adkcherokee

well i have been lurking around here for a while now and i finaly found a the cherokee i wanted. I have some experiance in jeeps I had a tj that i built a few years ago.

so a couple of weeks ago i got a call from a friend who was at a junk yard looking for some vw parts. He told me he had thought he saw a red xj in the yard burried in the snow. I have been looking for a red 96 5spd with a 4.0 for a while. and when i got there i was pleased to find out it was exsactly what i had been looking for. its got the 8.25 rear axle and some
(ok alot) of rust in the trunk area and a little in the floor under the front seats. I could not find any one thre but the key was in it and after some digging i was able to get in. To my suprise it fired up easily and ran nice.

someone had painted the wheels black and smashed the front in pretty bad. (head light surrounds, bumper,fenders, unibody) all pretty banged up.
I went back a couple days later and talked the guy into giving it to me for 600 bucks. I slapped a dealer plate on it and drove it home. drove nice but some death wobble and some drive line vibes were noticed. also cel. was on.

first thing i did was replace the engine coolent temp sensor and reset the engine light. I also replaced the oil sending unit as the gauge was not moving.

next it went on the lift and under the knife. first i took off the grill and baged up bumper. then pushed the fenders back in place and bent the frame rail on the drivers side back in shape. took a couple measurements and started in on the bumper. The bumper is made of 3x5 1/4" wall square tubing. i cut and capped off the ends to the shape i liked and sanded it down. about 2 hrs in the bumper with out brackets. i made the brackets out of 1/4 inch plate. and the shackle mounts out of half inch.

once the bumper was on i cut the front fenders off even with the top of the bumper (like the newer xj) also will be doing this in the back.

the drive line vibe was from a blown u joint in the pass. side front axle. so i removed that and while i was doing that i removed both diff covers and drained the fluid. I am planning on getting a set of 3.55 from a friend. Freebies are the best. The threads on the front stub shaft are shot so i will be getting another one before i put that back together.

I sand blasted and painted the diff covers and cleaned all the old rvt sealent off.

next i removed the door latch from the pass frt. because it would not close. also toor the carpet up in the trunk and uncovered some pretty nasty holes.

stay tuned theres still lots more work ahead and i will try to get some more pics posted but for some reason its only letting me put one.

adkcherokee

think i got it now

adkcherokee

some more pics of the bumper and rust in the trunk

quadracer0387

nice, looks like you will be spending some time with her... good luck with the build

Mattpar

why not "Cut and fold" the rear qtrs and then you can weld a some sheet metal along the bottom of the qtrs and where the rust hole is,...? just an idea

adkcherokee

yeah i am actually working on that today i will post the pics tonight i have the quarters cut and metal welded in now and after lunch i will be cutting and folding.

the plan is to run 33 with 3-4 inches of lift what ever lift i get a good deal basicaly maby a rc 4.5"

well back to work

adkcherokee

today i cut and folded the back fenders and also cut the bottom of the quarters off. I welded in some metal where i cut the qtrs. and then used auto body seam sealer over the seams.

i used an air die grinder with a 3" cut off wheel and a regular 4" electric grinder to do the cutting. I found that a large ball pin hammer worked good on folding over the fenders where they curve around

i started to moc up the rear bumper but lost motivation. o well.

also took care of the stearing stabilizer with a new rc one from ebay $38
shipped. Advanced auto wanted 70 for some off name brand one so i thought 38 was pretty good.

got some better pics today of the front bumper i made after i primed and painted it.

back bumper will be similar but maybe with a tire mount. not sure yet.

adkcherokee

fender trimming

adkcherokee

the rest of todays work

sorry about the 5 pics at a time but i am having trouble puting the in my posts

offroadnut36

That thing is comin along nicely man! Its sweet!

94xjstud

Looks really good and perform great, but is there a possiblity that the bumper will get caught on a rock. Actually is that a common downside to doing this?

adkcherokee

maybe 94 but if i came down on a rock and hit the qtr pannel it would cave in and get cought up any way. so i am hoping by cutting out the 8 inches of extra qtr. and attaching a qtr gaurd to my bumper it will help save body damage and and help out the departure angle. plus i just like the way it looks

thanks for the kind words guys

a1racer

nice start

nick_n_ii

That thing really looks like it's taking shape...

grn99

Good job on the rear quarters and fender trim. Looks to be a build to follow.