Tomimal & Tanimal's- 1993 Cherokee Country Build Thread
 

Hello and welcome to the start of my father (Tomimal) and my (Tanimal) build thread. We just picked up a 1993 Cherokee Country yesterday for $1000 bucks! 140k miles on the clock and runs strong. Tanimal currently has a 2008 Jeep Wrangler 2 door daily driver being slowly built so this is going to be a new world for the both of us. This rig is going to be Tomimals for trail runs with Tanimal. Hopefully the names don't confuse you to much. We will update this as we go along for a winter project. Currently we believe it sits on a Rustys 4 inch suspenion lift and 31s, 4.0 inline 6 auto trans and power windows and locks and tan leather interior. Again this is a new world to us so forgive the lack of knowledge!
Attachment 355737

Did some work on the Jeep today. Have a couple pictures to update you folks with.
Pulled front diff cover off and the gears look great. Replaced the fluid, breather line, and front diff cover with the D30 cover and bolts from my Jeep. If you notice in the picture that the front drive shaft hanging down..
Attachment 355360
Replaced the front axle pinion seal and we broke two bolts off inside the yolk where the clamp holds the Spicer to the yolk...Hopefully that makes sense..
Attachment 355361
Drilling those broken bolts out of the yolk..
Attachment 355362
Rethreading the yolk
Attachment 355363
Unfortunately we drilled the last bolt out incorrectly and destroyed the yolk after all that hard work. So we sucked it up and ordered a new yolk offline for 45 bucks and also ordered a new tie rod, drag link, steering stabilizer, and upper and lower ball joints.
More pics and updates to come soon!

Got a very important mod done today:

Garage heater! Garage was already prewired with a thermostat, ventilation, and gas.

Picture of us getting measurements and where it's going to sit.
Attachment 354371

Picture of back side with nothing hooked up but you can see everything we had to work with that was already done for us:
Attachment 354372

Everything is hooked up and working which will make a nice comfortable work environment. Sorry I didn't snap a picture of it hanging there all complete from the front. I'll grab one tomorrow because we should be doing some more work.
Attachment 354373

Tanimal, I'm a newbie as well and have a '93 Cherokee Sport 2 door that I am just starting to mod. Bought an RC 4.5" lift and installed that last days off. This is the first Jeep I've owned but I've had plenty of 4x4s so this is all new to me as well. Looking forward to seeing your build!!

Great thanks for following! Sorry it might be kind of slow but I'll try to update it as often as possible.

Decided we were going to replace the valve cover gasket since it had some small leaking and as we were in the process of doing so we had a couple other things go wrong :)

Valves look good and no sludge.
Attachment 352425


Valve cover put back on and new valve cover gasket installed.
Attachment 352426

We broke the heater control module and all the brittle hoses that connect to it as we were taking the hoses off to get to the valve cover.
Attachment 352427

Close up of the broken heater control module.

Attachment 352428


New heater control module installed and new hoses installed.

Attachment 352429

We also decided to replace the thermostat since we were right there anyhow.

Attachment 352430

Next we will be doing front end work. So stay tuned!

Nice work so far. Saw your from Chicago. You should check out ddoffroad.com, we are always looking for more XJs to join the club.

Decided to take care of the floor first because as we were fixing the transfer case linkage we noticed the floor was rusted pretty bad. Ripped everything out of the inside including the carpet.

Attachment 351495

Decided to start cutting the floor out because we will be welding in new stuff. Here's Tomimal at work:

Attachment 351496

Here's a picture of the passenger side, we got a lot of it cut out today but still a lot more to be done:

Attachment 351497

Got all the front floors hacked out:

Attachment 349778

Driver's Side: (Don't worry that little rust spot you see toward the middle of the floor has been hacked out also)

Attachment 349779

Passenger Side:

Attachment 349780

Will be flux core welding the floor/rock panels/rock sliders in so updates will be coming soon...hopefully

This is looking good so far!! I also have a 93 thats fairly similar as my floors are also toast and has about 4" of lift.

Picked up a set of 35x12.5R15 KM1s on some beadlocks off craigslist. Rolled them up to the XJ today to see about fitment and now the question is to hack or not to hack (and downsize) Hmmm...

Attachment 349283

Anyone local interested in the 35s, I think we are convinced to downsize to 33s. We have 4 35x12.5r15 KM1s and 1 procomp of the same size. Just shoot me a message.

So decided we will definitely be downsizing to 33s so if you're interested please let me know. We just have them listed on craigslist so we'll see how long they last.

We got around to welding some floor in today and placing the floor pans for fitment. We also hacked off the rusted rocker panels and have the new rocker panels clamped into place. I've got a decent amount of pictures for you folks so enjoy:

Looks like a blizzard decided to roll in:
Attachment 348913

Got the generator all fired up for consistent power to our little welder:
Attachment 348914

Little flux core welder that we will be doing all the welding with:
Attachment 348915

New rocker set and clamped:
Attachment 348916

Attachment 348917

Top view of the rocker and you can see we have the floor pans in place and welded in some pieces for the top of the foot wells (don't mind the purple iPhone case, it was an extra case laying around the house and Tomimal has no shame):
Attachment 348918

Here is the rear trunk and we have a nice chunk cut out:

Attachment 348919

Hopefully I'll have even more pictures later today because we are just taking a break right now. All in all this has been a really fun project considering we have no metal fabrication skills or experience prior to this and I only took one intro to welding class for Arc and Oxy and Flux Core is very...interesting :2thumbsup:

Picked up a set of rock slider off craigslist today. Seller said he thought they were Rocky Road Outfitters but was unsure. They have surface rust over the entire rails but the metal is still solid and won't be an issue for us to work our magic and make these things look new again:

Attachment 348758

In the deal we also picked up a JCR front bumpers and JCR rear bumper. I don't have any pictures right now but hopefully soon.

I can never come across stuff like this on CL... I need a front bumper myself. What were you searching when you found the listing for those?