So picked this thing up almost a year ago with the intention of fixing the savage oil leak and flipping it.
Pretty much the most basic tj you could get in 2006
Four banger stick shift Dana 35
Of course that was like two days before maylong weekend and I didn’t really want to be riding shotgun so I slapped a warn vr 8000 that I had on the shelf on a bumper I built in 45 minutes. I then loaded it up with gear and headed for the hills. Having only checked and replaced any janky looking ujoints. Didn’t even check any of the fluids.
Over the past year I’ve wheeled it a ton as a stocker no locker and have just added oil regularly
I’ve wheeled most of the medium trails around with relative ease. Snow wheeling sucks as I’ve got no clearance and the coastal snow we get is heavy and packs easily. But as backroad wheeler it’s been great
I went with a rubicon express 3.5 short arm kit and bilstiens. And besides having to modify the rear track bar by adding a hiem on one end it was pretty straight forward. And the ride is amazing it blows me away how much it improved over the stock suspension
so I pulled the engine Wednesday night with brad giving me a hand. There is not much info on the tj 2.4 but researching the neon forums I came up with a way to work around the oil pan mounted balance shafts. I just tossed them in the trash. It frees up a ton of bottom end power and all that was needed was a 1/4-20 plug to block the oil feed to them. I also upgraded to the SRT thrust bearing as the block and bedplate is machined for a full circle thsust bearing but only gets a half one from the factory. then it was a matter of replacing both front and rear crank seals as the end play had popped them both out. Then it was a all day install friday to have it ready to wheel friday night.