Project Chubicon
 

Meet Chubicon..She's not worthy of calling it a Chubicon YET, but one day!
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Here's what we've got so far:

4.5" RE lift, 6.5" with spacers and shackles, adjustable track bar, adjustable short arms
transfer case drop
longer brake lines
open D35 and HP30, 3.55's
bald 31's
soft 8's
smittybilt bumpers
no brakes
bad wheel bearings
LOUD straight piped exhaust:cursing:

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Interior's pretty clean to start.


A good steam cleaning is in order, though.. All the power stuff works.

Right off the bat I could tell I had bad hub assemblies up front, and while bsing with a friend of mine out at Elbe the other day, he told me to save my money on the bearings because he had a set I could have.

So my brother and I got to work.
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Little bit of rain never hurt anyone, right?

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Found these on there. Some pretty thick spacers, seem to be good quality though. What's everyone's thoughts on these?

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Think my assembly is bad? Not a single bearing left in it..

Turned out my buddy didn't have the right set of bearings, so I'll just wait and get a set of Timkens. Oh well..

Going to be a slow build, but it WILL get done. Good thing is the motor was actually very well maintained, and the transmission and transfer case are solid as well. I need to go get the socket for the axle nuts so I'm at a stand still atm. I'll run up to work and get on later.

Stay tuned!

Looks like you are off to a good start. As for the spacers, they look exactly like my rough country spacers. They have held up well for the year and a half that I've had them.

Thanks! From what I can tell there's things that have been done right, and there's things that have been done wrong. Everything will get tore out and inspected/cleaned/painted. Priorities are wheel bearings, brakes, tires, exhaust. When all that gets done, the audio needs to get taken care of. Luckily my father is a 25-year vet in the car audio world, so I'm set. From there I'll probably knock out interior stuff. Custom cargo areas, sound deadening, etc. I bought the XJ because I was tired of getting beat to death in my CJ5, tired of the T18 4-speed manual, tired of yelling over all the noises to talk to my passenger, stuff like that. So it's gonna as comfortable as it can possibly be. Then I'll knock out drive train and suspension stuff.

Oh, and don't mind the cheesy project name. :tt2:

what are the plans to turn it into a chubicon? Rubi 44's? Moab rims? Rubicon express long arms?

Haha, I knew this would come up! We'll see what I can get my hands on, but 44's for sure! It's mainly a crack on all the newer Rubicon guys I run around with in my old 62 CJ. Maybe later when I get the parts to back it up, I'll get some Chubicon stickers for the front fenders. :tt2:

Got the socket for my axle nuts and started into the hub assemblies. this is what I was greeted with:
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Looks like I'll need a new outer and u-joint, two new hub assemblies, and...

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A new WSS.. :brickwall: Can't believe the previous owner let it get this bad.

EDIT: well, my picture file names got censored. let me change them from f*%kedaxle.jpg and f&%kedwss.jpg to something else. all done.

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New Timkens on both sides. Yes the axle nut has been torqued. :thumbup1:

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And some tires. 33x12.50 KM's, 50% on all four. Nicely worn.

Also pulled the spacers out of the front because it had my caster all jacked up. Gonna get factory shackles in back so the whole jeep sits at 4.5".