Cerveja

Started laying out the front end and getting the tie rod ends and DOM Tubing put together. In version one, we tried putting the Heim Joints on top of the knuckles for the Tie Bar, but there simply wasn't room.


Due to the Diff Cover and Lower Spring perches, we had to custom bend an offset Tie Bar. We used 0.25 1"ID tubing and did a double bend on both ends. It came out fantastic, but I was never happy with it. I just removed it today and upgraded it and version three will be much better.

Cerveja

So with only days to go, it was back to the interior. Seats still needed installing, E-Lockers needed power, Compressor switches required juice, lots to do.....

Like every other Cherokee owner on the planet, the cheesy plastic bracket under the center console was trashed and in need of replacement. So with some scrap steel and using my busted up one for a template I cobbled together this thing. It's semi embarassing, but it didn't need to be pretty, nobody would ever see it again.


Lots of wires to run for the lockers, reverse lights, compressor and overhead light bar. Hiding the relays was a little tough but I managed to get most of them oppositte the parking brake....which still isn't hooked up yet....


Built a custom power distribution center to power all the accessory switches and to run a heavy gauge wire back to the compressor. Mounting the plastic block off the Shifter bracket insulated the wiring and gave me a good tie in spot to tap into and not worry about having lots of loose hot wires floating around under the center console trim.


Tested all the circuits and started the reassembly process. You can see the Locker Switches in front of the Transfer Case Lever. I modified the Fog Light/Defroster/Wiper switch panel to eliminate the cigarette lighter and widened the panel to add more switches. Found some TJ Switches; the glossy ones on the right; to fit the extra locations. They don't match the XJ Switches perfectly, they are obviously glossier and they are not back lite; but if your XJ switches need replacement, they are much cheaper than what you find on E-Bay and snap right into our exsting panels.

Cerveja

IT'S ALIVE!!!!!!

She's fairly road worthy. I mean she hadn't left the garge under her own power since January, so the simple fact that the engine started, didn't catch fire and actually stopped at the end of the driveway was promising. Off to the alignment shop to make sure the front and rear axles were squared up and the tires were all pointing in the right direction.


Back from the alignment shop and off to the muffler shop. The Previous Owner removed the cat and cut the O2 sensor out causing the "Check Enginer Light" to burn eternally. He also had the the muffler right where the Upper Rear RH Control Arm for the four link was going. So off to a local shop running open headers to squeeze in an exhaust sytem.


Took advantage of the down time to give the garage a much needed facelift. For six months I had tools, parts, boxes, instruction manuals, stickers, dirt, floor dry, and metal shavings scattered everwhere. Spent a solid day just cleaning the place out...it didn't last long though. We had to leave in a few days and there was plenty of scrambling to do to be ready to leave.

Cerveja

Literally, days before I leave I am still throwing parts at the truck. Not to mention I still haven't flexed it yet and little things would start needing attention. Apparently the axle and body combination weren't agreeing with each other and it didn't take long for the exhaust flange to contact the driveshaft and knocked the weight off.


I wasn't driving half-way across the country to wheel without a spare set of axle shafts, so I pulled out the stock JK Axles and dropped in a set of CV Style joints that should hold up just fine. In the rare event they do break, I would have the stock ones in the back to swap back in place.


Welded up the JCR Rear Bumper and have it semi mounted. I didn't have time to paint it, so it's a little rustier now than when it left the garage. I still wanted to add a tire carrier to it, so I would have had to re-paint it after I got home and welded the tire carrier in place anyways.


I snatched up one of the few available Fender Flares from Notch Customs. Yet another item that didn't get paint before leaving. At first I wasn't crazy about how much I had to cut out of the fenders to match the flares, but I knew I needed the clearance, so it had to be done. But I think it looked great once it was finished and didn't appear to have monsterous gobs of space in the wheel wells like I first thought. I even kinda like the molded grey color, but this winter I think I am going with body color, although some folks are telling me to go black.


I had looked at a couple different gas tank skids and in the end I wound up fabricating my own nut strips for the unibody and building a custom fit gas tank rock guard. We didn't have a bender that could bend the 3/16" steel in the width that I was working with. So individual strips of steel and lots of mig wire did the trick.

Cerveja

Shake Down trip went way better than expected. She ran down the highway real smooth and could handle 80+ mph in the flat. The mountains in Colorado would prove a bit more challenging. The trip was plagued with fasteners loosening up. I unfortunately just didn't have time to go through and retorque all the bolts, safety wire and locktight everything before leaving. So I spent a fair amount of time checking nuts and making sure nothing worked it's way loose without me knowing about it.

We lost a rear caliper someplace in Iowa forcing us to do a brake job in the parking lot of the local autozone. A couple of the Heim Joint Bolts worked loose on the trail, but nothing catastrophic and each one was found before anything let completely loose.

We took about two-days to make our way out from Detroit and were rewarded with great weather, awesome company, some terrific rigs and a lifetime experience.

We got to see the beautiful black JK from Mac's Custom Tie Downs in action.


Tom Wood came out in his extremely capable ZJ and checked out the damage from the exhaust manifold on his (well they are mine now) driveshafts.


While most of the group had a buggy, or a Wrangler of some vintage, including a couple XJ's, ZJ's there were a couple Toyota's including this phenomonal LandCruiser. This all aluminum body Cruiser was painted solid orange and then using a standard die grinder and lots of grinding discs carved the mountain scape into the door and fenders. If you think it looks good in the picture, to see it in person was beyond impressive.


After months of wrenching and a stack of credit card bills, the little Cherokee finally got her feet dirty. I don't have any good flexing pics, but I can tell you from the cockpit that she flexes pretty damn good.


Colorado in Late June and there was still snow up in the mountains. Behind me is my good friend and dedicated welder/fabricator that helped put this build together. Lots of Pizza, tons of beer, more than a few late nights, and plenty of laughs. A couple months before I started working on the Cherokee, he tore into the Hummer H3 lifting it about 4 inches and prepping it for the same trip out West. Thanks for all the help Daryl, I couldn't have done it without you!!!


Day one of the trip had us driving up a dried up river bend with boulders the size of houses. One of which caught the newly installed Notch Custom's Fender Flare on the Passenger side rear door. Now I wasn't going but maybe a couple miles an hour when the vehicle shifted and crashed into the vertical wall of rock. It stopped the truck cold and loosened the attaching bolt on the flare. Like their website says, these things are nearly indestructible. It needed a little repairing when I got home, but it's all back together and just needs a little finese and some paint.

Cerveja

Looks like I had a double post from last night. So Saturday Morning Daryl and I said good bye to all the great friends we met in Colorado and started working our way to Utah. Hit one last trail in Colorado before crossing the border Sunday morning. Here we are somewhere along Black Bear Pass stopping to enjoy the sights on the way into Telluride.


Finally Made it to Utah, We are going to hit up Kane's Creek frist before getting a hotel in Moab for the week.


Kane Creek started pretty mild, crawling along a dried up river bed. It would have gotten interesting if the river was flowing, but in Last week of June, a flooded river bed was not a concern.


It got real crazy towards the end with a couple of climbs after where the ATV and OHV trail split off from each other. We didn't need to winch out, but did have to choose our line carefully in a number of spots so we didn't wind up like this guy...


Took a little break in Canyon Lands to enjoy the scenary. Both the Hummer and I had been working both trucks hard now for nine days in a row. Utah temperatures were a hundred plus and both trucks were handling the heat fairly well.


Day three in Moab had us going through the back trails around Arches National Park. We met up with Steve and Steven (Father & Son from Colorado) from the Hummer Forum. They were running a basically stock H3 with 31's and open differentials and a winch. Even in basically stock trim he did really well. I think he left us that trip with a long grocery list of upgrades he wanted to start installing.


Day four had us running Hell's Revenge and following a group of Wranglers. We opted not to run Hell's Gate, which I regret not doing. But the XJ ran TipOver Challenge and made it look easy. Which really made me want to turn around and run Hell's Gate.....Opportunity Missed


For the last day of wheeling, the Hummer had to go home early so we hooked up with Bill and Gail in the hotel as I was replacing the fan control resistor in the parking lot. They took us up to "Top of the World' and then onto "Fins and Things" and across the "Little Lions Back" as the full size version has been closed for years. We than headed back to the hotel to watch July 4th Fireworks from the pool.

Cerveja

Friday July 5th in Moab was shaping up to be another hot one, so we packed up early and started making our way back home to Michigan. The day started out slowly as the Jeep was developing a random death wobble and the steering was getting loose. It was going to be a long +600 miles with questionable steering. I pulled over several times between Moab and Vail Colorado before giving up on the problem. I had snugged and re-snugged every bolt on the front end in search of the culprit and finally concluded the only movement was in the steering box and there wasn't anything that I could do on the road.

So with three days and lots of miles ahead of us we opted to head a little farther North and stop in and see the sights around South Dakota. We made it up to Rushmore late Friday night and headed over to Crazy Horse in the morning. If you haven't made it over to see either of these monumental acheivements, I recomend you add it to your bucket list. Don't wait for Crazy Horse to be finished as that could be centuries away.... It is entirely privately funded and they have turned down government funding on a couple of occasions. So while your hard earned tax dollars may be purchasing $25,000 hammers in bulk, none of those hammers will be smashing rocks in South Dakota.





One of the reasons, Crazy Horse has denied public funding is because they want to see the project finished to "FULL" completion. Unlike Mt Rushmore which had much bigger plans at it's inception and was only completed from the neck up.





We could have stayed much longer than we did, especially at Crazy Horse. But we had planned on catching the Ferry across Lake Michigan to avoid Chicago and we could only catch the 6am boat rather than the Noon like we had planned. So we drove non-stop since noon at Mt Rushmore to 5am Sunday morning to catch a boat.

It was an expensive shortcut, but a good chance to catch some much needed rest from behind the wheel before finishing the trip back home.

Cerveja

It wasn't long after getting back home until the Cherokee was back in the garage. The Steering box was removed and boxed up and on it's way to West Texas Off Road for a Hydro Assist kit. I opted to lose the Heavy Offset Tie Bar and single ended cylinder and upgraded to a PSC Double ended cylinder so I could install what amounts to a three piece Tie Bar System.


After a little drama and some shipping problems the rebuilt Steering Box was modified at West Texas to accept the Hydro Kit and the new cylinder was received back from PSC. The plan is to bolt the Cylinder Body just right of the diff cover and run two smaller Tie Bars out either end to the knuckles.


In trouble shooting the loose steering and random death wobble I found a couple things going bad. The first: the holes in the knuckles which the Original Owner of the axles had de-tapered so he could run a straight 5/8 bolt for the Heim Joints. The holes were getting a little wallowed out and the bolts weren't fitting very tight. So I got rid of the 5/8 bolts and high misalignment spacers which let me swap to larger 3/4 bolts. I retapped the knuckles for a 3/4-10 thread so I can thread the bolts right into the knuckles.


The threaded knuckles is just to tighten the joint and get rid of the slop. I still plan to put a locking nylon nut on the top side and saftey lock it with saftey wire or a cotter pin. But for set-up and build purposes, just holding things in place to get the DOM cut to length will be fine for now. The second issue: the Ball Joints were starting to fail. There was between a sixteenth to an eighth inch of axial play along the rotation centerline of the knuckle. JK's are known for having weak ball joints, so a greaseable set of Synergy's will be here on Tuesday. That should tighten the steering up 1,000% and make the front end much easier to dial in and align.

Driver X

Nice build and awesome pics! Crossing Kane Creek after a thunderstorm is not fun. I have seen a few get washed while trying to cross. And that vehicle in the valley isn't the first. I almost lost my Xterra there too when the cliff decided to give way during that thunderstorm. Backing up 100' in mud during a storm is not fun. Try turning around on that portion too!

Did you take any pics at Top of the World? Also, are you running an air tank with the Viair? If so, where and how is it mounted?

Cerveja

The picture with the Green Wrangler was from the "Top of the World". I did take a few other's but I haven't posted them here cause I didn't want to get too far off topic. Kane Creek was soo hot and dry it was almost funny since it was supposed to be a 'raging river with a billion portages' and we couldn't even get our tires wet.

As for the Viair, I installed a small propane cylinder directly above the pump, but you can't see it until you are upside down and looking up at the roof inside the rear quarter. It's pretty tiny and I currently have a small air leak that I need to fix. So I don't know if the tank is too small to be effective or the leak is too big to keep the demand off the compressor. I suspect once I fix the leak the small cylinder will have some capacitance, but probably not much. I may have room to mount a second cylinder in that same arear closer to the seat belt retracotr, but tightening the plumbing lines in that area is already tight enough, adding more lines and more fittings is only going to congest it more. I had planned to mount it under the rear passenger seats where the factory jack used to be, but I like that area better for tool storage so I squeezed it into the rear quarter instead.

Roblaza

Love the XJ, man. It looks awesome! Good work!

884x4

man I wish I had the funds/skills to throw locked d44's under my jeep with a 4 link rear!
awesome XJ!!!

Cerveja

It's been a fairly long road and the fun (or funding) still continues. I only wanted to build it once and didn't want to have to keep breaking it and replacing it and doing it again every single time it left the garage. So I figured if I built it tougher than how I intend to use it and took the time to build it right the first time, I could actually get to enjoy it more than constantly repairing and upgrading.

As my first truck build, I don't know that I have Killa Skills as one would think. Taking your time and thinking things through goes a long way. I unfortunately don't have great welding skills (Okay, I'm terrible) but beer and pizza have gone a long way to getting things well constructed. If you can weld and have access to a decent array of tools, I think the four link upgrade is an awesome package. The springs I took off seemed pretty strung out, like they were curved to about their limits. I am not running a SuperCharge Hemi or anything, but axle wrap and just how things looked underneath needed to be addressed. I feel way better about the four link than a tall shackle over sprung leaf pack.

Cerveja

Found a few more trip pictures from some other folks from Colorado.







Glad someone else had a camera since I had so few of my own.

Cerveja

Trying to get caught up in the garage once again. Finished fab'ing the brackets for the Hydro Assist Cylinder. Previous Owner had a coupe heavy duty tabs welded to the diff cover for a similar set-up. I was never too crazy about putting all that force into the diff cover, so I added another tab to the passenger side axle to support the cylinder.



Good to have the Cylinder hanging on it's own. I wound up with a different routing on the hydraulic lines. I may go back and change the fittings on the ends of the lines to eliminate the adapter fitting and improve the flow thru the system. I will run it as is for a while and make sure nothing is contacting or rubbing before changing the lines over.



Finally got the right size DOM tubing for the new Tie Rod Bars. Local metal shop kept giving me the wrong stuff; well "giving" might be the wrong term. Either way they finally realized they had some mis-labeled stock and swapped out the incorrect ones for the size I needed.



Replaced the notoriously weak JK factory ball joints over the weekend. Swapped in a set from Synergy and found the lowers were super loose and all over the place. Things are fitting a lot tighter and one more tiny ounce of play removed from the system. I dig this pic. Not sure why. Would probably look better with a clean floor and without tools scattered everywhere.