offroadnut36

That's a lot of work! Good job man!

SGT ABN XJ

Wow you are doing a ton of hard work for your quest to join the jeep world........Rock on

Just4Kixx

Got the rear axle and bastard pack leaves in today. No pics yet because it's still on stands in the garage until I get the brakes connected. Be interesting to see how much of a lift my bastard packs give me. I used the main and second leaf from the Wag in combination with all of the leaves from the Cherokee so there are six leaves on each side now (probably will ride stiff but should have no problem towing my trailer now!). I cut the Wag's main leaf so that it's only slightly shorter than the Cherokee's main leaf, and cut the Wag second leaf to a length that was in between the length of the Wag main and the Cherokee's second leaf.

Pics tomorrow. I might even have the Wagoneer front end on it by then...

Just4Kixx

Ok, rear is in, everything's buttoned down (I even happened to have the proper speedo gear for the ratio change). I ended up with about 2-3" of lift, which, by the looks of how much my rear driveshaft engages the splines, I would not want to go much further without a custom longer shaft (which may come when I do the 242 swap).

Pics:
Here's my bastard pack arrangement:


Oh yeah. Six leaves per side. This b!tch won't sag with the trailer connected now!

All new hardware and brake lines went on as part of the swap:


Because I only went with a modest lift I kept the rear sway bar (for now). It will come in handy when towing. So will those 10" brakes (the old ones were 9") and the 3.55's (vs the stock 3.07's). I also left the stock, rusty (but still perfectly functional) shocks on there until I do the minor required mods (change or remove the lower bushing) to the nearly new Hummer H3 shocks I've got under my bench. By the way, it's not as rusty under there as it looks, that's mostly mud. Oh, it's still rusty, but not as much as it looks


So here's how she sits now:






Big improvement. You can even notice the height difference when getting in and out. Now I just need more tire. I'm thinking 31's should work at this height.

Oh, and I did hit one snag: After getting it together I took it for a spin around in my field (it's not insured for road use right now). The rear wheel bearings are noisy as hell. I kinda suspected they would be - when the Wag was upside down I spun a wheel by hand and there was a rumble. Looks like I've gotta replace 'em.

offroadnut36

Wow, great work. Good luck with the bearing replacement.

96_xj

great work so far! I did the exact same leaf spring configuration a few years back. It works great!

Good luck on your build

Just4Kixx

And the show goes on. Wagoneer header panel and grille are on today. This took most of the day because I had to clean up and paint the header panel (it was brown with peeling clearcoat, I stripped it down and painted it the proper red to match my Cherokeer). I also cleaned up the Wag grille and painted the centers black (mainly to hide the missing bars until I cen get some billet strips). Same thing for the Wag's headlight buckets - the black parts were faded down to bare plastic. Taping these things up (grille and buckets) was a pain in the ringpiece, but it came out good so I'm pleased:





So now I have one of those really rare 2-door wagoneers

I also installed the A/C condenser and receiver/dryer while I had the header panel off. Oh, and I straightened out that right front fender, which was pushed in from a deer hit (I had to straighten it, the header panel wouldn't bolt on!). All in all, a pretty productive week...

Just4Kixx

Ok, so the Cherokeer is now roadworthy. I installed the front bumper and wired up the lights (which included adding a set of driving lights to replace the beat up old 80's fog lights). Mechanically, I replaced the rear wheel bearings. Took it for a very quick (uninsured) road test and it's perfect - no more noise from the rear end, handles much better without the sag ****. And those 3.55 gears? WHAT A DIFFERENCE!!! The acceleration went from "What's your hurry" to "Let's go!"

I mean, it's not a race car, of course, but it feels much, much snappier. I was expecting an improvement (I did a similar gear swap in my other toy, an '88 T-Bird - went from 2.73 open to 3.55 trac-loc) but not this much.

Anyway, pics with the bumper and new driving lights on:




I'm thinking I'm gonna paint the lower part and flares silver instead of black now. The chrome bumper cover looks funny with the black...

G.w.i.p.

i like it! i think i would stick with black though.

rollingstone

I think it would look good with silver trim. After I removed my flares and trimmed my fenders, I knew I was going to bedline the what is now "trim", but I wanted to keep the stock color scheme. So I brushed on some silver after the bedliner and it turned out great.

trickedoutneon

wicked job so far man, where in NS are you at?

Just4Kixx

I'm in Upper Kennetcook, in east Hants county

Cherokee_Laredo

Hey if where that Wagoneer you got, you should see if theres any 97-01 laying around and rip the back hatch off the wagoneer and just lay the 97-01 hatch on the wagoneers hatch open area where the door is and see how well it fits on there. I don't have the tools yet to take my hatch off and since the wagoneer was trash. it make a good test dumy the 97-01 hatches as very easy to take off then the 84-96 as they used the star screws on it. I don't want to get the tools until I see how well it looks. I know im going to have to add the hinges on the top outside of the newer model door tho. Some people were wanting the 84-96 liftgate on there 97-01 too if you want to see how well that fits.

Cherokee_Laredo

Like how the wagoneer is coming along.
I'm kinda doing the same thing other im building a stock 2001 Jeep Cherokee style.

Just4Kixx

Two problems with that: I don't have a 97-01 hatch to try, and I prefer the 84-96 hatch anyway (you've seen my rust pics, in Nova Scotia fiberglass is a good thing)

Tomorrow I start transferring some of the Wag's options into the Cherokee...