The Mission, The Success.

Hey all, Matt here again.

This is going to be about the last couple of weeks I have spent on the XJ and what Dylan and I did. Was a decent couple of jobs and made the Jeep run 100% better. Firstly, as the previous post explains, I was having some major problems turning the car on and we suspected it was the NSS, so we took that apart and cleaned it then found out it was the starter motor so took that apart and cleaned that and everything was good from there on it.

From day dot of owning this XJ I have noticed some over heating problems, that isn't uncommon in these cars. It's almost mandatory to have a stock jeep XJ in aussie-land to over heat unless you have done some work on the cooling system. Anyway, I had a list of things I needed. I needed a new belt, a new fan shroud and a new water pump, thermostat housing and a thermostat (Mind you, it didn't even have a thermostat in it at all). One weekend me and Dylan got to it and took the whole front of the engine off and cleaned every bit we took off, every bolt, every nut, ever seal.. Everything.

In one day we got, new water pump on, new thermostat and hosing on, new belt and fan shroud, new top hose, flushed the radiator and put new coolant in it, cleaned and did a small repair on the clutch fan and put it all back together and working. After doing all that I was still aware I needed a new radiator but figure after doing all that I suspected it would run a lot cooler due to it being clean, flushed and new coolant but I was wrong...... (FUCKING CARS) and found my radiator now had a small whole in it. I ran down the road and got a bottle of that Stop Leak and a new bottle of coolant and flushed the radiator again and ran the stop leak through it with the coolant but had no luck.

Yesterday my new full 24 tube radiator came with copper tanks (Not those shitty plastic tanks that come stock) and me and Dylan got it installed yesterday afternoon, I took it for a drive after about 3 hours of topping it and running the car until the block or radiator had no air pockets and it drove perfect, never went close to over heating. I drove it to work today and found it got over 100Deg F (Should sit under or near 100) so I might have to give it a look when I get home tonight and make sure it is full, I almost might need to top it up with some coolant again.

Tonight I have got my Pop to get some Aero-Alloy (Aeroplane wing metal) and the screws / bolts they use to fit it and he has cut it to a perfect size and I ordered $11 plastic vents from eBay. We are going to cut my bonnet tonight and install the vents so that the hot air getting trapped under the hood will have a place to escape and hopefully make it a little cooler in the long run - One can hope.

Now, for the price.. I did everything listed here plus a couple of other things (Breaks, oil filter, spot lights (Small ones I mounted to the roof rack), etc) for all just under $500. I got a quoted price to do everything I did including labour and parts prices for $2, 600... Just attempt it your self first guys, a lot of the major stuff that happens is quite an easy fix.

Matt's Problems

Hey all,

Thought I would do a little write up about the stuff me and Dudzy have done on my jeep the last couple of days.
Here is the back story, my car started becoming hard to start, lagging puttering, being a pain basically until one night couldn't get it started at all, so Dylan came around we both had a look and he hit the NSS while I was trying to start it and it worked, so we figured it was NSS either broken or just really dirty so the next day, pulled it apart (ONE BIG PAIN IN THE ASS!!!) cleaned it and put it back in but still had no luck, my 'younger' brother happened to be walking past and noticed a tone of oil on the starter motor and he gave that a bit of a clean and it worked so we knew what we wanted to take apart next.
This brings up another problem though, where is the oil leak coming from? I HOPE it's the oil filter, easy to replace and cheap too. The most likely scenario is it's my rear main seal and this isn't good and something I most definitely did not want to hear. It is possible to do a back yard job and repair it but there is a high risk your slight oil leak could becoming a massive one.

Anyway, here are some pictures of the starter motor getting cleaned and little clip I filmed from my iPhone.
To do this, I used http://www.go.jeep-xj.info/ and ausjeepoffroad.com (Forum Post) to help me with this. Dudzy had never taken his starter motor off before either so it was new for everyone.

This is the Starter motor just after we pulled it out

And this is it pulled apart and dirty as shit! 

This is after we got it cleaned 

This is it back together and cleaned! :) 

Dylan, chilling out. 

This is the video I took while putting it back together. 

New Video: Mashup #1

Hey all, It's Matt here. Good news! I finally finished editing a new video for you guys! :) Hope you all enjoy.

First video was very recently (Couple of weeks ago) at Glass house, the second song is 2 different trips to Glass House, a couple of months ago and the last song is footage from my 21st Birthday Party at Rainbow Beach Inskip. 

Share with anyone you can! :) 

The plan

Hey all, I have been doing a lot of budget shopping / pricing today and thought I would share what I found.
I have a list of things I want done on the car and ill go from cheapest to the more expensive mods and upgrades.. It's not a very big list but I'll give as much information as I can on each of them. Most of these prices and parts will be around the same price where ever you go but I did go local to Brisbane, Australia.

I have always been told from the start that the first thing you get is a good set of recovering gear, first aid kits, survival gear, etc. Just take that into account before you go off spending thousands of dollars on mods and upgrade and going out and getting stuck..

New Video - Random Unused Footage

Hey all, Matt here.

Just threw this together today from unused footage we had laying around from the other videos and random other times we have been out.

Sorry we haven't posted in a while been busy and Dylan is having problems with his XJ, not good. He is going to be posting something about it with some pictures and maybe a video not sure what wrong with it yet. He seems to think it's the transmission.