Cliff

Well after owning my jeep for a couple years now I figured I would throw together a build thread for it. Due to the fact that it’s my daily driver and lack of funds I have kept it pretty conservative so far as far as mods go but I have some bigger plans for it in the future. I bought the jeep when I lived back in Connecticut. I ended up finding it on Auto Trader and picked it up for 4,500 bucks. It came with a 2.5" Old Man Emu lift on 31" BFG tires, JKS discos and a Yakima roof rack which is now on my dads jeep. It had 92,000 miles on it when I bought it and it just rolled over 120,000 a few weeks ago. Here is a pic a couple weeks after I bought it driving around in a field in NW CT.





Also one old bad quality pic of me flexing it the first time out wheelin.


A lot of the upgrades I have done so far were done because the old part was broken or in bad shape and hey you just can't replace them with another stock part First off I replaced the exhaust since the old one was pretty rusty and had some holes in it. I got a Flow Master cat back setup with a Super 40 muffler from Rusty's along with a new K@N high flow air filter. I liked the sound of the setup... it’s got a nice low tone to it but nothing to crazy.




Next I wanted more space in the rear so I decided to invest in a roof rack and throw that spare on top. I ended up with a Surco rack since it seemed to be the best rack for the price. So far it has held up very good. I also picked up a Hi Lift jack at Cabela's for around 70 bucks and threw it up there as well. Sorry no install pics of either of these since I didn't bother taking pics at the time "not to exciting anyway". Here are some more random wheelin pics with the then new rack on.

Playing In the snow




River Crossing


Sorry some of these are really bad quality... "old camera".



Good old Nepaug Connecticut



Next I ended up getting side swiped in the right front corner but a SUV I got lucky thought, it could have ended up a lot worse. Now that the jeep was all banged up in the front it just made me wheel it harder












I had better wheelin pics from back in CT but they were on my other comp which **** the bed. After a while I got really sick of looking at the beat up front end so I got a new fender and header panel painted them and threw them on. Since it was pretty crunched on one side I had to do something with the front bumper. Not wanting to get another stock one I went online and started looking at aftermarket. I was eventually planning on getting a winch so I wanted a bumper that could allow that. Also I wanted one with a clean finished look to it. A lot of the ones I looked at didn’t have the look I wanted so I ended up with an ARB. Now a lot of people think ARBs are overkill and cost way to much. I partially agree since it is very hard to swallow and 800 dollar bumper when you bought the jeep for 4500. Also there are a lot of other cheaper options out there that are decent but I just liked ARB so I went with it. Now that I am living out west in a town with a large deer population where you hear about someone hitting a deer almost weekly it’s kind of nice to know I have that big beefy bumper on there lol Right after I ordered the bumper I found a really good deal online for a Warn MX8000 winch. I wasn't going to get the winch yet since I had other things on my upgrade list first but I couldn’t pass up the deal so I ordered it. Now I will say this, here is one downfall of an ARB Cherokee bumper that I didn't know at the time I ordered it. In order to remove the winch from the bumper you actually have to take the bumper off the jeep and let me tell you to mount and un mount that heavy bumper with a winch installed in it not an easy task I haven’t had to remove it for anything yet but getting it mounted on there was a 2 man job that took quite a bit of work. Another process I neglected to take pics of. After I got that mounted up it was time to wire the winch. I didn't like the recommended location of the control box on the front bumper. I figured it would look nicer to keep it clean so I fabbed up a little bracket and mounted it under the hood right near my air filter. It was kind of a pain since I had to extend all the wires to accommodate the new mounting location but in the end I think it was worth it. Plus if I go through any large puddles or mud it will have a lot better chance of staying dry and protected. I then drilled a hole in the firewall and ran the controller wire in under the dash. I ran the wire through the slot in the dash on the left side of the steering wheel. It actually stays put pretty good considering there is really no way to mount the controller to the dash unless you came up with some other kind of bracket. Here are a few pics...

Controller


The Control Box... there was just enough room in there!

Cliff

Finally here are a few pics of the jeep taken just after the damage was fixed and the bumper and winch installed.




Those pics were taken late last summer in Connecticut. Since then I have moved within 20 miles of Moab Utah and have come up with some bigger plans for the jeep to suit some of the trails around here Stay tuned... more to come when I get a little bit of free time.

RenoXJ

looking good

walterGT67

Hot car.. love it ...thanks...

Cliff

Next we moved 2230 miles across the country to Castle Valley Utah which is about a 20 minute drive from Moab. The Cherokee made the journey with no trouble just as I expected. Although I did change the oil, fluids, gear oil, tranny fluid, and transfer case oil before I left. One thing I will mention is I switched most things over to Royal Purple which has treated me very good since. When we first got here to Utah nobody had a job for the first 6 months or so so we took that time and did a bunch of wheelin. Here are some pics from random trails around the area.

cole93maxxxj

nice cherokee man! looks great!

DMILES51

yeah nwc

RenoXJ

wow cool. so how you liking UT so far?

07Negative

Nice work so far. Isn't it amazing how capable these rigs are? Even with only a 2" lift and some tires. Your doing great. I like how your not piecing your rig together with crappy parts just to be doing it. Clean and capable.

X1994J

Good looking rig. Looks like a few of those pics could be on Cliff Hanger, Top of the WOrld and possibly Poison Spider? Wish I lived that close to Moab, I'm in Salt Lake and tghat's still too far for me.

rweaver138

nice lookin jeep man i love the looks of those ARB bumpers. and CT's where its at! haha those moab pics look sick though thats one place I'd like to wheel before i die.

Cliff

I am absolutely loving it! I tell you if you like doing anything out doors then this is the place to live. I could spend the next 20 years of my life exploring all the stuff just in this state and not see everything. Lets just say its a HUGE improvement from CT although that's not hard to do lol
Thanks! Yeah the Cherokee amazes me every time I take it out wheelin. It really is surprising how much you can do. These are the trails I have done since I got out here last October. We just keep going down the list in Well's book.

Hidden Canyon
Spring Canyon Point
Mineral Point
Gemini Bridges
Picture Frame Arch / Kane Creek Overlook
Onion Creek
Dolores River Overlook
Polar Mesa
White Wash Sand Dunes
Tower Arch
Hidden Canyon Overlook
Bartlett Overlook
Rainbow Terrace
Secret Spire / Dellenbaugh Tunnel
Hey Joe Canyon
Long Canyon
Bull Canyon
Hurrah Pass / Chicken Corners
Dome Plateau
La Sal Pass
Shafer Trail
Lathrop Canyon
Canyon Rim Overlooks
Klondike Bluffs
Seven Mile Rim
Fins and Things
Hells Revenge - Minus Hells Gate and Escalator
Poison Spider Mesa
Strike Ravine
Cliff Hanger
Steel Bender
Elephant Hill
Porcupine Rim
Top Of The World
Kane Creek

Some of these were a little hard with only 2" of lift and I did have to do quite a bit of rocking on a few spots. But I enjoy trying harder stuff with not a ton of mods just to see if I can do it. I haven't had to turn around yet.
Actually there are no pics from any of those in there but I do have pics from all three of those that I was going to put up next. Yeah Salt Lake is a bit of a haul but not to bad if you come down for like a weekend or longer. If you ever happen to end up in the area let me know... it would be great to get to together and wheel sometime. By the way your Cherokee is awesome looking! Very nice job

Thanks. Btw I used to live in CT, now I am living in Utah. CT wasn't bad but there was like no place to wheel.

Cliff

Through out the past year living here I have done some smaller stuff to the Cherokee. I put a fire extinguisher in just in case.


I do quite a bit of fishing and got sick of my rods getting broken when I piled everything into the jeep so I bought a rod rack made by Berkley and mounted that to the roof. It was kind of tricky mounting it due to the fact that there are not many areas under the headliner that have metal thick enough to mount it to but I manage to make it work.




I scored an awesome deal on some Hella Lights "38 bucks new, shipped to my door" so I mounted those on the front bumper along with some D rings.

chrisdm4

Just seeing those pics makes me wish i lived out west! Your lucky

07Negative

That fishing pole ideal was rather crafty man.
Though I live in Cali. The cats that are living in CO and UT make me want to move outa Ca and bounce to CO or something. I'm sure there is alot to explore throughout Sierra mountains but doesn't seem to be nearly as exciting as these other spots I've been seeing posted up lately. I actually slept in the Denver city park for about a week and found the people to wicked nice.
Damn I'm jones'en for a road trip.