Project Heart Transplant

Stratton, from RME (our local club) contacted me one day about a project that he was building for his wife. He told me that he had found a great deal on a YJ and wanted a mild build up on it. The original motor was toast and he saw that I was selling mine. After working out the details, Project Heart Transplant was under way. Follow along as we take this stock Jeep and give it a little Chevy love.

This is how it showed up at my house. Stratton had already done some body work and had it painted. The plan was to pull the motor and transmission out of my Jeep and install it in Stratton's. This would be a pretty straight forward swap, but a few changes were made to make it much better then it ever was in my Jeep.

Yeah, so this is how my Jeep is looking these days (minus an engine now, but stay tuned for the big plans to be unveiled soon). It had been sitting on the side of my house, so we rolled it in and parked it next to the YJ. It was nice to have both Jeeps next to each other while working on them.

After we got the Jeeps set up in the garage, it was time to figure out how the wiring would play out. The goal was to tie the Chevy ECU wiring into the Jeep harness in such a way that everything worked as it should, and it had to look like it came that way. A lot of the relays and such were going to be located in different spots in the YJ versus how I had them in the CJ, so I pretty much started from scratch with the harness.

Now that I had the wiring figured out it was time to pull the old engine. I was pretty impressed with my new to me engine hoist. It pulled all three pieces out at one time very well. Once I got to this point, it was clear that something needed to be done with the firewall. Stratton agreed. The plan was to take the Jeep back to the painter after I made a few changes to the firewall.

Next was to clean up the frame rails by plasma cutting the old motor mounts off. I then fabbed up some simple motor mounts that would hold the engine in place.

With the YJ ready to go, it was time to pull the motor out of the CJ. The engine would end up looking much the same as this, but much cleaner. The intake will be located in the engine bay instead of going through the firewall.

I dropped the engine in to test the placement of the motor mounts. Everything looked good so I pulled it out and started burning the mounts in place. There's a few poser weld shots for you.

Wiring it up was the last thing on the list of major items. The first photo shows a hole I cut in the firewall for the harness to run through. The original harness hole was filled in. The ECU was mounted in the location of the stock ECU. The mounting bracket only needed minor modification to hold the new ECU. In the CJ, the relay group was located inside the tub on the firewall. This would not be possible to do with the heater box still in the YJ. I opted to locate it on the passenger inner fender under the battery out of harms way. This required the most modification to the harness, adding just over a foot in length to each wire. The tape is used to mark the ends of each wire with the added length going in between the tape. Each splice got soldered and shrink wrapped to ensure quality connections with no voltage drops. Once I was happy with the harness, it was pulled out to be tapped up and loomed. While I was doing that, Stratton picked up the Jeep and painted the firewall. It was a lot of extra work, but was worth it. It looks so much nicer painted. When it came back the harness was bolted in place and the motor placed for the final time. At this point it was just a matter plumbing the fuel lines and pump, power steering lines and cooling. It was now ready to run.

Well, here is the finished product. Stratton has a few things left to do to it, but the engine is in and running. This was a fun project and even better because it was not my first time doing it. I am pleased that it turned out way better then when I did the install on my own Jeep. With any luck it will give Strattons wife a fun Jeep to drive around town in for a long time. I have a nice video of it running, but it wont load up on here. I'll play with it and see if I can get it to work later on.                                                                                           

THE WHITE YJ ROLL CAGE

Jason brought in this YJ for a roll cage. He's already got a great start on a nice family crawler. I was able to make it a bit safer for the family to ride in. Follow along as we build a cage for the White YJ.

This is what it looked like when it came in to the shop. Jason had already removed the stock cage, making my work that much easier.


No cage inside, but the top still on. Jason wanted the new cage to fit tight to the top.

After cutting and just before drilling the bolt holes. These are the new feel that will support the cage. The larger one was used to cover a large rust hole just behind the driver seat. The B pillar came to rest on this foot. The cage was tied to the frame so the body did not need to be strengthened at this spot.

With the new feet bolted in place, it was time to start bending tube. Jason wanted the look of the old Poison Spyder cages. I think they are a nice cage that do well to protect front and back seat passengers.

Tube fits tight against soft top rails and cannot be seen from the out side of the Jeep with the top up.

Spreader bars and A pillar bars in place. A pillar bars were placed so the e-brake could still be pressed, and released, yet still allowing easier entry into the rig.

The dash bar was made out of 1.5 inch tube. Jason is a shorter guy, so using the smaller tube here did not go above the windshield frame. So there would be no loss of visibility for him.

The pile of tube is starting to look like something now. With the front of the cage outlined, it was time to turn to the rear of the cage.

Here is the rear hoop just after bending. This was the hardest tube to fit and the part of this cage that I was least happy about. The bends were perfect, but making the notches were not as much fun. In the end it turned out good and I'm happy with the results.

So here is the rear of the cage all tacked in place now. Now I just needed to tie up a few loose ends up front and weld it all together.

The cage pulled out of the Jeep and welded together. A little clean up work was needed and then it was time for paint.

One last shot of the tacked cage before being pulled for final weld.

Here is the cage just before paint. The tape marks are where the harness tie-ins would go. They had not come in yet and I was itching to paint this bad boy. They were welded on afterwards and repainted.

Here the cage is all primed and ready for the flat black paint requested by Jason. I like to put the primer on very heavy as that really helps to hold the paint on and protect if from chips.

I forgot to take my camera in the last day of this project. So you don't get to see the finished product. While the paint was drying, I was working on the frame tie-ins. They were a direct style of tie-in, with no bushings. This is the strongest way to do it, at the cost of a bit of a rougher ride. As this will be an off road only toy, it was the only way to do it.