Advocate I
I'll keep you posted when I put this thing back together... someday. ;)
-TJ
2003 Jeep Grand Cherokee Overland Build
- Thread starter tjZ06
- Start date
-TJ
Advocate I
Well, I only had ~90 min to do anything on the Jeep today between work and dinner plans (probably shouldn't be taking the time to post now... but ya know forums are important!), but knocked a couple little things out.
On the shroud assembly I started looking at how the fans would get wired. Honestly, it's a little disappointing that the fans just come with non-terminated leads on them. Why wouldn't they wire the fans up... not to mention the fan wires are routed into the shroud to make them look cleaner... but then have to come up through provided cut-outs under the controller cover to get hooked up. Why not have terminals on the "other" side of the controller, inside the shroud so the fan wiring can just go right there... or better yet a plug? Anyway, it's not a big deal, but with the extremely high quality of the rest of it, it was a little surprising.
The other thing, is the wiring for one of the fans wasn't actually going to reach the terminals on the controller routed as provided. I could have extended the wiring, but instead I just found a new spot to run the wiring into the shroud, which got me the length needed. The wiring for the "lower" fan in this pic was originally going through where the red arrow is:
I pulled the wiring out, pulled the grommet out, drilled a new hole with a more direct route, and swapped the grommet and wiring there. I'll probably try to find a plug for the old hole, but I'm not super-worried about that little hole impacting the fans pulling through the radiator. All of the factory mounting-slots in the shroud are way more total area. I'm sort of considering covering those slots with some 200 MPH tape... but I think it'll just dry up and fall apart and look like crap over time. If I was super-crazy I could cut some metal to cover the holes, back it with some RTV and bolt them in place... but I really don't think it's needed.
The other thing I did was install the fittings for the trans-cooler lines on the radiator. They come with the radiator, but don't have any wrench flats or a hex inside the fitting or anything:
So, it was unclear how I was going to tighten them up well. I test-fit the trans cooler lines and saw that there'd be enough of the fitting that wouldn't end up inside the trans line that I could grab it with a wrench, but a friend had a way better suggestion: double nut it. Luckily the factory trans cooler setup has some big retaining nuts on the fittings, so they were perfect to double-nut it and get them plenty snug (with some thread sealant on them for good measure). I was glad to get this done to allow the sealant plenty of time to setup.
I also finished cleaning up the rusty area under the battery tray location and hit it first with some rust-encapsulating/prohibitive primer, then some body-color paint (I literally stumbled on a near-perfect match when I was looking for the rust-treatment). Decent pics are nearly impossible to get in there, and I didn't bother masking things as you'll NEVER see this area so there's plenty of over-spray:
I hit the freshly blasted valve covers with the same color paint. The covers aren't perfectly smooth so the shine/gloss really didn't come through. If I really cared I could probably throw 3-4 more coats on, then some clear... but I don't:
So, that's a wrap for today.
-TJ
On the shroud assembly I started looking at how the fans would get wired. Honestly, it's a little disappointing that the fans just come with non-terminated leads on them. Why wouldn't they wire the fans up... not to mention the fan wires are routed into the shroud to make them look cleaner... but then have to come up through provided cut-outs under the controller cover to get hooked up. Why not have terminals on the "other" side of the controller, inside the shroud so the fan wiring can just go right there... or better yet a plug? Anyway, it's not a big deal, but with the extremely high quality of the rest of it, it was a little surprising.
The other thing, is the wiring for one of the fans wasn't actually going to reach the terminals on the controller routed as provided. I could have extended the wiring, but instead I just found a new spot to run the wiring into the shroud, which got me the length needed. The wiring for the "lower" fan in this pic was originally going through where the red arrow is:
I pulled the wiring out, pulled the grommet out, drilled a new hole with a more direct route, and swapped the grommet and wiring there. I'll probably try to find a plug for the old hole, but I'm not super-worried about that little hole impacting the fans pulling through the radiator. All of the factory mounting-slots in the shroud are way more total area. I'm sort of considering covering those slots with some 200 MPH tape... but I think it'll just dry up and fall apart and look like crap over time. If I was super-crazy I could cut some metal to cover the holes, back it with some RTV and bolt them in place... but I really don't think it's needed.
The other thing I did was install the fittings for the trans-cooler lines on the radiator. They come with the radiator, but don't have any wrench flats or a hex inside the fitting or anything:
So, it was unclear how I was going to tighten them up well. I test-fit the trans cooler lines and saw that there'd be enough of the fitting that wouldn't end up inside the trans line that I could grab it with a wrench, but a friend had a way better suggestion: double nut it. Luckily the factory trans cooler setup has some big retaining nuts on the fittings, so they were perfect to double-nut it and get them plenty snug (with some thread sealant on them for good measure). I was glad to get this done to allow the sealant plenty of time to setup.
I also finished cleaning up the rusty area under the battery tray location and hit it first with some rust-encapsulating/prohibitive primer, then some body-color paint (I literally stumbled on a near-perfect match when I was looking for the rust-treatment). Decent pics are nearly impossible to get in there, and I didn't bother masking things as you'll NEVER see this area so there's plenty of over-spray:
I hit the freshly blasted valve covers with the same color paint. The covers aren't perfectly smooth so the shine/gloss really didn't come through. If I really cared I could probably throw 3-4 more coats on, then some clear... but I don't:
So, that's a wrap for today.
-TJ
Advocate I
Pathfinder I
Advocate I
Well, I got some good work done today, but honestly I'm a little annoyed I got blocked by some parts not showing up that "should" have. Specifically the correct pulley for the ATI didn't show up, and the injectors didn't show up. Both shipped by USPS Priority Mail this week, and both had ETAs originally of Friday. Here it is 6pm Sat, neither showed.
The pulley is especially frustrating because it was THEIR mistake sending the under-drive unit. I left them a message Monday, and didn't get a call back (it was a holiday, I get it). Tuesday got busy with work and forgot to follow up with them, and they didn't call me. Finally Wed I called them again and he obviously hadn't checked the voice mail. He was apologetic, and found my order and agreed it was their fault. Despite that, I offered to pay the over-night shipping to be really sure it got here. He assured me that wasn't necessary, and got it out via Priority on Wed. Priority is typically 2-3 days anywhere in the US... but for some reason they shipped it from Minneapolis, MN to Lincoln, CA by way of Honolulu Hawaii - not kidding.
The injectors was a similar thing. I *knew* I should have just over-nighted them, but I called the vendor and they assured me it wasn't necessary.
Oh well, things that got done:
(this was the one that required removing the fan and running the hardware "the wrong way")
The pulley is especially frustrating because it was THEIR mistake sending the under-drive unit. I left them a message Monday, and didn't get a call back (it was a holiday, I get it). Tuesday got busy with work and forgot to follow up with them, and they didn't call me. Finally Wed I called them again and he obviously hadn't checked the voice mail. He was apologetic, and found my order and agreed it was their fault. Despite that, I offered to pay the over-night shipping to be really sure it got here. He assured me that wasn't necessary, and got it out via Priority on Wed. Priority is typically 2-3 days anywhere in the US... but for some reason they shipped it from Minneapolis, MN to Lincoln, CA by way of Honolulu Hawaii - not kidding.
The injectors was a similar thing. I *knew* I should have just over-nighted them, but I called the vendor and they assured me it wasn't necessary.
Oh well, things that got done:
- Valve covers back on
- PCV hoses that run from the back of each head that were both leaking (see pics). Both sides the hoses had actually split. I couldn't find a direct replacement, so I just searched around a Napa until I found something that had the right inner diameter and some bends that I could use, cut it up, and made new hoses. I'm glad I did it because I could tell they actually had been leaking pretty bad once I got in there
- (New) Battery tray in
- TCM and bracket back in
- Most of the wiring harness laid back where it belongs
- New heater hoses done. I ended up opting to run soft-lines all the way. The stock setup has 2 hard AL lines with 4 total rubber lines (so each line has a rubber line from the heater core to the AL line, then another from the other end of AL line to front cover). I bought the right molded replacement soft lines, and was just going to hose-clamp them on (since the factory uses a crimp fit I can't duplicate, and the whole assembly pre-crimped was ridiculously expensive) but honestly with the soft-line all the way I could route it down way more out of the way (not on top of the valve cover) and made it much cleaner... and would be an easier "trail fix" if it came down to it (just need standard 5/8" heater hose)
- Mounted shroud to rad
- Made little 3-wire loom to go from fan controller to the chassis, including power and ground - didn't tap the AC trigger line yet because I want things fully back in place before I route that so I don't want to cut/terminate it yet
- Put AC compressor, PS pump, alternator, idler/tensioner, etc. back on
- Yelled at USPS
(this was the one that required removing the fan and running the hardware "the wrong way")
Advocate I
The shroud is going to be pretty close on the steering box, but once the actual rubber mounts are in it'll clear. Hindsight 20-20 I could have offset the shroud on the radiator more to the passenger side and up to clear better, but I like things symmetrical and my previous "dry-fits" didn't catch this:
As you can see there's daylight in there... and the radiator will be a bit more forward when actually secured. I can space the radiator forward a bit too if needed with some body-washers under the rubber "donut" mounts up top.
We put the AC condensor and PS cooler roughly in place and everything is going to fit real nice!
As you can see there's daylight in there... and the radiator will be a bit more forward when actually secured. I can space the radiator forward a bit too if needed with some body-washers under the rubber "donut" mounts up top.
We put the AC condensor and PS cooler roughly in place and everything is going to fit real nice!
Advocate I
You can see the battery tray and such back in here:
And starting on the harness for the fans. This is where the breaker will live, which makes for a nice-short power wire up into the fuse box. If you look close you can see the harness is getting ground from the preexisting ground screw just behind the fuse box:
Obviously nothing is tight or final-loomed or whatnot in these pics, because I need to pull it all back out with the radiator to put the balancer on when the damn pulley arrives. I wanted it "trail-serviceable" so I made sure I would be able to get to the studs on the breaker with the headlight and other fascia stuff in. That way if the breaker were to fail, in a pinch I could swap the wire coming from power in the fuse box to the other post, then the fans would be powered (but not fused). I'll also get another breaker (or two) just like this and toss 'em in the glovebox. PS, yes the breaker is Teks-screwed on right after I made fun of them.
And that's where I'm blocked. No injectors so I can't lay the fuel-rail back in, the coils, and tidy up/place the harnesses. No pulley for the ATI so I can't do anything that would make removing the radiator again a pain (radiator hoses, trans cooler lines, actual rad mounts, finish this wiring, etc).
Finally, my hidden winch-mount didn't show either, so all of that stuff is going to get pushed to next weekend, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel...
-TJ
And starting on the harness for the fans. This is where the breaker will live, which makes for a nice-short power wire up into the fuse box. If you look close you can see the harness is getting ground from the preexisting ground screw just behind the fuse box:
Obviously nothing is tight or final-loomed or whatnot in these pics, because I need to pull it all back out with the radiator to put the balancer on when the damn pulley arrives. I wanted it "trail-serviceable" so I made sure I would be able to get to the studs on the breaker with the headlight and other fascia stuff in. That way if the breaker were to fail, in a pinch I could swap the wire coming from power in the fuse box to the other post, then the fans would be powered (but not fused). I'll also get another breaker (or two) just like this and toss 'em in the glovebox. PS, yes the breaker is Teks-screwed on right after I made fun of them.
And that's where I'm blocked. No injectors so I can't lay the fuel-rail back in, the coils, and tidy up/place the harnesses. No pulley for the ATI so I can't do anything that would make removing the radiator again a pain (radiator hoses, trans cooler lines, actual rad mounts, finish this wiring, etc).
Finally, my hidden winch-mount didn't show either, so all of that stuff is going to get pushed to next weekend, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel...
-TJ
Advocate I
Great progress TJ! Definitely on the way for a very clean mod. What's the black A/N fitting on the water neck for?You can see the battery tray and such back in here:
And starting on the harness for the fans. This is where the breaker will live, which makes for a nice-short power wire up into the fuse box. If you look close you can see the harness is getting ground from the preexisting ground screw just behind the fuse box:
Obviously nothing is tight or final-loomed or whatnot in these pics, because I need to pull it all back out with the radiator to put the balancer on when the damn pulley arrives. I wanted it "trail-serviceable" so I made sure I would be able to get to the studs on the breaker with the headlight and other fascia stuff in. That way if the breaker were to fail, in a pinch I could swap the wire coming from power in the fuse box to the other post, then the fans would be powered (but not fused). I'll also get another breaker (or two) just like this and toss 'em in the glovebox. PS, yes the breaker is Teks-screwed on right after I made fun of them.
And that's where I'm blocked. No injectors so I can't lay the fuel-rail back in, the coils, and tidy up/place the harnesses. No pulley for the ATI so I can't do anything that would make removing the radiator again a pain (radiator hoses, trans cooler lines, actual rad mounts, finish this wiring, etc).
Finally, my hidden winch-mount didn't show either, so all of that stuff is going to get pushed to next weekend, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel...
-TJ
Advocate I
Just an easier way to do the bleeder than the little plug... also makes the bleeder ever so slightly taller. I have a cap for it of course.
-TJ
Pathfinder I
Advocate I
Oh, another thing I decided to take care of "while I'm in there" were the battery terminals. They're pretty hammered from the years, and the ground side had actually cracked near the clamp bolt. This was going to be no-good for running the winch wiring right to it. I looked for a whole new harness, but they're not in production. A friend suggested nicer stereo install style terminals with the set-screw clamps for the wires (they claim they're actually more conductive than crimping on terminals). I found a set that will be great... they each have 2 8-gauge spots which will fit the factory wiring perfectly (which is in great shape) and then a 4-gauge that'll take the winch wires. They also have a 0-gauge terminal, you know in case I ever put 4 15" subs in it, yo...
-TJ
-TJ
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Advocate I
To reduce the chance of electrical noise wigging out the PWM fan controller, consider running any appropriate positive and negative leads directly to the battery terminals for isolation. It looks like you have plenty of connection points!
Advocate I
Yeah... I saw that in the instructions and considered it. I might still change it up, not sure. However, where the ground is there's a short lead that goes directly back to the battery, and the same is true for the positive... it's on the short lead that goes straight back to the battery. So I really wonder how much, if at all, being on "the other side" of those ~4-6" leads that go directly to the battery would impact things?
-TJ
Advocate I
I've had Melissa un-boxing stuff as it shows up and sending me pics so I could be SURE I had all the parts to put the damn thing together this weekend. It finally looks like all the parts are here.
Correct-size pulley for the ATI:
What they originally sent on the left, what I just got now on the right.
Under-drive on top of OE-diameter (bolt patterns match up).
You can see, same diameter as stock.
Correct-size pulley for the ATI:
What they originally sent on the left, what I just got now on the right.
Under-drive on top of OE-diameter (bolt patterns match up).
You can see, same diameter as stock.
Advocate I
8 of these guys showed up too:
And the upper radiator mounts that I had forgotten to order, and forgot to pull off the old radiator (I made a dump run the weekend before last so I had taken the old rad... I wanted new ones anyway but couldn't get the quickly enough - of course I was held-up by the pulley deal anyway so this wasn't a blocker):
So *fingers super-crossed* that shouuuuuuuuuuuuld be the last of the parts I need and I SHOULD be able to put it back together. The hidden winch-mount also shows tracking to show up tomorrow, so I hope we can knock that out before putting the front end back together instead of taking it back apart at a later date for that.
-TJ
PS- I forgot in the big update last weekend we also wired-in the new injector connectors on the harness side for the 3 that had broken.
And the upper radiator mounts that I had forgotten to order, and forgot to pull off the old radiator (I made a dump run the weekend before last so I had taken the old rad... I wanted new ones anyway but couldn't get the quickly enough - of course I was held-up by the pulley deal anyway so this wasn't a blocker):
So *fingers super-crossed* that shouuuuuuuuuuuuld be the last of the parts I need and I SHOULD be able to put it back together. The hidden winch-mount also shows tracking to show up tomorrow, so I hope we can knock that out before putting the front end back together instead of taking it back apart at a later date for that.
-TJ
PS- I forgot in the big update last weekend we also wired-in the new injector connectors on the harness side for the 3 that had broken.
Enthusiast III
I'm looking forward to seeing the tank tuck. I really want to do that to mine, but that's is the one mod I won't do myself.
I also wanted to ask how hard the adjustable high clearance long arms were to install. I have been thinking of upgrading to them over the standard long arms.
I also wanted to ask how hard the adjustable high clearance long arms were to install. I have been thinking of upgrading to them over the standard long arms.
Advocate I
Well, I've been holding off making this post because it's both embarrassing and humbling, but here it is: I f@wked something up real good. I got it all back together mechanically (front clip still largely off, starting the winch install) and got fluids in it and went to give it a test fire. I was in the car, but a buddy helping said he heard at least 2 *bad* metal to metal sounds as it tried to fire and died. We confirmed we were getting fuel and spark, so I did a compression test and the driver's bank of cylinders were fine... passenger bank was 0... like needle not even wiggling. To be dead zero a valve basically has to be hung (timing being off a tooth or two would just make it have poor compression generally). YAY. I got a borescope in there and confirmed bent/hung valves. No good deed goes unpunished, and this is what I get for changing the timing set that was perfectly fine.
So WTF went wrong? Honestly I don't know. I ordered a reman longblock yesterday (which includes some improvements to address known 4.7 flaws) and once it comes in we'll rip this one out and pull the valve covers and front cover and such and figure out what happened.
During the course of working on it I had several friends helping. For the T-set portion I had a buddy who is a professional mechanic helping every step of the way. We triple-checked everything and if you scroll back you'll see we got pictures of every single timing mark in the right place. We cleaned, loctite'ed and torqued every bolt to spec. I even had a 2nd professional mechanic friend (20+ year master tech w/ Lexus) stop by before the front cover went back on and he verified everything.
All I can think of is something in the new timing set let go. I'd like for that to be the answer so I don't have to blame myself so much... but it just doesn't make sense. For the valves to bend as badly as they did the timing had to be WAY off so I don't think it "jumped a tooth" (plus chains don't usually do that, that's more of a timing belt thing). Not to mention, we rolled it over multiple revolutions by hand successfully with the front cover and valve covers off before we put any of that on. Turning it by hand we would have felt/heard piston to valve contact (we had the spark plugs out so it'd roll smoothly specifically so we could feel for any issues). Something had to have let go... and I just can't fathom why, other than I must have been a horrible human being in a past life... my CARma sucks.
I'll follow up with my usual pictures from what got done, but I had to put that out there first...
So WTF went wrong? Honestly I don't know. I ordered a reman longblock yesterday (which includes some improvements to address known 4.7 flaws) and once it comes in we'll rip this one out and pull the valve covers and front cover and such and figure out what happened.
During the course of working on it I had several friends helping. For the T-set portion I had a buddy who is a professional mechanic helping every step of the way. We triple-checked everything and if you scroll back you'll see we got pictures of every single timing mark in the right place. We cleaned, loctite'ed and torqued every bolt to spec. I even had a 2nd professional mechanic friend (20+ year master tech w/ Lexus) stop by before the front cover went back on and he verified everything.
All I can think of is something in the new timing set let go. I'd like for that to be the answer so I don't have to blame myself so much... but it just doesn't make sense. For the valves to bend as badly as they did the timing had to be WAY off so I don't think it "jumped a tooth" (plus chains don't usually do that, that's more of a timing belt thing). Not to mention, we rolled it over multiple revolutions by hand successfully with the front cover and valve covers off before we put any of that on. Turning it by hand we would have felt/heard piston to valve contact (we had the spark plugs out so it'd roll smoothly specifically so we could feel for any issues). Something had to have let go... and I just can't fathom why, other than I must have been a horrible human being in a past life... my CARma sucks.
I'll follow up with my usual pictures from what got done, but I had to put that out there first...
Advocate I
Not sure why I'm posting this stuff, since it's alllllllllll going to come back apart, but hey I took the pics, so why not I guess?
Putting the ATI on... drove the damper on with the specific install tool (just a pretty general Chrysler balancer installer) first. Then had to figure out holding the crank to torque the crank bolt. I was going to pop the starter out and try to get a pry-bar on the flexplate, but I had this scrap of metal so I made a super cool "tool" to hold the balancer:
After the balancer was on and the crank bolt torqued, the correct (OE diameter) pulley was put on and torqued:
Putting the ATI on... drove the damper on with the specific install tool (just a pretty general Chrysler balancer installer) first. Then had to figure out holding the crank to torque the crank bolt. I was going to pop the starter out and try to get a pry-bar on the flexplate, but I had this scrap of metal so I made a super cool "tool" to hold the balancer:
After the balancer was on and the crank bolt torqued, the correct (OE diameter) pulley was put on and torqued:
Advocate I
Remember the front end used to look like this:
But that crash-bar needed cutout to be replaced by this:
With the cooling stack out of the way I could lay the condensor up and use a sawzall, making it much easier than using the death-wheel as per the instructions.
I nailed it on the passenger's side:
I got the angle a bit wrong on the driver's side so it had more to clean up:
Cleaned up:
But that crash-bar needed cutout to be replaced by this:
With the cooling stack out of the way I could lay the condensor up and use a sawzall, making it much easier than using the death-wheel as per the instructions.
I nailed it on the passenger's side:
I got the angle a bit wrong on the driver's side so it had more to clean up:
Cleaned up:
Advocate I
Hit it with some rust-proofing primer, then my snazzy basically body-color-matched rattle-can:
(it actually looks better than the pics show... but I also don't care because nobody will ever see it, I just don't want it to rust.
I also used the primer then just some black anti-rust paint on all the winch mount hardware:
(this is obviously midway through when I had just started on the black paint)
I don't think I got a pic of it, but I actually painted the front face and bottom of the main bracket w/ the body color stuff when I was done because it'll actually end up sticking through the bumper like this:
I actually got that cut done on my bumper, and did the bumper mod to completely cut out the fog light area (at a min I needed to remove the fog-light buckets for tire clearance, but I like the increased approach with the bigger cut). I don't think I got a pic of any of that because I had destroyed my motor by then and sort of lost the interest in pics, but I cut it basically like this:
Obviously I also cut out the section for the winch mount. It's certainly a ~5 foot job. But it's going to get hammered with Sierra Pin Stripping anyway.
So, that's it 'til the longblock shows up and I take it all back apart. I ordered just about every sensor new that I could (crank position, cam position, knock sensors, oil pressure, TPS, IAC, MAP, ECT, all 4 o2s, etc.) getting Mopar wherever possible (particularly for the crank & cam position sensors) and good brands like Delphi where I couldn't source Mopar. I ordered the rest of the stuff I should need (exhaust manifold gaskets, exhaust manifold hardware, intake manifold gaskets, another timing cover gasket, IAC o-ring, throttle body o-ring, fresh valve cover gaskets, full AC seal kit) too. I also figured I'd round it out with a new starter and alternator (so I can keep these known good used ones as trail-spares). Lastly, I ordered an '08 intake manifold. "They" say to replace the intake whenever you blow a 4.7 up. You just can never truly clean it. This one didn't blow up but I just didn't want to chance it. Of course, you can't get a '03 intake any more, you have to get the '08 (which is said to add 10 HP... raaaaaaaaaaace cahhhhhh) so I had to order an adapter bracket for running my TB on it too (by '08 they'd gone to a different bolt pattern and fly-by-wire).
In the end I'm going to have the world's most expensive slightly lifted basically stock old ass Jeep WJ, because...
-TJ
PS- I guess the only "bright side" is it'll be way easier to slide the motor out the front with that crash bar cut out.
(it actually looks better than the pics show... but I also don't care because nobody will ever see it, I just don't want it to rust.
I also used the primer then just some black anti-rust paint on all the winch mount hardware:
(this is obviously midway through when I had just started on the black paint)
I don't think I got a pic of it, but I actually painted the front face and bottom of the main bracket w/ the body color stuff when I was done because it'll actually end up sticking through the bumper like this:
I actually got that cut done on my bumper, and did the bumper mod to completely cut out the fog light area (at a min I needed to remove the fog-light buckets for tire clearance, but I like the increased approach with the bigger cut). I don't think I got a pic of any of that because I had destroyed my motor by then and sort of lost the interest in pics, but I cut it basically like this:
Obviously I also cut out the section for the winch mount. It's certainly a ~5 foot job. But it's going to get hammered with Sierra Pin Stripping anyway.
So, that's it 'til the longblock shows up and I take it all back apart. I ordered just about every sensor new that I could (crank position, cam position, knock sensors, oil pressure, TPS, IAC, MAP, ECT, all 4 o2s, etc.) getting Mopar wherever possible (particularly for the crank & cam position sensors) and good brands like Delphi where I couldn't source Mopar. I ordered the rest of the stuff I should need (exhaust manifold gaskets, exhaust manifold hardware, intake manifold gaskets, another timing cover gasket, IAC o-ring, throttle body o-ring, fresh valve cover gaskets, full AC seal kit) too. I also figured I'd round it out with a new starter and alternator (so I can keep these known good used ones as trail-spares). Lastly, I ordered an '08 intake manifold. "They" say to replace the intake whenever you blow a 4.7 up. You just can never truly clean it. This one didn't blow up but I just didn't want to chance it. Of course, you can't get a '03 intake any more, you have to get the '08 (which is said to add 10 HP... raaaaaaaaaaace cahhhhhh) so I had to order an adapter bracket for running my TB on it too (by '08 they'd gone to a different bolt pattern and fly-by-wire).
In the end I'm going to have the world's most expensive slightly lifted basically stock old ass Jeep WJ, because...
-TJ
PS- I guess the only "bright side" is it'll be way easier to slide the motor out the front with that crash bar cut out.
