Project Pandora's Box
 

so i decided with the developments of the day i would go ahead and start a build thread even though i wont be able to get into any of the real gritty stuff till next year do to my baby coming next month and bills.

to start my "going to happen list" and my "hope it happens list.

going to happen list:
1. 4.5 or 4.7 stroker
2. chop and cage
3. 6.5" lift with at least 33's
4. remain street legal

hope it happens list:
1. custom 4-link front and rear
2. dana 44 front with all the bells and whistles
3. ford 9 inch rear with all bells and whistles
4. manual swap
5. bucket seats front and rear with 5 points

and various little things here and there.

my ultimate goal is to have a street legal dd that i can take to top truck challenge (though the possibility of that is still not fully confirmed haha).

here's her after some wheeling with the wife and a friend

though as of right now she is sans radiator i'll post some pics of that a little later.

so here's the low down on my blown radiator. pulled into a local tattoo shop and turned the jeep off. then all of a sudden their was a loud popping noise and coolant and steam was every where. here's the damage.

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forgot a couple things as for current mods.

i did have a cherry bomb extreme was LOUD and very aggressive. with the baby coming i decided to put just a random glass pack my friend had on so that cab noise would be a lot better.

the other thing is we made a barrier for the dog to lock him in the cargo area here's some pics. sorry about the shoddy pictures will try to get some better later

finally going to update this so at this point all I have done is obviously finished replacing the radiator and i had to replace my power steering pump.

The spindle (I guess you would call it) literally came off the front end of the pump. The bearings were toasted and the shaft/housing was ate up pretty bad. I got a new pump replaced the pulley and tank and wa-blam good to go here are some pics of the pump and my new radiator.

Replaced my front pinion seal and gear oil on sunday. Gears looked pristine, with little to no wear.

I also started, to pull the fender flares off. Ran out of time after I got the drivers front drivers. Will be pulling the rest this weekend and posting a picture or two.

Some pictures of what I'm modeling my chop after. Hopefully this summer. going to shop it like the grey one (got it off of pirate). and the rear of the cage will be similar to the white one, but i'm hopeing to use a comanche tailgate instead.

I'm liking the plans so far man... sorry to hear about the bad luck you've had so far but it doesn't seem like it's discouraging you at all so that's good. Congrats on the baby - I've got 3 kids myself so I know what an awesome life changer that is.

Don't know what kind of manual tranny you're looking at, but a couple of months ago I spied a 6spd manual out of a TJ on CL - they wanted a hefty priace of 800 bucks for it, but if it's possible to throw one in an XJ, that would be the sweet setup... better MPG's too. I opted against it for cost-savings, time, and the fact that my wife is so skiddish about learning to drive stick

Keep it up man, looking forward to what lies ahead... I'll be starting up a build thread myself once I get my laptop back up and running or at least get the picks off the hard drive.