Innojazz XJ Build Thread

[Innojazz]

Yeah I was wondering if maybe the mating surface wasn't flat or something. Looks like one of those things where there was an irregularity between the manifold and block so when the bolt was torqued, it snapped the ear. Wonder if these came from the factory this way and nobody knew it until they took the intake off. With as many miles as 4.0L's get on them before any real work needs to be done, it wouldn't surprise me if it took a long time for people to find this. Let us know if you find anything interesting.

[Innojazz]

Seeing as the weather stayed nice for a couple of days, I had time to grind out the rust spots in the engine bay and prep them for paint. Then I got the paint out and went to town. I wasn't overly worried about appearance as much as I was going for coverage. This isn't a show truck after all, but it is getting an engine with 0 miles on it. I wanted to do everything I could to make sure that the body lasts as long as possible too.

[Innojazz]

While I was painting I did the bell housing on the trans and the intake manifold. Then finally after 2 long months, I started the reassemble process!!!





Just an interesting photo of the injectors that came in the '97 intake manifold (top) next to the ones that came out of the '00 (bottom).

[Innojazz]

Right around that time I found a deal on a nice set of new tires that happened to be mounted on XJ wheels. Seeing as I needed new tires anyway, and I really didn't care for the snowflake wheels to begin with, I took this opportunity to jump up a bit in tire size too.

New 30x9.5x15's on black steel wheels:



Also bought some Brown Dog engine mounts and got them mounted in place.




I honestly hated putting all of the pieces back into the engine bay after I had just got done cleaning and painting it. I really wish I had time to go through a wire tuck in there to make it a little nicer....but I had to keep reminding myself that this isn't a show truck.

[Innojazz]

Next up on the list was dealing with the electrical system. Thanks to all of the good advice I had read here on XJtalk, I figured that I would upgrade the main wiring sytem as I reassembled everything.

First thing was to upgrade to the 136A alternator. My plan was to jump up to the 160A from the 5.9L Durango but the only one I could find through my local parts store was in W. VA. and it would have cost me 250 to get it to me. That was a bit excessive for me at that point so I settled for the 136A.

Picture of the minor bracket grinding that is necessary.



I also figured I would upgrade the wiring to and from the battery, alternator and PDU while I was at it. I have a local mom and pop auto store here in town and it turns out they make really nice custom length wires for a very reasonable price.

Picture of one of my new 2ga wires next to the stock ground.



And the rest of them. All in 2ga.

[Innojazz]

There were a couple other tings I did while I was in there with the engine out but I didn't take pictures of them. First thing is I replaced all of the hard brake lines from the MC all the way to each wheel. Super easy when you can stand in the engine bay to do the front passenger side one. I'd hate to try that one with the engine in place. Also got new tubing for the front dif breather and transfer case/trans breathers. Put a new trans mount on the trans cross member before putting that back into place as well.

Soooooo, now it was finally time to put the engine back in place!!! You can see here that I also decided to paint the fuel rail for good measure while I had it out.



Most everything after this was fairly uneventful and mostly just hooking everything back up. Hence no pictures.

A couple of modifications I did while on the way were fun to research and decide on.

First one was the big dilemma on which injectors to run. Well after reading a ton of information I new I wanted the 4 holes and decided on the Bosch 0-280-156-007 so I order them up and installed them. They are neon green though so they look a little funny next to my red fuel rail.

Next up was to dump the coil rail in favor of the stand alone coil with wires. I did a fair amount of research and decided on PN 56032520AC from the 05-07 Chrysler minivan (amongst other vehicles). I started the install by making a small bracket that wraps around the coolant overflow tank. I mounted the coil to the bracket and then measured to see how much length I would need to add to the harness. IIRC it was close to 12" of wire needed. So I spliced in the wires and made the extension. Next was to order the new set of Taylor 8mm spark plug wires, in red of course, to match the fuel rail.