aircruiser

If any of you remember me, I am back in an XJ again! Kind of. For those who do not, my 99 2 door was my first jeep back in 06 I bought it bone stock with 201k on the clock. 4.0, 5 speed, everything completely stock.. It ended up like this









If it looks familiar to you, it is the poster child for the cherokee forum app



Long story short, I rolled it when an old lady cut me off. Thats in the old thread. I ended up parting it out, buying a ZJ with the money and lifting that. Well, after realizing a jeep was impractical for what I do (haul alot of stuff, tow, need power), I bought a pickup which is still my DD...ended up lifting andmodding that too but thats a different story lol. Anyways, cruising craigslist like I always do and find a 96 cherokee for $600. He had hit a ditch with it and it bent the passengers side control arms and the axle mount but the unibody was straight and everything worked and I wanted a trail rig, worked out a deal for $300 if he kept the wheels and tires on it and I put a deposit down, borrowed a trailer from work, hooked it up to my truck and threw on my towing tires and hauled it back to work so I can start tearing into it soon. Here it is the day I bought it.





Rockers are solid, floors have some rot but that will get taken care of

]

The ugly side

aircruiser

Gotta say I am impressed with how well my truck towed it. Its an 01 dakota with the tow package, 4.7 V8 with high output cams, HO intake going on it, 3" lift, those are 32" tires, worn tracloc in the back, straight pipe exhaust, and a bunch of other things

Did 65 until I hit traffic in downtown minny then 65 all the way home no problems. It was a 90 mile round trip









SO heres where the tire hit, it took out the fender too set off the air bags, pushed the floor board in a little



Body is straightas an arrow besides a bent passengers door hinge



231 that will be getting an SYE and clocked up but I might eventually run dual tcases





Windshield where dudes head hit in the accident lol



Need to find an E-fan but other than that perfect running 4.slow



Tomorrow I will be towing her home and tinkering with it for a bit until the gf gets back and we go do things. I am keeping it out at work for now until I get my new house, parents are already up tight enough about me having 2 vehicles already at home haha.

This is her home right now



And what would a build thread be without a list?

-IRO 6.5" long arm lift, 5.5" leafs, 1" extended shackle, doetsch tech shocks, double sheer track bar, no sways,
-35" swampers, looking at the interco TrXus right now. Probably on some steelies
-IRO OTK steering with hydro assist. Plan on tapping my own box (thats what she said)
-dual taraus fans
-HNT SYE with clocked up tcase and full belly skid
-HP D30, 760xs with almost alloys, c-gussets, inner sleeve kit, IRO truss, HD LCAs, 4.88 G2 gears, ARB air locker, riddler cover
-Ford 8.8, IRO truss, HD spring perches, disk conversion, riddler cover, raised shock mounts
-cage, after seeing my red one go over and how much damage it did in a slow roll, I would hate to see a tumble from some of the trails we go on. Plan on doing an exo and tieing it into some frame stiffeners and doing that up with tube flares and bumpers, got an XRC8 winch for it already.

I will update tomorrow when I see how far I get.

CrawlinPepper

Sounds like a good plan. Nice name.

Cherokee_Therapy

Its gotta feel good breaking into an XJ again. I went without one for a year and it was quite tragic.

aircruiser

Its also nick named High Roller since I rolled the other one but pepper was the original name of the other one since it was chili pepper red. But yeah all my vehicles have nicknames so high roller will probably stick with this one haha

Yeah man I had my ZJ to hold me over but it will be nice this time to have something I can have down for months on end and not worry about being street legal haha

truckntractorhick

$300 aint bad!

aircruiser

I didnt think so either haha. I was looking at the floors today thinking damn its gonna suck replacing these and then I was like, oh yeah, I paid $300 for this haha.

Towed it back home today, got some work done on it, ended up having the jack slip and it hit a tranny line pinching it and putting a pin hole in it. Dammit. Oh well **** happens