New TJ day! Now with added transmission failure pics!

[hear]

Found in rural OK on Marketplace. Said it was an 03/04, ran fine but lost forward gears. No visible rust in pics & videos in the ad, confirmed by my scout up there. Hard top, full doors. Interior is ok, but not bad by any means. Dana 44 rear. Clean title, asking $2500. Upon vin check, it's actually an 02, so we're in my sweet spot on transmission fixes. Would not budge on the price. If the engine aint blown and it really isn't rusty, this was too good to pass. Rural location gave us an extra 48 hrs to get the cash & get back up there. If this had been in a DWF suburbs it would've been gone instantly.

XJ buddy (who is technically now TJ Buddy) has it on a trailer headed home now. I need the hard top, he wants the axles, at a minimum. Plan is to swap the parts, clean it up, and re-sell, or potentially swap some of his upgrades onto this new jeep and sell his 2000. Either way, I get to rebuild a transmission, which brings me great joy (because it means he's swapping axles while I am not swapping axles). Transmisison getting pulled & torn down tonight, rebuild kit arrives on Thursday.

Looks like seller just pulled the ad so the only pic I have is from the ad.

 

[CharlesHS]

At that price looks like a good deal.....
Congratulations.

 

[hear]

At that price looks like a good deal.....
Congratulations.

Prices have come down a little recently, but this is just way too good to pass up.

 

[DuckNut]

Great job.

Cheap way to pick up parts.

 

[hear]

Yeah, was very surprised to see it had a 44 rear end. No telling what other surprises there are. When it's that cheap you figure out all the ways it could be a horrible deal, mitigate those, and discover everything else on your own time after you take possession.

 

[DuckNut]

Yeah, was very surprised to see it had a 44 rear end. No telling what other surprises there are. When it's that cheap you figure out all the ways it could be a horrible deal, mitigate those, and discover everything else on your own time after you take possession.

Maybe it will have a blue sunshade so you can ditch the purple one.

 

[B1Toad]

I've only parted out one Jeep in my life, a rolled CJ. I wanted the 304 engine which I got then sold all the running gear and somebody even took the twisted body and frame off my hands for $75, I suspect they needed a VIN and a title. Anyway I got my engine for free and then some.

Good luck and will be watching to see how you do, and how the frame looks. Since yours isn't wrecked the swap parts and resell plan sounds like a good idea.

 

[DuckNut]

@hear - you may have bought a day too soon. I understand central TX had baseball size hail. Lots of parts are coming to be cheap - glass and tops not included.

 

[hear]

Well XJ buddy fronted the cash for this one so I guess I have free cash to swoop up some hail damage!

Dropped the trans last night, will start tearing it down this afternoon. Rebuild kit gets here on Thursday. Axles are Dana 30/Dana 44, with 4.56's on 35's and rear disc brakes, which we didn't know at the time so that was a bonus. But now the plan is more complicated: Put the 4.56 axles under XJ Buddy's 2000. Put the 2000's 4.10s under my daughter's jeep. Put her 3.55's under the new jeep. I know WE all know that 33's on 3.55's is not a good combo, but it's what she currently has and if you didn't know it was supposed to be better, you wouldn't know it sucked. You'd just think the jeep had no pickup. It won't hurt resale except to people who really know jeeps, which probably isn't our target market anyway.

The hard top isn't as great as I would have hoped. There's a crack in the upper corner and the side vents are missing, so I'll have to source those. My daughter wants a hard top so I think we're going to swap tops. The hard top on my 02 is great, so I think we'll do a decent fiberglass repair on the crack and then swap the two hard tops, since my brother in law wants my 02 & hard top anyway, but he won't mind a visible repair. Teenage daughters tend to care about those things a little more.

Interior is not quite as good as the pictures looked, big surprise. I've never painted the dash components before, but if the cost & effort is low, it would make it look a ton better. And I found a TJ bedrug for $100 so this thing might freshen up nicely.

As far as transmissions go, this sucker is pretty clean.

 

[hear]

P1281 is a new one to me, sounds like probably a new t-stat is in order. The TC codes will hopefully get fixed via rebuild…

But the O2 codes. That megathread is now 40-some pages with parts discontinued etc. is there something like an index page that maintains what the current best part #’s are?

And on the 02, it has the 2 mini cats just downstream from the exhaust manifold, there’s no “main” cat in the way downstream location like on my 97?

 

[Rickyd]

All tjs have a cat next to the transmission unless some okie removed it.

 

[DuckNut]

P1281 is a new one to me

They just threw that in there to round out the number to 6. Rarely does a jeep have less and they don't want you to be over confident.

 

[Space Naught]

Oh boy... and I thought my striking deal for a rolled 2002 with 4.10 axles for $4200 was good...

I only needed the damn axles because Im getting tired of the 3.07s. Dude ended up selling it to someone for $3500 after I talked him down to $3600...

Ill get some dang 4.10s eventually I swear.

 

[hear]

Oh boy... and I thought my striking deal for a rolled 2002 with 4.10 axles for $4200 was good...

I only needed the damn axles because Im getting tired of the 3.07s. Dude ended up selling it to someone for $3500 after I talked him down to $3600...

Ill get some dang 4.10s eventually I swear.

In terms of difficulty, a re-gear falls somewhere between a transmission rebuild and paying Dallas Offroad to do it.

 

[DuckNut]

Oh boy... and I thought my striking deal for a rolled 2002 with 4.10 axles for $4200 was good...

I only needed the damn axles because Im getting tired of the 3.07s. Dude ended up selling it to someone for $3500 after I talked him down to $3600...

Ill get some dang 4.10s eventually I swear.

I have a feeling I know where some 3.55's will be for sale soon.

 

[hear]

Had my 14 year old tear down the transmission at my direction. First problem is that one of the threaded pump puller holes has a few rough threads so I had a booger of a time getting the pump out. Second problem is that this rear drum has been ROASTED. You can see where the steel is discolored. Now remember that the parts you're seeing dont actually rotate against anything. .

Important note: there is no evidence of any other damage anywhere. Fluid looked quite new, but definitely had some friction material in it. I'm guessing PO tried to fix it with fluid. Protip: Reverse requires 3x the line pressure. So if you have reverse, it's very unlikely that your problem is caused by low fluid level.

 

[hear]

Exhibit 1: clutches from forward drum, used in Reverse & 3rd.

Exhibit 2: top clutch from rears drum, used in all forward gears.

Exhibit 3: middle clutch from rear drum, used in all forward gears.

That is the most roasted clutch I’ve ever seen. There is no friction material left and in some places it’s down to the backing plate. Interestingly enough the steels look fine.

Also interesting is that the rear drum looks a-ok. The forward drum is the one I posted earlier, and it sort of wraps the rear drum. There is a relief ball valve on the rear drum that releases fluid to the outer layer, so it must have been feeding the front drum ultra hot fluid. As long as it wasnt in 3rd that hot fluid would’ve been spun away through the wide opening (path of least resistance, which is why that edge shows scorch marks.

Good times. Why this happened is anybody’s guess, but it was definitely missing forward gears because of that clutch. Thanks for attending my TED Talk.

 

[lBasket]

Exhibit 1: clutches from forward drum, used in Reverse & 3rd.


View attachment 603953

Exhibit 2: top clutch from rears drum, used in all forward gears.

View attachment 603954


Exhibit 3: middle clutch from rear drum, used in all forward gears.

View attachment 603955


That is the most roasted clutch I’ve ever seen. There is no friction material left and in some places it’s down to the backing plate. Interestingly enough the steels look fine.

Also interesting is that the rear drum looks a-ok. The forward drum is the one I posted earlier, and it sort of wraps the rear drum. There is a relief ball valve on the rear drum that releases fluid to the outer layer, so it must have been feeding the front drum ultra hot fluid. As long as it wasnt in 3rd that hot fluid would’ve been spun away through the wide opening (path of least resistance, which is why that edge shows scorch marks.

Good times. Why this happened is anybody’s guess, but it was definitely missing forward gears because of that clutch. Thanks for attending my TED Talk.

Magic shifting device with its magic rings

 

[Strizzo]

Are the 3.55s going into a 30/44 or are you just swapping the whole axle?

I just pulled 3.73s out of my 30/44 for lockers and a re-gear. I'll be in DFW at easter.

 

[hear]

Are the 3.55s going into a 30/44 or are you just swapping the whole axle?

I just pulled 3.73s out of my 30/44 for lockers and a re-gear. I'll be in DFW at easter.

We're planning to swap the entire units around. At least a few of them have recently been setup anyway. I did the 3.55 rear & 4.10 rear last summer. We don't know the status of the 4.56's, but that sounds like a problem for the guy who is taking ownership of them.