all day Friday, and didn't stop raining until 2:00 PM Saturday afternoon, so all the trails were a sloppy muddy mess.  With Muffin locked at both ends I could go places I'd never have even attempted in such nasty conditions before.  No doubt the front locker is now the second best mod/upgrade I’ve done.

So, as I alluded to earlier, Muffin's 22 year old suspension and steering really couldn't be limped along much longer.

I sometimes plan ahead, in this case, I had actually purchased all new steering and some suspension bushings back in the summer.  Of course, I never bothered to install them until the 2 day mad rush to get ready for Rocktoberfest.  In similar fashion, I've got a litany of "projects" I've collected parts for.  Maybe I'm not really a shade tree mechanic or gear head, just a "collector?" 

I told myself and anyone who asked, that I wasn't going to do anything to Muffin's suspension until I could, "do it right."  I sure wasn't going to spend money on new stock control arms, and I really didn't want to spend money on a suspension kit or control arms I'll wind up replacing anyway.  The thing is, everything on Muffin was just flat worn out.  So I'm a hypocrite.

I figured if I was doing the steering I should probably go ahead and tackle the suspension too, so I began shopping.  I looked at all the options, and had a few ideas.  I even considered buying a cheap lift kit, to get new coil springs and shocks too.  I've wanted to get rid of the coil spring spacers since I was astute enough to know better, basically about 3 days after installing them, and I quickly grew to hate my Rancho RS5000 shocks too.

I had my eye on a few budget options namely from Skyjacker, there's some reasonably priced kits on eBay.  BDS, and Superlift kits were on my radar as well.  If I were shopping for an off-the-shelf bolt on permanent solution it'd probably be Rubicon Express or Clayton, but I'm looking for a mid-term solution, budget, better than stock upgrade.

While I was adding stuff to Amazon wish lists and eBay watch lists, I was still keeping an eye on Craigslist and FB Marketplace.

If any of you have used FB Marketplace much, you know that they provide "top picks" of stuff the computer algorithms of the Zuckerbots think you'll be interested in.  Well be damned if they didn't provide me with a very poorly worded ad for some Jeep TJ coil springs.  The ad was titled "2.5 lift springs," and in the body of the ad stated, " Not sure of the brand think there tearflex [sic]."  The rub was that they were asking $200 for the coil springs, meh.  A week or so later they popped up again, now for $175, I considered making contact, and seeing if there was any more room in the price, but still, meh.  Then a few days later, be damned if they don't pop back up in my "top picks" for $100.  Alright, I'm interested, Teraflex used to make good stuff, I assume they still do, and I've spent $100 on way dumber stuff. 

The seller was, of course, inconveniently located, but I managed to get him to drive about 30 minutes south, to save me a little time, almost half way.  We met at a Walmart parking lot, as one does, exchanged pleasantries, and the seller showed me the springs.  At first blush, they looked like used coil springs, that probably fit a TJ.  I asked the seller some questions, he told me they came on his Jeep when he bought it, he removed them to install a taller lift.  He claimed to "think they are Teraflex," couldn't remember for sure, but claimed they "rode too good to be Rough Country."  Then he started looking at the tag on one of the springs trying to figure out what they are, and I finally saw the tag.   I had a $100 bill out of my pocket as quick as I could, and the seller promptly stopped looking at the tag on the spring.

Yeah, no E36 M3, they're not Rough Country.

 

So, I stole a set of 2.5" Old Man Emu coil springs in a Walmart parking lot. 

Part of me feels bad for not telling the dude what he had, he obviously didn't know.  But... we both left happy.

This Marketplace encounter in a Walmart parking lot, kind of changed all of my mid-term upgrade plans for Muffin.

just read from post #1.  quite the saga.  can't wait for the turbo volvo swap!

AngryCorvair said:

just read from post #1.  quite the saga.  can't wait for the turbo volvo swap!

I'm torn, I should just say thanks, but I kind of feel that I should apologize that you put yourself through that.  So I apologanks or thanogize? 

As I've mentioned before Jeeps are blessed with an ample aftermarket.  When it comes to steering upgrades, there's no shortage of options.  A few years back I bought a Rusty's steering conversion, intending to put it on Muffin, but wound up using it on our XJ, Moby, instead.  Additionally I've not been real pleased with the Rusty's steering, the drag link rolls so much due to play in the tie rod ends, the steering tends to wander, and there's a dead spot.  I wasn't interested in doing that again.

Jeeps are also a lot like Legos, a lot of similar parts are used on different models, and often upgrades can be found by shopping for the same part from a different model.

For example the 5.9l ZJ steering is a common beefier upgrade for the "lesser" Jeeps, like XJs and TJs.  The geometry and drag link are the same for the ZJ and TJ, but the ZJ uses a heavier solid tie rod, and a single TRE adjusting sleeve, while the TJ and XJ uses a hollow tie rod, with threaded ends.

I've used the ZJ steering on other Jeeps in the past, I used it on the brother-in-law's XJ when I was rehabbing it.  I was pleased with the outcome, so I decided that's the route I'd use on Muffin too.

So Muffin got all new Moog 5.9l ZJ steering.

Old Man Emu upgrades are definitely in my Jeep's future as well, congrats on that score! I'm getting some front end vibration above 45MPH, so I need too look into that.

Good choice on the ZJ part, too.