Fresh

Hey guys, welcome to my build thread. It's gonna be a slow one, so bare with me!

Here is a little but of my vehicle history:
My first car was a 1974 VW Bus. Loved that thing...my friends convinced me to go trail riding with them one day, heres a funny video from it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=http:...?v=POMiQP-q68A
And here's a beauty shot:


Next car was a 1967 vw bus..I wanted an older one with the V in the front. But the car was too old for me and had too many problems, sold pretty shortly. This is the only pic I have of it, from a ski trip to VT:


Then I got a 1989 Jeep Grand Wagoneer. 3" RC lift on 31" goodyear wranglers. I love this thing, its currently for sale:


Now the newest: the 99 Cherokee sport:


the day I got it. Got it for $4200, no rust, 130,000 on the ODO

My plans are to sorta build it more as an overlander vehicle. I'm not going to be doing any extreme offroading, but I want it to be sufficient on the trails. It will be more used for things like camping trips, long trips, and snowboard trips. Here is a list of my plans:

roofrack
rear tire holder
2" OME rear leafs (old ones are FLAT)
w/ zone nitro shocks all around
& 2" RC coils
(I decided to stick with 2" for now but not do shackles and spacers because of the rear leafs, but I wanna have the option of adding them in the future if I want - 3" would be my max anyway)
Some 31" a/t tires
LED lights on the inside
skid plates
storage compartments
sound system

Fresh

The car is in amazing shape, and running like a top. 19 MPG might not be great, but the Wagoneer got 8mpg so I feel like I'm driving a prius!

First thing I did was clean, wax, and amor-all the trim:


Decided I didn't like the trim and took it off using goo-gone and a hair dryer:


And then I seafoamed it...wasn't as much of a smokeshow as I was hoping for but I enjoyed it haha. Also didn't notice too much improvement in ride or start up but the idle seems smoother.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=http:...?v=FT3tgE4qqd8

I bought primer and spray paints...doing the wheels and fenders later this week

Fresh

Drove the jeep up to school where it got to meet the wagoneer, it looks like such a baby next to it lol


Had overheating issues on the trip, changed the thermo in the back of the autozone somewhere in NY...didnt help. I had to end up getting it towed to a local garage, because home and school were both too far. I hate having it out of my control, but I had to. They replaced the waterpump and put a new radiator in, problem solved. But then a few weeks later...same problems. I realized they never replaced the radiator cap, so I got a new one and its all good now!

Summer starts in 3 weeks and I got a payed internship so Ill finally have some $$ and can get started. I would really like to save up for another one that I can play with because this one is in great shape, and it would be nice to have 2 so I can work on one and drive the other but that probably wont happen...so I decided to do a mild build for now.

Gonna teach myself to weld too : )

Fresh

Painted the rims black...it was a crappy job but I just needed it to hold me off until I get some new rims this summer.



You can see all the oil leak spots LOL...but they actually aren't from the XJ, blame the wagoneer. The engine was muddy when I got it, I started to clean it today...


The part on the top midddle of the engine block (dont know the name of it) seems to have come off a 97

Yesterday we were going from CT back to school and we put the GPS on "avoid highways", and we decided to explore a bit. Me and my girlfriend found this cool spot at the end a road. It was completely sunny and blue skies out...but soooo foggy by the water