Desert Rat

Ok, after much thought and the suggestion from a good friend, I've decided to post up a build thread. Meet Miss Moneypenny, her name taken from a classic James Bond movie, not that the XJ shares anything with the character Miss Moneypenny, she just seems to constantly cost me all my Moneypennies. Hence her name.

Our relationship began on September 22, 2009. I had owned Jeeps in the past and after losing my first two Jeeps due to a divorce and an unexpected job change I drove other junk to get by, but my mind was always on another XJ. Finances recovered in 09 and I was able to start shopping, my goal was to find a mint 97-99, stocker and make her mine. After about 4 weeks of searching I walked onto a tiny car lot (dude had 4 cars) to check out an XJ I'd seen online. I knew the moment I stepped outa my car that I had found it. A 1998 Cherokee sport, 138000 miles, new tires, no rust, no leaks, drove like a champ and everything worked with the exception of the underhood light. Carfax verified the dealers "one owner" statement, purchased new by a woman a couple city's away in 98 and she had taken incredible care of it. It still had the spare tire cover as well as the cargo cover, it was tip top. A little wrangling with the dealer and I drove her home for about $1000 less than book.

Desert Rat

So there I was the proud new owner of this clean little XJ, but little was'nt working for me. First steps was to install a 3" Skyjacker lift and some 31's on Unique D window wheels. As I was waiting for my lift to ship my buddy Lego's tried to give me a set of Teraflex disconnects he'd scored for free, I did'nt feel right about that so I offered to buy him lunch for them, he settled for a $5 footlong from Subway. Lego's is a good guy!

Desert Rat

My $5 footlong disconnects.

Desert Rat

The next step was to get some armour on her and keep her straight, I failed to elaborate on the title of my thread yet. "The quest for a happy medium", I will be daily driving this sucker for a few years, so my goal is to have a rig that will get me to work as well as perform pretty well offroad. And hey, who does'nt like to hear "you gotta pretty clean Jeep there mister", I know I never tire of it.
That being said, the next step was some rocker protection. After searching around I liked what I saw in Rusty's sliders and I was already looking at their drop crossmember as I had some vibes due to the lift and figured if I order them together I wont get to raped on their notoriousely ridiculous shipping. Not too bad $80 to ship the sliders and the crossmember. I've been running the sliders for about a year and a half now and I must say, they are definately worth the dough.

Desert Rat

Now that the sliders were installed the ugly dent preventing side moldings did'nt seem to be neccesary anymore, if anyone swings their door into me it'll be their door that suffers, so off they came. Looks a lot cleaner.

Desert Rat

Broke, bored and wanting to get something done to the Jeep one day, I decided to trim up the front bumper caps. Helped to show off the sexy part of the Jeep, the suspension.

Desert Rat

Since I had noticed a considerable amount of increased flex in the front with the disconnects I was concerned about my front brake lines. Still being a broke ***, I opted for doing the bracket relocation to gain a couple more inches.

Desert Rat

Next I thought I'd work on a roof basket. I did'nt like the prices most companies were charging so I started searching. I really liked the one Warthog built so I built one very similar. Total cost, $90 made out of conduit coated with self etching primer and bedliner. It's stout. The main reasons for this mod were 1. Cherokees just look cool with a rack. 2. A place to mount some lights. 3. To get the spare out of the cargo area.
In retrospect, the lights up there are only good for seeing far in front of you (great if you wanna bomb desert roads at night, which I do), and the spare on the roof I don't care for too much, it just kills gas mileage and makes you more uneasy when off camber. I've since placed my spare back in the cargo area.

Desert Rat

Lights, as mentioned before, I like to bomb desert roads at night as I do a lot of outdoor stuff and thats how you get there. Being on a limited budget I opted for 4 Explorer 55w lights that I attached to the roof rack. They light up the trail pretty good (especially when your headlight switch goes out, they saved my butt that night), but again, being on the roof they work better at seeing into the future than right in front of you.
The wiring I ran up the A pillar through a hole in the roof (hardest hole I ever drilled) through a grommet sealed with aquarium caulk. Over a year now and no leaks.

Desert Rat

Ok, so now I feel we're in a good place, Jeep runs well, wheels pretty good but a couple things have popped up. I don't feel I'm getting enough flex out of the rear. Removed the rear sway bar, alot more flex and road manners unchanged.
The other thing, I kept tearing off my right front flare every run. So, after getting tired of reattaching it I did a little homework and realized my mistake. I had failed to increase my bumpstops after the lift thinking it might limit flex, not realizing that the up travel on one side affected the down travel on the other side pretty much making it come up 6's. Needless to say the installation of some extended bump stops took care of the problem and she seems to be able to flex out just fine.

Desert Rat

As I got braver in my wheeling and started to run some more difficult trails I decided it might be a good idea to have a winch. After looking at the prices of winch bumpers I was a little turned off. A conversation with my Step Dad led to an idea to build a bumper (dude can weld), heres what we came up with.

Desert Rat

Let me try that again. Heres what we came up with.

Desert Rat

While the bumper build was going on I had an idea. I was sick and tired of holding my sway bar and disconnects out of the way with bungies (kept breaking) so I built some straps. $.90 at the local outdoor store, 3/4 inch webbing and a buckle attached to the uni with a big washer and a self tapper. Works like a charm.

Desert Rat

At last the bumper was completed and I needed to throw a winch in it. I went with the XRC-8 after seeing a friends perform well. A couple D-rings from NPS really helped finish off the whole tough rig look I was going for with the bumper. I could'nt be happier.

Desert Rat

The next couple upgrades I dont have pictures of. After a run that became a night run in the rocks due to some carnage in our group left us on the trail later than we had anticipated, rock lights were installed and a junkyard stock transfer case skid was added in hopes of protecting Miss Moneypennys vital organs.