claneader

Hello all! My name is chase and I own a 97 Jeep Cherokee. I'm 19 and currently attend college. I'm fairly new with this forum, but very new with posting, but i thought it was be pretty to get feed back on my build, and pointers too.

OK! so lets get started.
The previous owner to my jeep was a close family member. He stopped driving it a few years before i got my license. So, when I got my license, he very kindly handed it down to me. His father owned it before him, and they both kept it in excellent condition. So my buddy and I headed over to his house, got it running.(started right up after 4-5 years of sitting.)
This is how it looked when i went to pick it up, completely stock.



After we brought it to my buddys shop





Then the finished, drive able jeep (for now)



The first year or so of owning it, cheech didn't get too much work done to her.
I threw some 12" subs in the back



Im a huge fan of bass, and i quickly blew out both of the subs and the amp. So i installed a new box, two new 10" subs, and a brand new amp.



Before i really started doing hard work to the jeep, i hit a deer in December of 2012. really smashed up the front end.


















500 some odd dollars later, and everything i needed was ordered, and fixed.

unidentifiedbomb

Those deer pop out of nowhere in NJ, might as well buy a heavy duty bumper now haha. Any idea what you want to do to it as far as modifications?

claneader

Yes I have a lot more I'm going add, but I had to cut it short to go to class, should have more up at end of day

claneader

One last appreciation of the stock jeep.



So after getting cheech back up and running, i finally invested into a lift. Bought a 4.5" rough country lift, 15x10 black rock rims with a -39 offset, and 33x12.50 mickey Thompsons















Shortly after i installed the lift, both my front fender came off, so i decided to spruce it up. added some new headlights, roof rack, and a ton of other little additions



















Then i finally really took her off

claneader

so finally i made moves on getting a nice bumper.










Then decided to take off the rear fender flares too









So this is about what i have done so far, i plan on doing a lot more also.

claneader

When i lifted the jeep at first, i moved the track bar bolt hole on the axle side over about an inch. But lately while i was driving i was getting an annoying vibration. I got under the jeep, and found out the axle side bolt was loose, i didnt think much of it, so i aped the bolts tight and called it a day. But so long after a few days of driving, the bolt came loose again, so instead of buying a whole new track bar, i thought i try and replace the bushing and see if that will help. It didnt, and i was forced to get a new track bar. The new hole i drilled actually wallowed itself out from all the movement. i did a TON of research before i went and purchased the IRO double shear track bar and bracket. Because i live in NJ and theres a crazy amount of salt every year, i went ahead and started to spray down all the bolts about 3 times a day. finally the bar came in, i adjusted the bar to the proper measurements given by IRO, which the directions given arent too great, you kinda have to take some guesses here and there, but other than that, the whole installation was pretty straight forward. I can really notice the difference in the was the jeep handles, its amazing.




still need to center the axle a tad better





what a poopy dana 30





a nice little view of the interior

claneader

I was coming home from my 15th day of work in a row, and i got off early for the day, and was super happy to be coming home. Nope. Jeep wasnt happy that day. In the middle of the expressway, in philly, my driveshaft felt the need to fall out. which was awesome. NOT!




forced to get a lift home

I was about to order a DS and SYE from Rough County, but lately ive been avoiding them, and if i could, i would restart the lift, making sure to avoid Rough country. I havent had too many problems so far with them, but i have a strange feeling they will let me down. Instead i bought a new HD SYE, a new HD CV driveshaft, and a new yoke for the rear, all from Tom Wood's, Which i have to say, awesome service from them, i called to order and everything was ready to be shipped that day, they have an awesome staff and i would point anyone in their direction looking for parts. Awesome place. i bought u bolts for the rear instead of the crappy clips(the clips are what cause my driveshaft to fall out to begin with). Boy was i happy when i saw the parts. everything went in very well also, not too much trouble. The parts are all so shiny and nice looking for now..




Old splines and housing look crappy compared to the new ones





rear side of new DS and new yoke for the rear





SYE and front view of the new DS





Got this while on vacation, perfect buy

93_xjcherokee

Can someone please ban him for the nudity pic above? Just kidding. Nice looking jeep man. I have that same stereo

claneader

haha! its awesome, controls my subs perfect, nice lil cockpit

93_xjcherokee

You could have limped it home in front wheel drive instead of paying a tow truck if it wasn't too far

claneader

i thought about it, but there was a TON of highway driving left, plus going over a few bridges. I also have free unlimited towing, so i wasnt too mad about it. plus i drove with the tow truck, and he had the AC blasting the whole time, not mad since i have no AC. i was in Philly and had to get it home to Jersey. 45 minute ride where i was at.

93_xjcherokee

The ac in my 92 blows ice cold but even in our 110 degree heat, I Dont use it unless my kids are with me

claneader

I hit a deer a few winters ago, and I never replaced the condensor

claneader

So today I slaved in this nasty new jersey weather over cheech. I've been wanted to finish my interior that I've been changing from the ugly gray color to all black, I decided today would be a good day to do the center consol. Took both front seats out, managed to successfully get everything out on the drivers side. But the rust found its way over to the passenger side, I broke both bolts in the front brackets, and also the bolt I'm the back closest to the door.
I cleaned up the rusty seat brackets, brushed and sanded them down as much as I could, and gave them a nice new paint job. While I had the center console out and apart, I also fixed the wobble I have in it, discovered the plastic bracket that holds it down broke into about 7 different pieces, a little hot glue and jb plastic weld got it nice and strong again. No more wobble! The black came out really nice and every time I drove today after finishing, I found myself just looking at it in amazement. Once I finish a few more pillars I can worry about changing the carpet and seats to black





Cleaned the carpet a little also, i would like to take out the carpet soon and power wash it down

claneader

So for today's project, I wanted to clean the header panel up with a new spray. The paint was starting to chip and it was looking ugly. Taking the panel itself off was a breeze, but when I installed my headlights I got, I did a little but of splicing, so in order to get everything out, I had to unsplice, and resplice everything after. Found a few minor setbacks, but nothing too important( missing/loose bolts)