That Jeep Guy XJMJ

So it is time, its time to take a stab at the build i've had on my doodle board for some time now. A functional 6wd crew cab jeep comanche. As with most of my projects/builds, this will be a slowish progress build followed with lots of pictures so please be patient. Like others have done i'll be using a cherokee front section and MJ rear (94xj and 89 MJ for what its worth).

I'm saying im taking a stab at this build because its by no means gonna be a super clean when finished. I'm no body guy so with that in mind i'm shooting for per-say a 10-15 footer. I have minimal invested thus far into these vehicles and parts and off course will be needing a few things but i'm comfortable with what i have to get started.

This is my rendering thanks to microsoft paint. I guess the key highlights to be shown/mentioned here:
- Full rear door
- All 6 wheels will be driven. The rear tires power will be split via a divorced tcase that has multiple outputs
- Bed length will be withing dimensions of a long bed (using a short bed though)

The deal to this MJ was that it was heading to scrap - it was loaded on my trailer with minimal parts included (no axles, bed, door, interior, suspension) for a quick $100. I later sourced the original bed as it was not inlcuded for an additional $100.


The deal behind the donor XJ is a pretty simple one as well... I posted looking for a cheap/free XJ and thats exactly what i got - A free XJ shell struck with the typical frame rot in the rear by the leaf spring mounts. I apologize for the tree in the way though its prolly for the best because the rust is pretty bad out back.


Gonna be kicking this build off tomorrow and i will do my best to document the progress i make.

4.3L XJ

This will be fun to watch. Thought about turning my 2 door XJ into a 6X6, but just kind of got over it

PCO6

You're crazy. I Love it!

TrailerTrash

Wow I hope you stick with this and keep us updated once in awhile. Dont hesitate if you want to write a book describing what you do. I hate when people skip over the details

That Jeep Guy XJMJ

So for now we'll just focus on the MJ donor.

Dragged it outta the backyard. the bed is sitting funny because its missing the front bed frame mounts. something i will source or recreate at a later time





The initial tear down was pretty easy. Bed wasnt bolted down, the doors were cut off the body, there was almost no interior. The engine removal was a little messy/sloppy but overall went without issue. If your wondering whats going on with that rear frame? The P.O had this thing setup with king coilovers for a dune monster! There used to be a tube system mounted off the frame to secure those kings. Ultimately i figured this would only benefit my build purpose as it opens up the work space for what i have in store for suspending those 2 rear axles.


The lines were drawn and away we go! Using the sawzall to take care of the drip rail/interior support and then the rockers through unibody to trans tunnel and also the majority of the trans tunnel for that matter and keeping things nice and straight went with the 4.5" cutoff grinder for the roof. These cut lines are Far forward from where i need them but for the time being i'd rather have more material to play with as im sure when it comes to mating the 2 halfs - Id rather have it and not need it than Need it and not have it there.

Btw, yes i did pause for a breif moment to wrap my head around the sacrifice i'm making... Yes this is what i want to do! Let er Rip Tader Chip!!

That Jeep Guy XJMJ

Its been one of those 1 step forward and 2 step back kinda days i must say.

After tidying up some i decided to get a handle on this XJ donor. Got it knowing it was rusty but dang, this thing is toast! Atleast the ford 8.8 it was sitting on turns out to be a 4.10 LSD axle. Which is terrific as thats what i was leaning towards for gearing. The only bust is now i'm on the hunt again for another cherokee shell.


I suppose in the meantime i can start playing with this 6x6 setup.

Here is the key to my plans for making both rear axles drive. This is an NP200, comonly found in old M715s or M37 military trucks. Picked it up for a cool $60 a little ways back.



How could i resist? Threw some tires on the 8.8 and snuck it outback


We ended the night with a quick teardown and inspection of the unit and to my surprise its looking pretty good! Dirty oil but all the splines and clutch teeth on the gears and hubs were in great shape. Some rust pits on some of the gears but they won't bother me much. Only issue is a single thrust washer had split. So the search begins for its replacement. I'll be taking the case into work and cleaning/blasting it so expect some pretty paint shortly

4.3L XJ

I like that transfer case I was wondering how you were going to deal with that. Most 6X6 conversions have two hangups. Tcase and what to do with drivelines and rear axles

That Jeep Guy XJMJ

Yea back when i was really starting to brain storm how i'd do this i knew very quickly that i wasn't gonna be able to afford a pass through style 9" axle that most would prefer. So initially i had though about a divorced tcase sitting between the 2 rear axles. Then you'd only need to run a d-shaft to it prolly utilizing a carrier bearing and then figure a rear facing middle axle. The hangup there was that it would spin that middle axle the wrong direction. Flipping the axle upside down could solve that but then it becomes janky IMO and at the same time not very operable on the roads without issues long term. I had considered setting up a D30 and then either welding the knuckles so they wouldn't turn or just setting up the drag link to be fixed. However once i started to consider the type of suspension that would need to follow that mid mounted tcase setup and also the amount of space im trying to keep this in i realized that was gonna be a mess! So i had been on marketplace later that day and caught my tcase just browsing; not even looking. Seen the 4 yokes and knew i could work with that! It was about a 3 hour drive round trip to pick it up but i was more than happy to make the drive. With this tcase in my garage it all came together on how i'd like to run the 2 rear axles.

I have utilized my microsoft paint skills to setup a layout to explain my plan. D-shaft angles don't necesarily represent the actual angles. The NP200 tcase may also drop to the passenger side instead of the driver side like pictured. The To Be Determined carrier bearing setup is a device that will be mounted to the middle axle as the union point between divorced tcase and rear most axle. I know the ford 8.8's are just a touch narrower than factory jeep axles so as a 2 for 1 deal i will further offset the axles pinions by mounting 1 wheel spacer on opposite ends of both rear axles also giving me more pinion separation between the 2 to aid in clearance for the rear most driveshaft. It should also lessen the compound angle of the rear dshaft.

4.3L XJ

Sounds like a plan. When I was daydreaming about this, I was going to turn the bottom shaft around on my Atlas and machine the end of the shaft in front to accept the Dana 18 front shaft splines and use those parts. But my overall rig was only going to be about an 18" stretch since i have a 2 door and was going to move the rear axle forward. Might still do it someday

That Jeep Guy XJMJ

So here we are, the only broken part in this tcase. Also happens to cost $60 to replace! Thankfully a good friend of mine happened to be travelling through Billings Montana which is the location of TorqueKing4x4 who sells these parts and many other tcase parts. Check them out! Dude saves me some shipping and making a vacation trip to MI means i get a personal delivery.



Hot tanked, blasted, painted and touched up the gears, now we're ready to re-assemble... Well almost, The replacement thrust washer won't be here till this weekend and i also happened to forget my micrometer for measuring shims. So a few more days and then i'll be getting after it. Overall -for now, I'm only replacing that thrust washer and the 6 oil seals (4 yokes and 2 shift shafts) Its about $110 in total. Realistically it could use new bearings but for now i'm just gonna learn the setup and then later after its all together and functioning proper i'll back in and make everything right.



So in the meantime i figured i'd play around with some driveline angles. Just messing around here but there will be about 9" of separation between the 2 driveshafts, represented by the 2 tape lines below. Tape line left for now is directly center between the rails while at the bottom of the pic my makeshift plumbob is sitting on the center mark of the rear most axle. Also incorporated the 1.5" wheel spacers into the measurement on the rear most axle (not the middle axle) and where i originally planned for this to be a driver drop rear case it will actually be a passenger drop rear case. Angles don't look too extreme at the moment, i suppose lets just hope it stays that way



You may also notice just in front of the passenger tires are some suspension parts. Those are coils and control arms off a newer JK that i scored for Free. Definitely going to be doing a coil sprung rear setup and with those parts being listed on marketplace so often lately and rather cheap/free if your patient, I figured i could benefit from using a "stock replacement" type part for this build.

We'll see what this weekend brings us for another progress update

That Jeep Guy XJMJ

Here we are, back with cherokee shell donor #2. This one is the newer body style which wasn't my original intent for this build. However, it is getting a little harder to come by any usable shape 96/older cherokee bodies around MI. After scrounging Marketplace listings for the better part of last week and into the weekend it had dawned on me how plentiful the newer body xj's still are and figured i may need to be more open to the thought of running the newer style front.

So for $200 i get a good unibody with ok floors and a grand mix of good and bad leftovers. I was ecstatic to find out it still had a good trans and tcase as it wasn't discussed before i picked it up. Motor is blown which wasn't a big deal as i have a couple motors sitting around. I'll prolly be removing the drivetrain to make the shell a little easier to maneuver and also give me easy access to the underside of the floors and unibody.




You can see that MJ rear waiting patiently in the garage for a new front end.



Divorced tcase is also coming along nicely. I've gotten both rear outputs setup now and will be getting the idler shaft/gear shimmed tomorrow, then potentially by this next weekend i can get after assembling the whole unit

NWPenCrawler

This is awesome! Keep up the good work bud. I'm definitely following.

Zusez3

Awesome build. I wish I could make my 2 door into a 6x6.

WyoCherokee

This is great! subbed for updates

That Jeep Guy XJMJ

So this evening started off with removing that old drivetrain. Trying my darndest to not destroy anything on the way out. Although its not pictured now, there will be some body work getting done up front. As i got wiring peeled back and everything out of the way i discovered the front passenger corner was hit a little harder than just a fender bender like i had thought... I'm not too worried about the repair, it should be a simple cut out and replace with another donor fenderwell.

It was also especially tasking cleaning this thing out as much as i did - still filthy but whats left thats dirty isn't going to be used anyways. What did get removed was rather disgusting - thankfully no pictures here either. I feel its pretty important to keep this thing straight and square so some reinforcement was in order. Just a few pieces of angle iron to tie those door strikers in place.




I ran a bit low on time towards the end of the night so instead of getting antsy and making some of the cuts, I called it a night and saved the surgery for another day.

I will show off my technical details - this one was REALLY bugging me. The flange/cap in green was originally part of a drum brake assy that is commonly cutoff for the case' custom application. Someone had already taken care of this for me but left an awful lot of useless metal that will likely only collect mud and dirt.



So while i had the case and parts at work for some paint and prep i also knocked off all that useless metal and got this thing looking s3xy!




Unfortunately didn't get anywhere on this case like i had wanted to tonight but bringing this slimmed down cap home was good enough for me. For Now.

More to come - stay tuned