FrankenJeep III

This brings us up to the present...

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"Who shall conceive the horrors of my secret toil, as I dabbled among the unhallowed damps of the grave, or tortured the living animal to animate the lifeless clay?" - Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Frankenstein

Small update on the nature of 24+ year old Jeep YJs.

So, from the moment I brought FrankenJeep home, he gave me trouble starting. Especially when cold. It improved a little after I tuned him up, went with new plugs and wires, and replaced the idle air control valve (IAC)... but he persisted in his dogged refusal to start at times. The IAC took care of some of the idle issues, and cleaning out the throttle body helped with the starting a little, but it just got worse and worse.

About a month ago, he started just cranking. He'd eventually fire over, but it wasn't looking good. After some web crawling and Youtubing, I realized that there was a delay between turning the key and when the Check Engine light came on. Once I cranked for a it, or just left the key in, the Check Engine light would eventually come on, and Frankenjeep would fire right up. Yep. It was the telltale and terrifying sign of a bad ECM. Ridiculously common on YJs, but a pain in the undead butt, ya' know?!

So I pulled the ECM (gorram 8mm bolts!), packed it up in a box, and sent it to a place I found on Ebay out of Chicago. Cost me $115. I sent it on 7/31, received it back on 8/9. Reversed the pull out, and reinstalled... and now FrankenJeep fires up EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.

The idle issues are gone, and it takes like half a crank to fire it up.

NOW I can move on to the serious modifications, like a lift, tires, armor, etc.

In an unrelated note, I did do some useless, completely aesthetic and mall-Jeepy things to it.

My gear shift knob...

My transfer case knob...

And, my tire cover! 

Hmmmm. I'm sensing a pattern...

I'm looking forward to having a running Jeep, especially since this weekend is Jeepalooza 2018. In my hometown, we have the Last Stop Willoughby festival - it's named after the Twilight Zone episode where a train traveler gets stuck in a small town in the past. It's named after my hometown. The episode was written by Rod Serling... but it was contributed to by the late, great Harlan Ellison (who grew up in the next town over - Painesville). They have a big parade and over the last 8 or so years, there's also been a Jeep Parade at the end of the regular parade. We're talking 100+ Northeastern Ohio Jeeps, tooling down the road. It's an amazing sight to see!

I kind of thought, in the back of my mind, that I wanted to make sure FrankenJeep was ready to go for the parade no matter what, and now I'm happy to say he'll be there!

The adventure continues!

FrankenJeep - It's Alive!!

“Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change.” - Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Frankenstein

So... a couple months later, and there's been some progress.

The main issue is... Frankenjeep failed eCheck yet again. I spent quite a bit of time working on him mechanically, but it looks like it's not happening. That's what temp plates are for, I guess. In January 2019, I'll get plates for him once he's 25 years old and grandfathers out of eCheck.

(Getting new brakes, a tuneup, oil change, and basic maintenance [3/14/2018])

Also squared the brakes away, so he stops when you tell him to.

Other than that, he's running amazing after everything that we did to get him up and going

I also began body work. Pulled the front flares and found that the fenders had quite a few holes in them. So a bunch of new sheet metal, some tiger hair, and some finish bondo later, and the tub is in tip top shape.

Now, I am not a body guy. I'll be the first to admit that. However, I have Youtube and several years of half-assed painting experience; enough to be dangerous. In other words - the body's not super smooth, but it's good enough.

REMEMBER: FrankenJeep is a low buck project. He's for cruising in the summer and off-roading when I can. He'll never be a show quality ride. This means I'm not dumping a crap load of money (beyond the crap load I've ALREADY dumped into him) for paint... so I went with a backyard paint job.

We went with a Rustoleum spray job. The boy and I spent a day sanding and doing additional body work, spent a day taping and prepping, and then painted it in like 2 hours.

The paint job looks amazing from 10 feet away. Up close, you can see some runs here and there... but Frankenjeep looks pretty damned good now. Plus, I used Rustoleum 2x from Home Depot... so I'm not concerned about dings or anything because I can always just give it a quick, $3.49 spritz to touch him up from trail rash and mall parking lot door wangs. All told, with bondo, primer, paints, painting supplies... I spent like $150. I could have probably bought an HPLV sprayer and did it the right way, but rattle cans worked with the spirit of the build.

NOW that all that other crap is done.. and while I'm waiting for him to age into some plates... I can spend some time working on mods.

I also added:

• A Rampage soft top
• Bestop soft doors (I LOVE these doors!) 
• A Rampage Center console
• Seat covers
• Other little odds and ends

On the immediate list:

• Lift
• Bigger tires (31s or 32s. Nothing crazy)
• New bumpers
• Some offroad lights (I'm thinking round halogens mounted over the windshield. Old school, ya know? That's how Jeeps had them when I was younger and dammit, these kids today with their new-fangled LEDs need to get off my gorram lawn!!!)
• Paint the hardtop black

Nothing too crazy... just want it to look good and perform a little better.

FrankenJeep - Grave robbery!

Ed. Note: I've had a running Jeep build over on JeepForum.com, and figured I'd put it over here for posterity. And... maybe... it'll prompt me to do more goddamned writing.

***

“I am alone and miserable. Only someone as ugly as I am could love me.” ― Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Frankenstein 

So, I finally re-entered the Wrangler world.

I have a long history of Jeeps (I’ve really owned nothing else my entire adult life). However, my last Wrangler (a a 2002 TJ I purchased new ) succumbed to the awful horror of northern Ohio winters and road salt. The frame completely rotted out and, at the urging of my wife, I replaced it with a Commander. I love the Commander, and its both my DD and our traveling vehicle because its so comfortable, but it wasn’t quite a Wrangler, you know?

So, a year or so ago I began to get the itch to go topless again. It was almost unbearable. I finally decided to pull the switch last fall and picked up a new project for a ridiculously low price. Now, after spending the winter working on it (when the weather would let me), it’s finally ready to begin its undead return.

Shambling back from the dead… it’s Project FrankenJeep!! (Cue the dramatic flash of lightning and crash of thunder!)

Why’d I get it? Because it was in pretty good shape, despite her appearance. Plus, it’s become a great project for my teenage son and I.

The gruesome details: 
It’s a 1994 YJ with the 2.5. It’s pretty stock, but it has a hard top (something I’ve never had before with any of my previous 5 Wranglers). Per the prior owner – it had new floor pans, new body mounts, brand new fuel pump. Also did some body work to patch holes in corner panels, installed new inside door panels, and seat belts. The motor has 55,000, while the body has 200,000. It also had the frame repaired.

All of these details – especially the body work – made it almost impossible to pass up. The frame and body are in great shape and the body work was done right.

However, there were some issues (aren’t there always, though?!)

It had been straight piped. Unfortunately, my neighbors don’t deserve that, so I had to put on a new muffler and tailpipe. To complicate this, and the single most important issue with it - Ohio has 9 counties where we need to do emissions testing. I live in one of them. It failed it’s first echeck (high NOX), so I spent the winter doing all kinds of stuff that precluded the last resort - replacing the catalytic converter. Why? Because emissions testing is only needed on vehicles less than 25 years old. Frankenjeep is 24 years old. I’ll be damned if I’m going crazy and dumping a bunch of money at something stupid when, in like 6 months, I don’t have to do anything for it. So I’ve done a tune up (new plugs, wires, cap, and rotor), oil change and filter, and changed the air filter. I’m going to Seafoam it, hit it with some high test gas and some Guaranteed to Pass. Im also going to run it on the freeway to heat up the cat and hope that I can cheat the roller test enough to get plates for it.

In the meantime, it also looks like the brakes have never been done on it. I had to replace the brakes all the way around, a rear brake cylinder, and a couple brake lines. It’s still giving me some trouble getting bled, and the brakes are still a little soft. I’m planning to fix that in the next few days. I fear I’m going to need to replace the front bleeders (Curse you, road salt!) and/or the master cylinder.

Once FrankenJeep passes echeck, it’s time for body and paint. I’m thinking of painting him orange. Half thinking of doing the $50 Rustoleum paint job.

The key with FrankenJeep is that he is a fun Jeep. He’s not my daily driver, and I’m going to build him up and do so cheap. He’ll see trails, and he won’t be pretty, but he’ll be kick ***.

Future plans:

• A soft top
• 32s and a small lift
• New bumpers
• Expedition rack (had one on my last jeep and LOVED it)
• Bunch of small things to make it as fun as possible! 

Here he is the day he came home on 9/13/2016! 

Here are some pictures of the work that was done to him by the dude who had him before me... as he wrote: 

Has been completely gone through, new floor pans, new body mounts, brand new fuel pump, did some body work to patch holes in corner panels, new inside door panels, seat belts, motor has 55,000 and body 200,000, frame repair on rear where leaf spring shackle goes, everything has been done right. 4 Cylinder with five speed. will make someone a really nice jeep (Edited for illiteracy).

Watch for more progress..