TwistedWrench

Hey thanks brother, happy to inspire, lol.

As for the front clip, matching the headlight bezels beige looks kinda weird. The OE full blackout looks good of course, but i dig this.

Looks good, and its something different.

Starting with black, your anti doorjamb laziness is doable, lol. Especially the engine bay. Tricky part is picking your stop-line so that it looks right, isnt visually jarring.

Id paint the entire fender into the engine bay. Remove the cowl to hood seal, paint to there, use the seal to cover the line. Paint the rockers up into the jambs, stopping where the metal folds up. Here.

jessenator

thanks for the input.

Should I leave the B-pillar gaps black? I'm thinkin' yes.

I wonder what I should call this build now hahaha
Brown Bertram
Bruno Bertram
B&B Bertram (black&beige)?
BBWJ :P :P
My wife does fantastic hand lettering, so I was thinking of "CAMEL" or "The Camel" or something in the style of the "Classic" or "Sport" type:

Just in black, taking up about the same space. I kinda also like it just being "Cherokee" on the door panel, no trim or name.

jessenator

9 months later...eugh, I'm lazy.

But now I've got everything to do the rear end:

• Rancho HD leaf springs & bushing kit
• Rear disc crap
• Rear disc e-brake cables

And I've also got to repair the e-brake handle. Button popped off a few months back so it doesn't lock anymore. And Finally I'll have the skid plates all on.

jessenator

Well I didn't get everything on the list done. I must be rusty, because I didn't think it would take almost 8 hours to change the springs.

The brakes will wait for another weekend.


I like how it sits now. I got some Rancho RS44148 springs. The OME kit was a bit much and I'm still not out of the water yet, so I kept it as inexpensive as I could, without resorting to Crowns... I wanted to keep the quasi UpCountry / purchased height I had, just without the blocks. If I have time I might swap out the coils with some Moog CC782s, but only time will tell.

I debated taking off the swaybar, but didn't have enough time (or energy) for it today.




The Bilsteins that were on it still seemed to be in good shape, so I left them on.

The rear eyelet bolts seemed to have been installed backwards (at least I'd call it backwards). Most likely they were put in before the skit plate and tow bar were added, otherwise, why have the head of the bolt facing inboard where it can't be removed without also removing the skid, tow, and tailpipe hanger??

Thankfully I had spares from the White Knight parts XJ, because I was not about to add more time tackling 8 more incredibly rusty bolts that may not have even come off. Angle grinder worked on the driver side, had to hacksaw w/ boltcutter the passenger side, because of the exhaust hanger (I already knew that one wouldn't come out...)

Aside from the orientation (they broke easily and came out fine) the eyelet bolts were the least of my worries. The u-bolts were a cornucopia of "I had to do that trick" to get them loose. Eventually I got fed up and ground off two of them.

I also learned to match up that alignment stub on the bottom of the leaves before putting the bushings in. The Ranchos aren't made like OE and the eyelets are the same size, relying on you to put the correct thickness bushings and correct length tubes in. I'm pleased all around, but man I'm beat. Desk jobs are not good conditioning for manual labor.