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You did say you picked up a C8.25 right? If so that is good news.
I don't know how this goes but someone once told me that it is better to learn on a axle not locked first. Then lock it, reason being is if you break the locker on the trails and you need to run it not locked then you will know how the Jeep is going to handle. Either way you will be fine but I think I will lock mine once I try a couple runs to get a feel for it and what its capabilities are not locked.
You did say you picked up a C8.25 right? If so that is good news.
I do have a C8.25 in the rear. It is open though. I'm hoping at some point to upgrade it to a locker. The onlt reason I really got one for the front of the jeep was that I got a good deal on it and I needed a front axle anyways! Speaking of that axle, Today I managed to get it installed as well as finish up my lift kit.
The rear of course will go downa bit more as it settles and once I put the engine and transmission back in the front will go down too. It's definitely a little light in the front right now.
Last edited by Matthew Reed; 02-01-2018 at 04:38 AM.
This weekend was very busy! I finally managed to get the donor drivetrain out. I pulled the engine, trans, and transfer case as a unit and it actually wasn't that bad. I had to be really careful and make lot of adjustments to the engine hoist and load leveler but eventually it came
out out. Last night I separated the engine and trans so I can begin the process of replacing pretty much all of the seals and gaskets. The engine itself is covered in oil from a combination of valve cover, oil pan, and rear main seal leaks. The transfer case is also pretty wet but I'm not sure where that leak is coming from. It's just wet all over. I'll try and update with some pictures later.
Not a whole lot has happened over the past couple weeks. I've been collecting parts and ordering everything I need to spruce up the engine. Right now I'm waiting on my engine rebuild kit to come in so I can go ahead and replace all the gaskets.
In the back of the jeep the carpet is back in and theres some strange stuff going on with some wood back there...
After doing some thinking about what I actually wanted to do with this XJ I decided on going with an overland/expedition build. I got the idea for these boxes by looking at a Land Rover Discovery at the junk yard yesterday. The setup in those rigs is basically the same but of course its all plastic. These will give me a little bit of extra storage without cutting into the sleeping area too much. Here's what they look like inside.
That's right, I said sleeping area! Originally I was thinking I would do a platform with storage underneath, but I liked the idea of having a little more headroom and being able to sit up comfortably in the sleeping area. To extrend the sleeping area in the front I made this box that sits down in the footwells.
Now you might be wondering why I didn't just extend them all the way out to the edges. First off, it will srve as a nice area to toss our shoes when we climb in at night, and second...
We can still fold the seat up and place it back in the cargo area. It has two nice size storage boxes as well. One of the boxes is missing right now. As I type this my only remaining cordless drill battery is sitting on the charger so I can finish up.The only thign I have left to decide is what to do about finishing the boxes. Originally I planned on doing carpet, but I bought some and it didn't match very well and just looked kind of sloppy so I tore it back off. My thoughts are to possible try and paint it to match the plastic trim, bedline it, or maybe cover it in stickers. I hear thats what all the cool kids are doing nowadays. For now its just going to stay bare. I'll post up some more pictures once I'm done.
IN other news, I took another trip to the junkyard yesterday and managed to grab a couple small odds and ends as well as a t-case skid plate from a Liberty. I test fitted it on another XJ at the junkyard and it looks like with very minor modification it will fit very well! I just need to drill mounting holes.
And its finished! Here it is in day/normal driving mode
And here it is in night mode. I definitely will need a smaller air mattress for this setup. The queen thats in there in the pictures is just a wee bit too wide and too long. Once I get a twin in there I think it'll be just about perfect.
Today the plan was to just test fit the new skidplate but I ended up fully installing it! It was much simpler than I thought it would be and I'm actually really surprised I didn't see any other posts where others have done it before. I will probable end up doing a write up on it.
The skidplate in question:
Drilled new mounting holes on the crossmember:
Test fitting the trans and T case:
And here's what it looks like underneath the Jeep!
In total this mod only cost me $20. I used bolts and nuts I had lying around so there was no cost there. I should mention that I believe auto cherokees have a spacer between the cross member and frame so this wouldn't fit quite as perfect, but on my manual cherokee it was as simple as drilling 4 holes! On the frame side I used a couple of self tappers to hold it up for test fitting but I am planning on doing nutserts once I get my new nutsert tool.
All of the netting came from pull-a-part and cost me around $20. Took a lot of searching but I eventually found everything I wanted. Now I have plenty of storage options for camping trips.
01-30-2018, 07:30 PM
