DRUNKEN DIXIE

Lookin good, I wish my son be old enough to start working with me. He still gets underneath the rig at two years.

king83

that looks like steel ARB front bumper, with a winch isn't the car too heavy? i put the tank for the spare aircompressor there instead and a bus horn

FIREMANRAY

The lift is advertised as 4.5", after the winch and bumper it measures 4" over stock. It handles good so I think it will be ok. When I get my rear bumper built it should offset the weight on the front. I plan to make the main body of the rear bumper serve as an air tank so I'll have that covered as well.

COSXJFAN

HERRO???

nick_n_ii

You have a ARB bumper, Why is the winch not being installed in it?

FIREMANRAY

It's an older model 10,000# Warn. It would not bolt inside the bumper without major mods. The winch was 1 1/2" to tall to fit. At first look it seemed like it was a glove fit but it turned out to be a square peg in a round hole.

king83

if i put the winch in the front then it will get too heavy and i will get stuck in the sahara, my Xj is already heavy enough with a 200 ltr extra gas tank in the back and 100 ltr water tank on the roof rack, so thats about 300 ltrs of extra weight,
plus i'm not building my xj as a recovery vehicle

FIREMANRAY

Yesterday I put the new wheels on. We tried to stuff 33's in the stock fenders, no go! I just left the 32 AT's on it. The offset on the new wheels caused MAJOR rubbing so today we took care of that. We removed the flares and did a "cut and tuck" on the rear and cut the front. We went from 4 1/2" tire to flare clearance to 7 1/4". Here's some shots of the result.






I free handed the front with my plasma cutter, that thing is awesome, best money spent yet!

FIREMANRAY

Had a little free time today. Fabbed up a mount for the fairlead on the winch:



After trimming the fenders and cutting the bumper ends off I fabbed new ends on the bumper.
This is what it looked like before the cutting:


After the cut:


New end welded in:


Finished and ready to paint:


Put a powertrax no-slip in the rear this last week end, no pics, just great results!

FIREMANRAY

Started on my sliders today, here's the progress.

Lay out and fitting:




Couldn't wait to finish, had to mock it up on XJ!!

TGL2000

How old is your son? i would have loved to have my dad help me build mine up but im stuck paying for everything while going to college and no job until december atleast...It makes me go crazy not being able to build mine, or even work on it often.
Good job on the jeep! keep her goin

FIREMANRAY

He's 13, I had intended on it being my XJ and him helping me with it. He has laid claim to it now and says this will be his to drive when he get's his license. That' still several years away so for now we're gonna have fun!

TGL2000

haha if i was him i would have done the same thing

xj_maniac_newb

I'd change out the winch line and paint the winch maybe a synthetic line? thats what my dad has and all it's done is fade a small bit, and its been 8 months