LS XJ Build

It’s taken much longer than anticipated but with the outer quarter panel welded in I was finally ready to install the 2x6 rocker. Back in May of 2024 I did most of the prep work so all I really had to do now was the final steps of welding in the 2x6. Read more...

One of the last big TODOs left on the driver side was to rebuild the quarter panel. Welding a panel in is moderately easy but ensuring it’s properly aligned is hard. Since the driver side was also missing the inner wheel well / lower structure of the quarter I had less reference points to work with which made me slightly nervous. Read more...

With the passenger side just about sorted out, the last panel that needed some attention before I switch over to the driver side was the front fender. It wasn’t actually in that bad of shape relative to the rest of the Jeep but it did need a new mounting point down by the 2x6 rocker, and also had some rust in the lower front corner by the side marker. Read more...

With the XJ sitting on the chassis table I felt it was time to address the windshield pillars not lining up with the front doors. The pillars are almost touching the top corner of each door because back when I was replacing the drip rails I didn’t brace the roof enough and it shifted. Read more...

I’ve made it pretty far on the metal work for my XJ without a chassis table but once I finish up the driver side I’ll need to start replacing the floor and frame rails so the rear suspension needs to come out and that means the XJ won’t have any wheels. That’s gonna be a problem because every so often I need to move the XJ around to make space for other projects like repairs on my daily so a chassis table just seems like the best option. Read more...

There’s several options for transfer cases when LS swapping an XJ. Two of the more popular options are running the stock NP231 / NP242 with an adapter so it’ll mate up to the GM transmission or use a GM transfer case such as the NP241 that can be adapted to work with the XJ’s driveshafts. Read more...

Another year has come and gone and the XJ remains in pieces. I truly intended on starting to fix it last time I posted about the XJ but then I impulsively bought a second XJ and it needed some work of it’s own that ended up taking me almost a year to finish. Read more...

I can’t believe it’s a been a year since I last worked on the XJ. When I first paused working on the XJ to get my EG hatch back on the road I didn’t think it’d be for more a few months but sure enough here we are a year later. Read more...

For the past year I’ve been daydreaming about a 6.0 LQ4 + 4L60E build but after seeing the prices of LQ4s I (the 6.0 tax is real) I decided to go with it’s little brother the 5.3 LM7. Read more...

There’s a lot of rust on the driver side of my XJ, but it’s not as bad as the passenger side used to be. Back when I first began on phase 2 of the rust repair, I purposely started on the passenger side as I thought it’d be the easier of the two sides, but it turns out that wasn’t the case. Read more...