Covid-19 Jeep Maintenance

[bonza]

with all this lock down due to the covid-19 ourbreak I decided to take care of some maintenance items that needed doing on my TJ Wrangler

it has had some annoying leaks for the past couple of years so I had the seals and gaskets ready to go but I had been putting off fixing until I had some time on my hands.

recently the clutch started to squeal like a pig so thought better get this done especially after seeing a mate get stranded in the bush when his clutch catastrophically failed a couple of months ago in his Nissan Patrol

so work done over the past week:-
rocker cover gasket, front diff pinion seal, engine rear main seal, sump pan gasket, clutch including pilot and throw out bearing, front and rear propeller shaft uni joints and centering yoke on the front shaft

gave it a good test drive yesterday. feels a lot smother with the new unis when cruising down the highway, no more oil leaks and the squawking clutch is quiet. the old clutch was in remarkably good condition after well over 200k. the noise was coming from the pilot bearing as was rusty and seized up due to water ingress

I used a LUK clutch, Spicer unis and Felpro gaskets. highly recommend Felpro pan gasket as it comes with plastic dowels that are used to hold the gasket in place during installation

got all the parts from Rockauto and the total cost including delivery came to about $550

as I did the work by myself without an assistant its best to remove the transfer case separately from the gearbox rather than taking out in one piece due to the weight

worse part of the job is attaching the exhaust back to manifold. mine has those stupid twin mini cats that make access awkward. have to use 3/8" drive sockets and long extensions, plus one of the bolts had a damaged thread. had to run a M12 die nut over it and then used never seize for running them up.
if taking off again it would pay to have spare bolts to use as the heads are likely to be eroded and the threads damaged. and run a tap thru the holes first to clear the threads

funny how Jeep uses a mix of metric and imperial nuts and bolts plus the odd torx. the six speed transmission alone uses 4 different size bolts alone for attaching to the bell housing and cover, this includes the use of 18mm AF which is not common in open ended and ring spanner sets but co-incides exactly to the AF for 3/8" BSW spanners which I have a set of for working on old Land Rovers and the like