millerxj

My name is Josh, ive been lurking on here for bout a month. i did an introduction post. but i'll tell you a lil more about myself. Im 30yrs old. live in dover ohio. my brother has a well equipt xj and i have been riding along with him out in the trails and love it. I bought my first jeep in May of this year. Bone stock 99 classic. I am a Harley Davidson technician by trade and a firearm, fabrication, hotrod and vintage harley enthusiast. I am usually the type to build or piece together any project im working on. but in this case being new and very impatient, i bought a Rough Country 6.5 long arm kit. My brother and i just started working on the install this week. luckily for me, he has a shop with a car lift. so thats where we are doing it. just got started and had some set backs so i dont have a ton of pics yet but i will post more as i go.

so here she is nice, clean and stock.



up she goes



ive sure youve seen the front of one of these coming apart a 1000 times so i didnt get too carried away with the pics. grinding down the rest of the lower control arm mounts



ofcourse the salty roads around here took its toll on this thing. everything was alot more rusty than i had anticipated. i can see myself making new mounts for things in the future. and of course the right side cross member stud broke and threaded bung in the frame rail broke loose on the left side as well as a snapped off bolt. so cut both frame rails open for repairs.



so fast forward. welded nuts to some 1/8 plate, welded them into the rails. patched up the holes. douched it with some rustoleum. new crossmember and arms bolted up. and my new nuts lined up pretty dang good. only had to "waller out" (one of my fav redneck terms) one of the holes on the crossmember.




i also got these guys for it once the lift is on. 15x10 soft 8's and 33x10.50 BFG mud terrains. love them and i havent even put em on yet haha



Thats pretty much as far as we got so far. sorry for the crappy iphone pics. gonna have to get me a decent digital camera one of these days. like i said, i'll post more as i go. i want to get it on the ground by the end of this weekend. im also open to any advice/comments good or bad. you wont hurt my feelings. i dont have that human trait haha and like i said before. im a total noob at this.

VTJeep

cool man. i suppose its official now- that rigs gonna be sweet! sub'd. what else ya got planned?

❂|||||❂...Andrew

Pics are fine, thanks for sharing!

millerxj

well i have a winch for it and i really look forward to building my own bumpers/body armor. im gonna head in an expedition type set up. its my only 4 wheeled vehicle. so besides my bikes i need to be able to daily it. as far as the next driveline upgrade goes id say lockers and beefy steering, then axles maybe n rear disc. but i dont know if i want to build these axles or upgrade. we will see. i also have a few maintenance items to address. before i take it out in the woods

millerxj

well she has fought me the whole way, but the front is finally done, minus brake lines. gonna have to replace a few of the hard lines while im at it.



the sparks flying in the back is the right side sway bar link mount being cutoff for steering clearance turning right. i dont know if anyone else has had a problem with this with these kits but no big deal. i can make a new mount later. i want to upgrade the steering anyways



where i cut the sway bar link mount off



on to the rear. saving the brakes for last. the rear is def putting up just as much of a fight. if not more. our make shift axle support. sketchy?? yes. but worked.



The front leaf spring bolts came unthreaded. barely. but cannot get them pulled out. going to have to cut them and get new bolts. no big deal. the upper shock bolts on the other hand...a dif story. all four snapped off flush. awesome.



but after a walk to the fridge and looking at it while drinking a beer i believe i came up with a solution to fix it. but if anyone has experience with this situation im open to ideas. anyhow i forgot to mention that i went from having my first jeep to my wife getting an 09 JK a couple months later. its all stock for now.

millerxj

rear is done. finally. i was able to drill out the broken shock bolts and re tap the holes. had to replace the rear brake lines. both bleeders were frozen and broke off in the wheel cylinders. they both were leaking so needed replaced anyways. im def going to have to replace the shackles. they are pretty rotted. i priced stock replacement ones but they were pretty pricey so id like to look into some aftermarket ones. if im going to spend that much, id rather spend a lil more and get better ones. what do you guys recommend?




firtst flex with the RC long arm kit. going to have to remove flares and bumper to make room then i think it will flex farther. then i can start working on correct bump stops for it.





so up next on the to do list: remove flares and front bumper. start planning out a front winch bumper build. install SYE and driveshaft

Killallblue

looking good man

millerxj

thanks man! im having fun with it.

not much of an update, but i removed the front flares and trimmed the bumper. doesnt look the greatest but at least i can turn with out rubbing now. goin to trim and fold the fenders soon, then remove the bumper to start planning out a winch bumper for it.

jeepstr52

looking good bud keep it up.

millerxj

was finally able to take this thing out in the woods for a lil bit this evening. def found out how much i need to trim fenders. and ripped the left corner of the bumper off lol had a blast tho

millerxj

well being that i am a motorcycle mechanic and it is getting cold out. it is needless to say that, work is getting slow. on a positive note, there are trails about 12 minutes driving time from my work. so i took a long lunch break today and played in the woods. was by my self but i still had a blast for an hour. here is a couple pics of my jeep and a few trail pics. its hard to capture the form of it with a cell phone camera. doesn't look like much but it is def not a sunday cruise in the woods.

first snow of the year













Hey! Who put that tree ther??!!



Thanks for looking!! having a blast with this thing! more to come! i know its not much of a build thread and its not going to be the "cleanest xj i've ever seen" but i love the thing, and love beating the crap out of it. there is so much i want to do to the thing but i dont want to have down time from being able to take it out now that im getting a taste of it. addicted for sure.

millerxj

i also had a chance to test out my new Kershaw bush blade. made quick work of this lil tree across the trail. chops like a champion!