i wanna do the waggy front swap on mine i always liked the waggy front clips

Another complete read thru on this build. Lovin all of it. Nice rig and nice work!!! Another one I'll keep reading on. Looking forward to the next posts and add ons

Thanks man! I was just thinking on the 31st of this month it will be a year since i started this build thread. Man it's come a long way.. but still a long way to go! Things to accomplish in the next year:

Get this front end back on... I will also be painting my winch turquoise, bumpers black, and running my winch controller hook up to inside the cab, and moving the winch box under the hood. Hopefully most this will be done this weekend.

Try not to roll it before the EXO is done.

New seats front and rear... possibly aftermarkets?

Hydro-assist installed. Pretty much have everything now.

Get the rockers cut out and 2 x 6 box steel welded in.

Build some 1/4 panel guards.

Build a cage.. going to be a hybrid. Half inside and half outside the Jeep.

Get some decent tires and down size.. maybe to 35's? Unless I get some alloys for the front end before tires, then i'll stay 37's.

Finally finish and paint my half doors. Make doors removable.

That should give me a good year of projects I hope. In between all that keep wheeling and fixing it.

Waggy front end ROCKS! it's the sexyest front end on any XJ. I'm putting 1 on my 2 door...

Great build, nice pics.

the prob im having is locating one that isnt still on the road

do some aftermarket seat. be able to double strap yourself in

i tottaly understand. i got bored on mine and bought a cj5 lol so now i have two projects

Sneak peak of the new "waggy sport" front end. Not quite finished yet, but got a lot done yesterday.


And I got a little bored... my winch.


What do you think of the new front end?

WOW, that must be a big winch. the motor is bigger than your air compressor! hahaha

waggy front end look great, waaaaay better than the previous front end.

Ha ha... I figured go big or go home.

looks awsome

Been watching your rig pretty closely on the forum for some time. I too have the ford 44 with the cast "C's" and lengthened stock radius arms. I found an extra set of stock arms to "wrist" one side because I was worried about the inherent "torsion bar" effect of the stock ford radius arms. I wanted to ask you before I cut and wrist one of the spare arms it you have any thoughts about any limitations you have noticed on the trails with your set up? You are the only guy I have seen on here running the same set up and doing anything serious with it. If you were doing it over, would you use the same front joints, etc? Did you consider 'wristing' one of the arms when you built it or after?
From your posts and pics and videos, I am having serious second thoughts about doing anything different with mine ( other than replacing the rubber frame-to-radius-arm joints with Johnny Joints or Ballistic Joints ).

By the way, I think it is really cool that you take your kids out on the trail with you. The whole reason we got the XJ was to carry our grandkids out on the trails till they get old enough to ride on their own.

thanks again for taking the time to share your build and rides with the rest of us. I know it takes precious time to post all this stuff.

Yeah man, you sent me a link to your photo page, I checked your rig out. It looks like a pretty good setup. So far the only issues I am having with it right now is the C Bushings pushing out the side of the arm when I flex it out hard. I think the way my coil buckets are mounted is affecting it quite a bit, i am going to move the coil bucket mounts off of the arms, build a bracket over the top of the arms and mount the coil buckets above the arms. I think this will help a ton. I really do not want to wrist one of the arms. I think if moving the buckets doesn't fix it completely I will build some guards on the side of the arms to hold the bushings in. It hasn't been a huge problem, but after a few days of wheeling the bushings start pushing out. Other than problem I am loving it so far. I did break an outer shaft last trip to Moab, that sucked. I am convinced that shaft was already hurt though. When I bought the axle the right side U joint was broken and trashed, so he had been beating it pretty hard. I never inspected the shafts when I put the new U joints in, but i'm pretty sure the shaft had to have been hurt previously.

And of course I get the kids out, they love going out wheeling: both to be in the Jeep, and out in the dirt. I wish my wife loved the Jeep as much as them, I'd be set.

I try to share as much about the build as I can, help give people some ideas of what, and what not to do. But yeah, it does take some time and I don't always get everything I want into the thread. But I do the best I can.

SO.... from the weekend... got some stuff done, but not everything I wanted to.

Had the winch off, and thought what the hey.. tore it down, hit it with some sand paper, cleaned it up and shot it with some turquoise.






I think it looks pretty cool.

I cleaned up, prepped, removed the pin stripe off the header panel, primed and painted the new front grille and header panel....





First I painted the bumper black...


Wasn't real hip on it.. went down to get some new paint for the bumpers, took the kids with me.. and well, some how they ended picking out the color... and... yeah I know... We'll see how long I can stand it... I think they're going back to silver.



While I was at it I decided to move the control box for the winch to the bottom of the bumper to get it out of the way and for a cleaner look...


No more control box on top of the winch..


The wires come up just behind the grille, so you won't be able to see any of the wiring once the grille is installed.


I found some headlight bezels in California, should have them in a week or so. I am running the plug in for the winch controller into the center console, i'll post pics of it as I go. Should be a pretty slick setup.