Got Tahoe covered if you need to retreat to higher ground.

 

I got Kentucky covered!!

 

Cleveland Ohio is good to go

 

I haven't done much to my Jeeps lately but I have plans to do some small things to the red Jeep next week. On a much more exciting note, my brother came home this week fresh outta USMC and bought a XJ off a friend of a guy I work with. It's pretty slick, the guy has a room full of trophies he's won with it running in the "stock" class on the local rough truck circuit. Motor and suspension are stock for now. The body is removed from the doors back. It's has a partial cage and all the windows and interior removed. My bro bought it to thrash around in the woods. Let me tell you, that thing all stripped down will SCOOOOOT. Here's some pics, you Ohio guys may recognize it. He just joined, here's the build thread: https://www.cherokeeforum.com/f46/no...erokee-193743/ He's done a good bit already to switch it from 2 minute runs to long trail rides.

 

Las Vegas is too much to handle! I'm going to have to retreat to an undisclosed location in the desert.
-731

 

Dude that thing is ridiculous!
How have i not seen this thing?

 

Yea it's pretty awesome. It's strictly off road so you won't be seeing it around town. You wouldn't believe how quick these things can scoot with all that weight reduction.

 

Makes some sense though. The Cherokee is already decently lightweight (Ironically lighter than my Avenger was) so even less weight would probably be quite noticeable.

So whats in the pipeline in the near-term for your four door?

 

Glad you ask. I've actually had a little time and some extra cash to do a few mods I've been putting off. I actually sold the 2-door this week. I got $3,300 out of it, cash money. For a profit of $2,300. I was pretty happy about that.

About a week ago I resprayed the bedliner all the way around the red Jeep. The roll on I used had faded badly and turned a shade of gray. Yesterday I pieced together a cold air intake. I bought the filter and a small tube and left the bottom of the box in for support and to shield it from the manifold. I was suprised by the throttle response. I had low expectations from a performance perspective. I was very suprised.



Today I dropped it off at the exhaust shop (don't be jealous the best exhaust place in SE Ohio is walking distance from my house). I got a high-flow converter, a Magnaflow muffler, all plumbed with stainless 2.5" pipe. I had the tip tucked tight to the bumper for ground clearance. I got it welded and clamped for added support on the trails. Sounds great. Deep under acceleration, quiet at idle and under normal driving. It's not obnoxious, I don't like obnoxious and raspy. I have a built LS1 Camaro for when I want to make some noise.

 

Rod's, i assume?

yeah i still need work done to mine, there are no hangars past the cat and the muffler itself is cracked. Tires are more important to me though.

Curious about your intake job though, i was always leery of changing it for fear of making it vulnerable to ingesting dust ad such.

 

Yes

That's why you run a filter....

 

Well I haven't been eaten by Zombies but I have done a couple things to the ZAV lately. Nothing real exciting, thus the delay in updating the thread.

I had a caliper stick shut on me a couple weeks ago. Sucker was stuck good enough to leave a smoke trail. I was a couple miles from home and I just said **** it a new rotor and pads are cheaper than a tow truck. In the end it gave me an excuse to get new rotors, calipers, and pads. Luck would have it I lost the seal in a brake cylinder on the rear two days later. It was actually the first time I had every replaced one and was surprised how simple it was. Just like a woman, I give something else some attention and it throws a temper-tantrum. Yep, so I got that going for me.

On a slightly more exciting note; I went the bedliner-headliner route after much back-and-forth. The majority of the time I wheel, I do so with the doors off. The mud and water was the demise of the stock liner. I was wanting something I can easily wash crud off of this time around.

I forgot to take a before picture. I love seeing the shell behind interior panels. I don't know why but I've always been fascinated with the way the overspray looks.


I started using a putty knife, It didn't do too bad.



I switched to a stiff bristled brush. It was much faster.



I used about a can and 1/2 of Duplicolor spray on bedliner.





I'm pretty happy with it for $18 and 4 hours, including dry time. I believe there were 23 screws to remove counting sun-visors (no over head console). Pretty easy job. If anyone wants to do it, just be careful with the board. It is much lighter and much more fragile than I anticipated.

 

Headliner looks awesome. That's something I'm putting on my list of to-dos for my Jeep.

 

Well I finally got around to pulling the trigger on the rear disc brake swap. With so many parts to collect, and me needing a new floor jack, I had been dragging my feet. A few days ago, I finally found a clean looking set of disc backing plates on eBay at a decent price and jumped on them.

The first step for this project was going to Harbor Freight and picking up a new jack. This low profile 3-ton was on sale this week. I thought this one looked pretty sweet so I adorned it with some of my sticker collection:



Pretty excited to use my jack now that it has 10 extra horsepower with the JEGS stickers:




aaaand we have first blood.... and I don't even have the wheels off yet. Pretty typical of how things go when I work on stuff.




You can say things have gotten pretty serious:




The Jeep Parts Fairy has arrived:



I grabbed these on eBay for like $130. Disc backing plates, calipers, and prop valve (not pictured) off a 1998 Grand Cherokee:



I took the calipers in for core ($40) and grabbed some new ones. Along with new rotors, wheel studs, e-brake kit with shoes, and some other hardware to mount the backing plates.

Here is the write-up I followed:
http://www.jeepforum.com/forum/f11/z...-truth-607435/

Here is the Youtube video I watched 60 times:

I have a hard time wrapping my head around how this stops anything:


Other side was broken:


I got everything stripped off pretty quickly:



I forgot to get pictures of the Prop Valve swap. I ended up just taking the valve, spring, and cap off the ZJ unit and switching them over to the existing XJ unit. It was terribly simple, took maybe 3 minutes. I found putting the e-brake together to actually be difficult. I took the levers out to grease them (notorious for parking brake failure on ZJ's) and couldn't remember how they went back in. It was my first time doing one and I only had the video to go by. Hopefully its right. Seems right:



aaaand SECOND BLOOD



Everything has been pretty straight forward so far. I haven't come to any hurdles yet. I figured I'd quit for the day while I was ahead. I don't have heat in the garage so it was getting cold. I hope to finish the install tomorrow.