1stJEEPXJ

Well my first time taking the XJ off road. I've gotta say, I was impressed for how well it did with stock lift/axles/tires. Only times that I got stuck were do to with being high centered and not having large enough tires to get out of certain ruts. Some of our offroad group went to a park in France called "Bining". It is owned by a German lady who was nothing but hospitable. Our team presidents wife is German so she translated everything for us. After wheeling for about 3 hrs the owner cooked us schnitzel, German fries and a whole bunch of other things. Needless to say I was full and had to hold off on going back out until my stomach digested some. As far as prep before I took it off road, I deflated my tires a bit to give me a little more traction and disconnected my sway bar. With further a do I'll post what pics I took. Other team members took more for me which I'll post once I recieve them.















Here are some locals that were wheeling at the park as well. That Nissan petrol was turbo diesel and it was a beast




As far as damage I haven't found any as off yet. I do have some vibrations coming from the the engine though. I feel that I may have broken a mount and did some damage to the cross memeber. As soon as I get all the mud cleaned off from underneath I'll have to get under it and inspect it.

In other news, I have everything on the way in the mail to install a CB. I'm going to need it because come May 14 and 15 we are going to another park called Böser Wolf which literally translates to Bad Wolf. The park is huge and if I get stuck I'm going to want to contact someone from my group to give me a hand. We will be camping out over the weekend there and having a blast. Following in June I'll be headed stateside to visit family and will buy my lift there and bring it back with me to Germany.

WyoCherokee

Nice!

1stJEEPXJ

So I was able to finally spray the jeep down and get most of the dirt that I could off from underneath with a pressure washer. I've gotta say, there was quite a bit of mud packed in between my transfercase, crossmember and transfercase skid plate. On top of that the crossmember took a little beating from this trip. Pictures still do not do justice.













I still have to put it all back together and see if I can't diagnose these vibrations. If they havent gone away after cleaning all the mud/dirt off from underneath I'm going to replace the engine/transmission mounts.

On more of a positive note I did get everything needed for my CB in the mail today!!

1stJEEPXJ

So I was in the process of installing my CB. As I was running the coaxial cable along the inside of the floor trim on the driver side I decided to keep it off and remove the carpet since its been something I've been meaning to get around to doing. I'm glad I went ahead with doing this. Now take into consideration I was already planning on pulling the carpet anyways and there is still mud on the carpet from last weekends off road trip along with who knows what from the previous owner.









There is a little surface rust that's not too deep yet in both front foot wells. After seeing how easy it is for water to accumulate and cause deterioration I've decided to do away completely with carpet and bed line the passenger compartment.

Now I could use some help from you guys. The lower shift boot/dust cover is torn. I'll post a picture below to explain better. I've tried to look up a replacement for it but I can't find the correct piece. Anyone have this problem or know where to find it?

1stJEEPXJ

No one? I keep finding the older circular inner boot on the older XJs but can't find this longer oval one.

Scott'sXJ

Here you go.


http://www.4wheelparts.com/Drivetrai...=JEP52060069AC

1stJEEPXJ

So this whole past week has been nothing but prep, prep, and more prep.





This also came in today. Still have to do some prep on the passenger side and transmission tunnel hump. Then I can start laying this stuff down....excited!!!!



Also after I pulled the lower shifter boot, I found the transmission dust boot was torn. So I ordered what was needed plus more to fix all the above problems.







Part 5 is the lower shifter boot I ordered from moparpartsoverstock.com

1stJEEPXJ

Felt like Christmas today when I checked my APO box. All the replacement parts came in for thr shifter, both from quadratec and moparpartsoverstock! The jeep will definitely be ready for the offroad adventure this weekend.



Also finished with Hurculining the interior. Came out awesome!

1stJEEPXJ

As soon as I got home I couldn't wait to get the jeep back together. There goes that kid at Christmas mentality again. Replaced everything with the shifter





Not sure if I mentioned, but when I removed the crossmember to remove all the dried mud, I had a bolt break on me. After some beer, a lot of patience and my so called helper. I finally fixed it. Also decided to replace the mount under there with a stock for now since it was already taken apart.







Also noticed I never posted a picture of the CB installed. Nothing fancy but you get the point.

blueridgeman

Looking Good Curtis! cool looking bud in the back seat too. I just bought a 99XJ myself, same color - chili pepper red - my build is just beginning. Thanks for the ongoing updates and of course thanks for your service.

1stJEEPXJ

Thanks! Yup! That's my girl, she follows me everywhere. Wife is a bit jealous as we got a dog "for her" back in 2012 but she took after me and has been my shadow since!!

Haha awesome, the color has grown on me. I wasnt sure about it at first. Looking forward to some updates on yours. We all have to start somewhere.

1stJEEPXJ

I've been wanting to do a complete fluid change before the offroad trip this weekend. After some digging around I found out that I have a rear limited slip (Trac-Loc).





So now I'll need to get the friction modifier additive

1stJEEPXJ

Alright another small update before a big weekend!

Replaced front and rear differential fluid and added friction modifier to the rear. Front looked like it's been replaced not too long ago, the rear on the other hand looked like it's never been replaced. Also did an oil change, only had 500 miles left until the next oil change and the event this weekend is almost 200 miles one way so I figured I'd go ahead and change it.

Front


Rear




Also, decided to paint the front and rear differential covers for the hell of it, I had a can of red spray paint laying around so I figured why not. Also did the trim mod on the front bumper and raised the euro tag up some since it would drag when I'd go nose first down a hill.

cbs_24

Cool find on the diff

bobpat

nice looking xj, and thank you for serving .Pretty cool find in a foreign country.