Vinnyoffroad

I bought my first XJ in august of this year; A red 2001 sport, completely stock and needing a little TLC. It had 159,000 on the clock and a good bit of rust underneath. It still isn't finished, but I plan to daily it and do some occasional wheeling. I have a bit of catching up to do on this thread but I hope you all enjoy the build. Thanks.

Now without further ado... my build...

DJKnightmare

Awesome! Welcome to the club! I'm looking forward to what you do with it

Vinnyoffroad

Here are some pictures of the rust situation I was looking at. Unibody was mostly good though besides two places in the rear. (fuel hose hole and the same spot on the other side)

Vinnyoffroad

It was decided the first step in this project would be to pull the hitch off and clean it up. Easy enough right? Well I got my first real look at working on a rusty car... and let me tell you... there was a point where there was a for sale sign on this thing while trying to get those stupid bolts off. The first one broke the nut strip it was attached to so it kept spinning in the unibody. Had to cut the head off and just leave it up there till a later date. Thankfully an impact got the rest off (I think... there may have been more cutting).

Vinnyoffroad

Unfamiliar with XJs and their "tendencies"... I was in for a real surprise when I pulled the black bumper caps off... oh boy

DJKnightmare

That's just pre "cut and fold" metal reconstruction with oxidation

Vinnyoffroad

Haha... don't spoil it though... what I did to those is coming up...

Vinnyoffroad

Began researching solutions to the quarter panel problem... found a few options but decided to just delay it until later. Now it was time to break out the jack stands and start taking stuff apart...

Vinnyoffroad

Leaf spring bolts came out surprisingly easy? Sure they were hard to turn and took plenty of breaker bar extension pipe... but for the most part no leaf spring bolt horror stories here

Vinnyoffroad

Got the axle degreased and put a new seal in it. Then hit it with a coat of Chassis Saver and it looks good as new

tlc1976

Ahh so this is a documentary thread of what you’ve already done. Nice! Looking forward to the continued story!

Vinnyoffroad

Yep! I'll continue to update it though once I'm all caught up.

Vinnyoffroad

So once the axle was out of the way I decided it was time to pull back the carpet and take a look at the floor in the rear. Much UNLIKE the quarter panels the floor was pretty good! Only a small hole right above the shackle box.

Vinnyoffroad

At this point it was apparent I needed a welder... and to learn how to weld. I was in too deep to "put it back together" so that helped drive the welder purchase. Got a Hobart 240... a cart.. some welding gas... sheet metal... some air tools...
and pulled up youtube to try and figure this out.

Vinnyoffroad

After watching a few videos and blowing through some sheet metal I felt prepared to make a real repair on this car. I bent up the piece using a vice and a hammer and got to work. Decided to leave plenty of overlap to make the welding easier so it isn't perfect but hey... it works... and nobody will ever see it.