sweet looking front end... curious to c how things turned out...

 

I love this rig and I want to do the FJ lights on mine too if i kick the axle forward.

 

The Conversion........

Most ALL of my old photo's of the fabrication have been lost, there were some in photobucket, but also lost......if I find somehow find some searching through old forum archives, I will edit & add them.

It's one thing to just install roundy rounds, but how do you make it all work? I decided I was going to introduce 1-1/4" (OD) tube at the same time, wrapping the nose & creating solid flares.



I removed the facia and removed the old headlight areas.....completely, the base of the facia was also removed.....
I whipped up a cardboard template, tracing the outter ring of the CJ light buckets....(gotta keep it Jeep!)....trim, hold them in place, trim....trim....I kept doing this until I found what I wanted....the pattern was then transfered to 1/8" steel, cut, smoothed, CJ buckets cut in, drilled, tapped....done..
Behind the facia is the steel (I say that lightly) header, after some light notching and a bend.....I found the sweet spot & tacked them in.
The tube was then introduced, it worked out really well, I sectioned it in and today.....6 or 7 years later, it's held up exceptionally.
The front fenders were trimmed WAY back to accept the tube, the front portion of the fender was actually rolled down and around the new headlight areas, welded & ground smooth.....




Having to stay legal, I needed side markers........I looked at my stock ones and decided I could work with them, I basically reshaped the light using a belt sander as much as possible, created a nest for them & mounted them up. The lower steel around the base & top of the lights is 5/16" stainless steel round rod welded in place.




End results have again, held up very well.......6-7 years later.....



Once the fabrication was complete, I primed all the bare steel, then went to my local Tractor Supply store for some black impliment paint & hardener.
End result in finished paint.....




It came out great, just what I wanted, I was happier than a tornado in a trailer park!!



Next.....the quicky bumpa'.....

 

that came out really really nice. deffinatly staying tuned to see how this tranformation happened as well as soak up the humor. thank you for posting in such a manner and keep up the great work

 

this is such an awesome jeep...love the fab work on the frontend...looks like i'll be copy'n somebody haha

 

Let me take a minute here...........

If you have no intrest, watch this instead...............




What you're looking at is the BackBone winch mount system & the old pre-runner bar set up......( http://www.detoursusa.com/xjbackbone.php )

Your reuse your factory skins......or fab up your own bumper from the system......



I'll be working on a new pre-runner bar set up very soon, it will work with any BackBone purchased since 2009.

Okay.......back to what ever I was talking about..

 

That looks freakin awsome. How many labor hours did u have in the fab?

 

gonna watch this!

 

The quicky front bumper........was pretty much that, I took a BackBone System, mounted it up, and built the around it........



Basically, I did'nt want to obstruct my tires, it's a stubby of sorts.
I incorperated Whalen LED's as turn signals, and just kept it to a minimum, coating is Duplicolor bedliner rattle can..........it's a crappy bedliner for a truck, but an excellent choice for bumpers, slyders and things of that nature......

From there.........I basically went wheeling again for the next year......



Back then, the list of mods looked something like this.......

Neon Disco free interior
Cowl snorkle
1" throttlebody spacer
Unibody Stiffy System with Slyders (Detours)
Slimline Rear Bumper/Carrier (Detours)
5" short arm lift (mixed parts)
Grandprix louvers in hood
33" Maxxis BigHorns (Nice Tires!)
Custom nose job
Superwinch Ep9000
Battery relocated to rear of vehical........

Otherwise, stock axles, 3:73 gears, open diff's........

Truth be told, I was loosing intrest in the XJ...............I had another dirty little secret I was working on.........

 

The nose job took alot of preplanning and about 18 hours (2 days) to complete without final paint.......final paint took about 4 hours.

 

i'm gonna follow this one

 

As I said.................I was loosing intrest in the Cherokee, it was okay and all but I felt I was missing something my previous Jeeps offered, which was just the door free, raw, open air feel of "Jeep"..........My wife and I had the his & her YJ thing going on at one time, but fell into XJ's somehow, again...his & hers.....and hers was better than mine for sometime....

Anywho.........I bought a CJ for short money (8 bills) .......not many folks around me knew what I was up to..........it was a dirty little secret, and thats exactly what I named it.........again with a bunch of left over parts, some used parts.......it could easilly do this........


I did'nt tell the wife I bought it at first, when she found out, she looked like this......


But........after a few beers.........


And a little........you know...............s m o o t h i n g over..........


She was kool with the new build.......

But then, HUH????
The new build all of a sudden became...............less than feasible..
Dead in the water.............

 

Great Thread !!

 

So when your woman gets pissed she turns into a hot chick with a whip...DAMN that's kinky .

 

.................it could happen...