01 Cherokee Low n Slow
 

Hello and welcome to this XJ Journal.

I've been 4wheelin' for years. Started out with a K5 blazer that I got from my dad in my late teens. Wheeled it at a local mountain every weekend for years. About ten years later, I sold it and took a break from wheelin' while my wife was in College.
Came back with a YJ on tons after she graduated. Wheeled it for a couple of years until my son arrived, then sold it to spend time with my family.



When he turned 4, I picked up a really nice TJ on 35s long armed, locked with an Atlas 2 speed Transfer case.



Ended up selling this Jeep last year to pay off some bills.
I got the bug to be in the woods again, so I started looking. I thought I wanted an FJ80. Read up a good bit on them and went to drive one. It drove fine, but didn't really click with me, so I decided against getting one.
Got home that night and started looking again. I couldn't find a TJ in my price range that was nice, so I remember seeing this Cherokee that was pretty nice. Talked to the guy and loaded up the trailer and headed to LaGrange, GA to look at it and possibly bring it home.

It ended up being nicer than I thought it would be, so I came home with it.



The interior is almost immaculate. 66k miles on the body. Stock Engine, Auto Tranny and transfer case.

Dana44 front 5.13 gears, Yukon grizzly full locker, nitro chromo shafts, nitro Excalibur joints.Clayton truss, ballistic fab coils and lower control arm mounts, Rusty's long arm cross member with ruff stuff long arms, all dom and heim steering with psc hydro assist. Ruff stuff diff cover, warn premium hubs, bilstein shocks.

Dana60 Rear 5.13 gears and Yukon grizzly full locker, disc brakes, ox solid diff cover

There has already been some 2x6 tube cut into the body under the doors. They need to be tied into the frame stiffeners.
Front fiberglass baja fenders. Maybe they will last a while.
ARB front bumper with Warn 8k winch.

37" Pro comp MT2 tires on 17" wheels.










I did receive a spare and a warn swing out tire carrier with it, but the tire carrier is damaged, so I'll have to repair that before mounting that.

After I got it home, I looked around it looking for weak spots. I went ahead and put a water pump, belt, hoses and thermostat in it, so I wouldn't worry about any of that. Changed the oil with some synthetic and changed the filter with a wix unit.
Had to order a firestick and spring for the CB, put LED interior lights in, swapped out the Alpine unit for my Pioneer unit to play the ipod. Ordered some weather tech mats to help preserve the carpet.

It had a vibration in the rear when I got it that I knew about when I purchased it. Come to find out, the Pinion nut on the rear end was loose. I tightened it up, but I think the bearings may be shot. I'll have to drop the cover and do some inspecting. I am going to get the driveshaft checked for balance while I am at it. It looks a bit beat on.

We've got a wheelin' spot on the mountain I live on, so I took it on a shakedown run a couple of weekends ago. It did well. I need to get it on some more difficult terrain, so I can see where it needs improvement.







The Hydro assist is weird to drive with. The steering is heavy and doesn't want to center. Not sure if that is a characteristic of the assist or if that can be fixed.

Plans in no certain order.

Repair the rear end/vibration
Repair Tire swing out and install.
Atlas II transfer case - (The case in my TJ ruined me LOL)
Replace the ARB bumper with a JCR unit like @jeepology is putting on his with the BWE Comp winch mount. I freaking love that setup. The ARB hangs pretty low and it's a pretty heavy unit.
Find a solution for a parking brake setup on the Dana60.
Brace the rock sliders to the frame
Gas tank skid plate
LED Headlights of some sort.

I'm sure I will be adding to this list, but so far that's it.

Hope to add to this journal and take part in this forum.

Thanks
LOTS of armor. I want to keep this jeep as nice as I can.

my hydro assist was like that too i ended up running a smaller pulley to overdrive the pump to get it more stock like feel . nice jeep man ,welcome to the dark side

Good to know. Thanks for the information.
Guessing if you are overdriving the pump, you added a cooler?

Beautiful Jeep, it looks like it's been done right. I'm looking forward to following this one.

If you're looking for suggestions on lights, I picked up these Truck-lite knock offs on Amazon for a quarter of the price. I've been extremely pleased with them so far. They don't heat up to defrost like the others do (if that's a factor).
https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.che...798242c78a.jpg

Thanks for the props.

I had some trucklites on my TJ and never thought of them being able to melt the snow while I drove until it happened. HAHA!

Nice jeep, and nice score.

Looks great! For my 2x6s I ran 2x3 3/16" angled supports to tie them into my stiffeners.
https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.che...71d779ea69.jpg

I was thinking of something similar.
I like the tube you have on the slider as well. Anything to keep the trees and rocks further away from the body.

Thanks!

Jeep looks real good, seems like it was properly setup. Looking forward to your build

Thank you, yea I really like having the tube there for the extra protection and added foot support when getting in/out

no cooler...... yet but in the plans , i also need a external trans cooler my 34/10.50/15 bias ply swampers are giving my trans a workout

I had a bit of time last night to get under the Jeep and look at it.
Pulled the rear cover off and inspected everything. Nothing looks bad. Gear pattern looks good. Bearings rotate freely.
Oil looked great as well. VERY impressed with the OX Locker rear cover. You can see the CNC cuts on the inside of it.

Pulled the driveshaft out. I'm going to replace all the U-joints in the unit and take it to Chattanooga driveline and have them check to make sure it is balanced.
There is also a grease zerk that was torn off on some rocks at the slip joint. Going to get that replaced.



ALSO, look at this!!! I don't think this was doing anything for the flex on the hangers. The long bolt was keeping it from rolling back. It was this way on both sides.



Pretty hard to get to the bolt, so I cut it with a sawzall. If I ever have to remove the bolt, it'll clean the threads as it is removed.
You can even see where it was creating an indention in the metal.

Where would you go about finding a smaller diameter pulley? Aftermarket item?

Beautiful Jeep you scored there!

Do you have any close up pics of the rear cut fenders? It looks like it goes above the pinch seam, but it looks super clean!

I'll get some more pictures tonight for you.
Looks like they cut out all the OEM material and welded in new material.
It's not super clean when you get up on it. Like they skipped the last step of grinding and smoothing, but other than that, it looks good.

Clean XJ. Looks like you've got a solid foundation to build on

Lol, there's always something to make better.

Here are some close-ups of the cut rear quarters.








Replaced the rear most U-joint last night. It went in way too easy, but once the retainers were in, it tightened it up.
I need to purchase two more for the front joints.


Going to take the Driveshaft Friday morning to get the cap for the slip joint replaced. The grease zerk got ripped off no telling how long ago and there is no grease in it.



While I was at it, I replaced the back up bulbs with LEDs
It doesn't show it, but the driver side has the LED and the passenger side has OEM. BIG difference in light output.



And here is my layout so far in the rear.

Ammo can on driver side is filled with miscellaneous parts - U-joints, rags, and bolts. Box in the middle has jumper cables, tree saver, snatch block, belt and hoses. Ammo can on the right has my trusty 25 or 30' chain in it. All held down with the yellow strap.
The Smittybuilt CO2 tank I'll be warrantying this weekend with 4wheelparts due to a leak in the on/off valve. (5 year warranty if you were wondering)
Cooler on the driver side and water/antifreeze on the passenger.
I want to build some metal rack on the driver side to hold some stuff and maybe some tie down places for the CO2, so it doesn't have to lay down flat.

there are some junkyard gems i believe off a newer camaro with v6 but i ordered mine from PSC , you will need a belt too that is about an inch shorter

AWESOME! That will help with the only other issue I have when driving this thing.
Once I get that and the vibration under control, it'll be a lot better to drive.

Thanks a ton!

Got another driveshaft made. They started pricing replacing each end and it was going to be as much as a new driveshaft. I kept the old one to use as a spare.
My son helping to install it.


Took my dad and son to Adventure offroad park on Saturday. The jeep did alright. It has some areas that it could improve on. The tires were a big disappointment though. We have mud here. These tires won't clean out easy. I also may have been running too much air in them. I had 17psi at first, then 1/2 way through the day brought it down to 15psi when I was having trouble with a section. Not much better. I should have run it down to 12 to see if that would have helped. Thinking I may have to sell these and get something else. Maybe some super swampers?

Anyway it was a fun day. Didn't break anything. It needs some rear bump stops for sure. Full bump is rubbing the wheel wells.





This is the section I was having issues with and aired down to 15psi. There were lots of places that my TJ surprised me. So far I haven't been surprised with this one. Maybe just the tires? Not sure.



My dad loves this stuff.



There wasn't a lot of people at the park. The north section wasn't as muddy as the south section. Lots of things I didn't want to try due to being by myself.
Below are some random pictures.





Rock Bouncer territory!




This is the first rig I've ever had that was auto. Not sure I like it much. You have to get RPM up before it'll move. I'm used to letting out the clutch and letting it crawl.
Maybe a lower gear ratio Transfer case would help? I'll figure it out I'm sure.

15 PSI should have been plenty low enough. I'M betting those Procomps need wheel speed to clean out, not so good for a crawling rig. 5.13's in 4lo with the aw4, you should be able to crawl jsut fine. Might give your tranny a fluid change . The AW4's dont like Heat.

I air down to 12psi with my KM2s and have no issues.

Very nice build right from the get go. What did you give for it? So clean. Really dig the fenders too.

Also, if you want to add the JCR rear bumper I may be coerced to let it go for much cheaper than you'll find anywhere here in a couple months :D

It was suggested to try 12psi due to the stiff sidewalls of the Pro comps. I'll give that a shot before I decide to swap them out.
When we went across the field, it was 15mph before they were cleaning out.
Noted on the fluid change. Thank you! :rockon:

I'll give that a shot before swapping them out. Thanks! :walkman:

I gave around 10k for the rig. :yes:

I like the fenders as well. Someone mentioned that they may not last long when I start wheelin it hard. :cry:

Oh man. I've already have a long list of things to save money for. LOL


Thanks for all the comments and suggestions.

I took it out last night to make sure the new driveshaft took care of the bad vibrations. It sure got rid of most of the vibrations. The rest is tire related I think.

I noticed an antifreeze smell when I got back and started looking around and saw some on the radiator. For a while I was thinking I was going to have to buy another one, but started looking more into it and found the hose that goes to the overflow tank had a very small hole in it. I'll be picking one up today on the way home to replace it.

Well the decision for purchasing new tires was kind of a no-brainer.
Pit bull is having another 55% off sale until today, so last night, I ordered a set of 37" Rockers

Now to see when they will ship.

Also, I think I am going to order another set of bearings for the rear end. I still have some vibration from the rear.
Pretty sure the pinion bearings are toast. We'll see I guess.

My kid has PitBull rockers and loves them so much he's trying to talk me into them. You'll have to Trail test them and tell me what you think of them.

I will.
Although if you are going to get some, NOW is the time. 55% off.... can hardly beat that. Sale ends tonight!

I've heard shipping may not be too quick on them. I'll wait to list my Pro Comps to sell until these ship.

Also went ahead and ordered the gear set up kit.

That a very good decision.

What all comes in a gear set up kit?

Here's what I bought.
Everything but the gears basically.

That seems like a pretty good price to me. But then again I bought all my parts individually for my Chrysler 8.25

55% off ??
Reg price is a hell of a markup!

Yeah I was going to pick some up during this sale too, but they raised their prices a fair amount it seems

Saw that too. Standard retail trick, you think you're getting a great deal when in reality you're paying almost just as much as full price with a standard discount.

Yeah there is a big thread on pirate4x4 on them raising the prices before announcing that sale, but it ended up being about 10% off and free shipping, so I went for it.

I've still been chasing a vibration. I pulled the diff cover back off and checked the gear wear pattern. It looked weird, so I put some photos up on pirate and they thought the gears were toast, but also someone suggested it was the pinion angle that was causing the vibration.
Going to order some gears for it and do it all at one time.
I ordered some 2.5 degree wedges to get the pinion angle right and see if that fixes the vibration.

Also ordered a fuel tank skid plate.

No mention if my tires have shipped yet. the wait continues.

Damn thats along wait for shipping. I am not built with the patience for that.
Sweet rig though.

I've still been chasing the vibration. Not 100% sure it is the rear end, so I don't want to go pulling it apart and spending $250 on another gear set. It kind of feels like it could be in the transfer case too.
I've put pinion shims to fix the pinion angle and balanced the rear tires. No fix with either of those.
I'm really trying everything I can think of before having to go to gears. I really hate setting up gears. LOL

I got a gas tank skid plate for my birthday though.


Iron Rock Offroad.
Fit well, looks good.



Took a drive yesterday morning to feel out the vibration and see if I could pin point it with different scenarios. No luck.
Had to go offroad a little bit while I was out.