About two weeks ago I was finally able to get my XJ. I had been wanting a Jeep again ever since I sold my TJ that I had in high school. This is what it used to be and I hope to get the XJ up to par with where it was able to go.

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I bought a '96 Country Edition. Has high miles, but the price was right and has a lot of goodies that I wanted. It has a 6.5in lift (at least that what the ad claims, I think it may be less), Hanson bumpers, Bushwacker fender flares, newer transfer case with SYE kit, flowmaster exhaust, HD steering set up, and an all aluminum radioator. The only problem was that the rear axle had a lock right locker that was messed up and wasn't drivable and it was about 3 hours away. When we picked it up we had the car dolly and towed it home.

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On the way home I was able to pick up a Chrysler 8.25 rear axle with 3.07 gears for super cheap. My plan was to take the spider gears out of that one and put them in the current axle and have some extra axle shafts. When I got it to the shop my plans fell apart. After tearing apart the axle in the XJ we found that the axle tube was bent. We couldn't put the axle with the 3.07 gears in because the XJ has 3.55. And so the junkyard search began for a another axle (I didn't want to deal with swapping out the gears and setting those up). Luckily I was able to find another 8.25 out of a '01 XJ for a decent price. We were able to swap that axles and it was good to go.



That night I took it out for a test run and it did great!

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The paint had a lot of pin striping, so I took out the rubbing compound and wax and polished her up. Made a huge difference.

After on the left.............................................. ..................................... Before on the right
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The next weekend we took her out for the maiden voyage. Went out to Five Mile Pass and ran Rattle Snake. I was planning on doing this in the near future, but I learned that I need some bigger tires and a locker because I had some difficulty getting over some of the obstacles. I also managed to sheer off one of the bolts for a rear shock. But overall she did great!









I was able to pick these rims and tires last night. Five of them for $100. The tires are pretty bad, but I just wanted the rims and they are in good shape. Can't wait to get the 33x12.50 MTRs that I am planning on getting.

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Here are the future mods I plan on doing in the near future-
33" tires
Rear locker
Rock Sliders
New Speakers
Homemade roof rack and tire carrier

Eventually I want to-
6in long arm kit
front selectable locker
rear bumper tire carrier
4.88 gears
35" tires
and the list goes on and on

 

id say he lied to you, definetly about 4 inches, i had originally 6.5in of lift with bushwackers and it fit 35s with no problem. It looks like a good platform to build off of though

 

Here is an update of what I've been doing for the past few weeks.

I was able to put the new 15x8 wheels on and use the 31x10.50s for a little while. The backspacing makes a huge difference compared to the stock wheels. I can turn full lock and the tires don't rub on the control arms anymore.



A few weeks later I was able to get new tires. It was a hard choice to make. I was torn between the Goodyear MT/Rs and the Duratracs. After much deliberation I came to the decision to get the Duratracs. I haven't been able to test them out yet, but the on road characteristics are great. You can actually have a conversation while driving down the highway. I got 33x12.50 and they fit perfectly.





The latest edition to the XJ is a spartan locker for the rear end that I installed today. The installation was super easy. Comparing it to the power-trax no slip that I had in my Wrangler the spartan is a lot louder. But the handling is exactly the same on the road. For the money I saved going with the spartan vs the non slip, i think the little extra noise is worth it.



I wanted to test the locker out and see how well the tires cleared the fenders when it was fully flexed so I took it to the local RTI ramp in the rite-aid parking lot. The locker worked great and the tires cleared, which means I don't need to mess with the bump stops.



There have been a few other little things I've been doing as well. The check engine light came on, so I pulled the code. I don't remember which code it was exactly, but it said it was running to lean. I checked for vacuum leaks and cleaned out the throttle body and the sensor, reset the check engine light, and it hasn't come back on yet.

Another little problem it has is when you would take it wheeling, after about and hour it would the engine would start sputtering and eventually die. We figured out it wasn't getting fuel by spraying some starting fluid into the throttle body and it would run for a little bit. If we waited for 10mins the engine would start right up and run great for about another hour. My thoughts are that the fuel filter had a lot of nasty stuff in it and with all the bouncing around while wheeling it would eventually block the fuel lines. I replaced the fuel filter and put some sea foam in the tank. For right now everything seems good, but I haven't had a chance to test it out yet. If you guys have any other ideas on what would be causing that, your input would be appreciated.

Hopefully I will get to test everything out this Saturday. If anyone in the Salt Lake area wants to go to Mini Moab or Five Mile pass, you are more than welcome to join us.

 

Nice place to start. And what happened to the tj?

 

Thanks. I sold the TJ after I graduated from high school. It has been a decision that I have regretted ever since. Once a Jeeper always a Jeeper. So having the XJ has been great so far.

 

I was able to go and test the locker out last weekend. It makes such a big difference. Unfortunately I still hadn't pin pointed the problem of it sputtering and dying when off roading. Here are a couple pics of the trip-





I replaced the fuel pump and that seems to have fixed the sputtering problem. It actually wants to rev up when you step on the gas now.

On the last trip I discovered that everything in the back was flying around and it was driving me crazy. I have a sub, tools, and some spare parts back there.I wanted a way to organize everything while increasing the space back there to fit a cooler and water container. After looking at other people's set ups. This is what I came up with.



All of my tools and extra fluids fit in the right side cubby.



The amp for the sub is hidden away finally.



The spare axle shafts and drive shaft are stored in the back in little notches. It worked out really well since the seat hold them all in.



Up top I wanted to fit a water container and a cooler. I have D-rings mounted in the right spots to hold everything down on the trails.



Overall I think it turned out really well. It fits everything I need, plus extra room for camping gear. The cost was only about $50, which was great. What do you guys think?

 

Looks great!

 

Looks very nice. How many miles does she have on her? I have a 94 country with 170529.

 

She has almost 190,000 miles. After going through and fixing all the little quirks (fuel pump, radiator hose leaking, leaking power steering pressure line, and a few other little things) it runs great and doesn't leak anything on the ground anymore (for now haha).

 

I was fianlly able to get some lights put on. And by some I mean 6! I had an old set of 9" lights from my old Jeep. They were rusting so I took them apart and sanded and painted them silver to match the other silver trim.



I installed these ones on the bumper. They aren't in the ideal spot, but it will work for now. In the future I'm going to get make a pre-runner bar and get a winch so it looks like one from JCR.



For the light bar I got 4 of the $9.99 Harbor Freight 6" Chrome off-road lights. If anyone is wondering if they are any good, they are! I'm used to having HID off-road lights from a different vehicle I used to drive and those are amazing. But I didn't have the cash to spend on 4 of those. The one thing that I found with the light from the HID is that it is to white in some situations. In Moab the light reflected off of the slick rock and it made it hard to see. The Harbor Freight lights don't do that. They don't go the farthest, but the have a very good spread. They are definately worth the $9.99 each and I'd recomend them to anyone looking for a cheap light solution.

I mounted them to the stock roof rail. I just drilled four holes and it mounted pretty well (at least I thought)





After I got them wired in and adjusted it was amazing to see how much extra light they give. But the roof rail was not the steardiest place. On a test run the lights were woblling all over the place, which means I'll have to come up with a better solution.

 

Yesterday I built a roof rack. I made it as big as I could and I think it turned out really good. Here are the pics-







There are more details of it in the Fab section- https://www.cherokeeforum.com/f58/ho...-4-5-a-139790/