OxfordCherokee2

Well I thought I would start a build thread for fun. Im 20 years old and going to school at MTU for chemical engineering. I have owned a Cherokee for 4 years now and have loved them.
My dad bought me a silver 2001 XJ Classic that I left stock for 2 years in high school except for a stereo. I then put on a 3" Zone Offroad lift and JK shocks and a Rough Country track bar. I moved up to 31" BFG All Terrains and Cragar Soft 8s. I also replaced the rear main seal rebuilt the tcase and put in 784 fuel injectors, new spark plugs, all new drums, rotors, pads and brake lines and cylinders to the rear and a new battery. This was done over Christmas break last year and then I took the Jeep back to school at Michigan Tech.
Then in March I rolled the Jeep on to the roof. The city had plowed the snow from the side of the road into the road so it could be collected in semis and moved. We get so much snow in Houghton that this is needed to make room for more snow on the side of the road. I was driving at 1130 at night and did not see this snow bank in my lane until it was too late and over I went. The police told me I should sue the city and that they have warned the city it is dangerous to plow in this manner. However the hassle and court costs would be enourmus seeing as I would have to see them in Houghton, 600 miles from home. I sent the police report and paper work to the city manager to see if they would admit thier wrong and pay for my losses. He sent the info to the city insurance company who claimed it was a state road and MDOT has to pay for it. I looked into that as well but again the only way to get any money was to sue in court in Houghton or Lansing which is 100 miles away plus court costs and a lawyer who is willing to go against the state. Not worth it.
This was absolutely crushing to me. I have always taken good care of my cars and this Jeep was no exception. I spent hours and hours building it and it was totalled only 3 months later. I towed it home with a buddies F250 on a car dolly. I only had liablity coverage so I only got 75$ for the towing which was 140 dollars to flip it up right and tow to the yard.
The Jeep sat behind my parents barn for the whole summer while I was in denial that my Jeep was gone.
So at this point I needed a car. Side note; I am currently on Co Op at Marathon Petroleum in Detroit and I commute from home in Oxford MI which is about 50 miles one way. I knew that I would be driving a lot this fall so I bought myself my first ever new car. A 2013 Dodge Dart Rallye with a 1.4l turbo and a 6 speed manual transmission.



Note: I seem to have lost all the photos of my first XJ before the crash but I will see if I can find any.

So fast forward to September. My parents wanted me to either scrap the XJ or sell the parts but either way it needed to be delt with. So I chose to start looking for donor bodies to move my lift and wheels to. I was looking for anything that wasn't rusted and had a decent interior. I was going to swap everything from motor all the way to the wheels. This is a very challenging thing to do here in MI.
Anyways I found a white 2001 XJ Sport 2wd in Flint and went to go look at it. I had requested the build sheet from chryco prior to going and the build sheet said east Texas which was exciting because if it was in Texas it could be rust free. Amazingly it was nearly rust free. It has a few body dings but as we all know its a Jeep not a Ferrari. So I bought it for 2400$ the motor ran fine and everything worked. I trailered it home thar day.

OxfordCherokee2

So at this point I have lots of pictures so this will be much more interesting. However I have not figured out how to make them show up in the text. I will figure that out soon

OxfordCherokee2

My plan was just to move over my axles and suspension and the trans and transfercase. The eninge in the silver jeep had less mines so the plan was to move that as well but after a compression test the white jeep has better compression.

OxfordCherokee2

So that same day I was very ambitious and I got both front axles out and swapped.

mattthomas78

Awesome work man!

OxfordCherokee2

So that night after I had put the front axle in I started to think about how nice it would be to have the axles sand blasted and painted.
I knew it would be expensive to have it done so I thought I'd do it myself.

I should note my dad has pretty much a full mechanic shop in out barn. We have a hoist, plasma cutter, torch, welder and all the usual tools. The air compressor we have is an 80 gal 5hp so I knew it could handle the sand blasting air requirements.

So I went to Tractor Supply and got a siphon feed sand blaster and 300lb of coal slag blasting media. The siphon style sand blasters will get the job done but its slow. I would not do this my self again with a siphon sand blaster. It took forever to clean both axles and the suspension components. Probably 16 hours of blasting. But in the end this is what I had.

OxfordCherokee2

After sandblasting it all looks much better. The last two photos are the rear axle before hand.

OxfordCherokee2

So now onto the painting. I read and read and read what kind of paint I should use. I went back and forth between the cheap stuff and using something more expensive and in the end I went with both. I put on two coats of Chassis saver antique black and then a coat of Rustoleum satin black. My thought was that the Chassis saver would be tough as nails and stop the rust but the Rustoeulm means quick and cheap touch up. The other thing is I sprayed the Chasis saver but it doesn't spray very well because its so thick. So I had to reduce it quite a bit which led to a streaky finish. So anyways this is what it all looked like after painting.

OxfordCherokee2

So then it all got installed. And the next project was the transmissions and tcase. I had to swap the transmission because the 2wd tranny has a different output shaft so out it came. This was my first trans removal and went pretty straight forward. The white XJ came from Texas and it is amazingly nice to work on. Here in MI working on any used car is a dirty mess. Everything is muddy cause I live on a dirty road and everything has rust. So this Texas Jeep is amazing.

After I got the 2wd tranny out, It was on to the 4wd tranny and the tcase. To get the t case shift linkage out the interior has to be torn apart.

I just rebuilt my transfer case in December last year. So I expected it to be fine. I knew it was leaking so I was going to open it up and reseal it with RTV while it was out. Unfortunately when I opened it up things were not at I would have hoped. When I got it open I found that the case was totally dry and the plastic shift fork pads were wasted. (3rd pic)

OxfordCherokee2

When I rebuilt the case it was not resealed properly and all the fluid had drained out over the summer. There was fluid in the case when I towed it home and it must have all drained out over the summer. When I opened it I realized all the RTV that I put on got squished out of the matting surface and lots of it went into the case causing leaks. So I must have driven it with low fluid and the pads were ground down.

I ordered new pads and installed them and sealed the case properly. The first time I used RTV in December I just put it on and tightened up the case which doesnt give it time to set up. After my proper seal. There are zero leaks.

While I had that trans out I also did a filter change.


Then it all went back into the Jeep.

And I put on the wheels and set it on the ground after a month on jackstands.

OxfordCherokee2

Some photos of how it looks today.

OxfordCherokee2

Next week I will be fabricating shackle relocation boxes to help with my rough ride. I plan on using the some shackles from Autozone that are intended for lowering chevy trucks. I bought the steel just need to figure out how to make them. I think I am going to be making ones just like the HD OFFROAD No Lift shackles. Its a pretty straight forward design.
Ultimately Id like to build JCR lookalike front and rear bumpers with a receiver mounted winch and quick disconnect for front and back. I love the basic JCR front and rear bumpers. I plan on doing cut and fold rear quarters and have the bumper cover that. Lots to come hopefully before Christmas this year but if not then it will happen next summer. I wont be able to do anything while Im at school obviously.

OxfordCherokee2

On another note I know have 3 engine codes.

Cylinder 3 misfire
Torque converter electrical
shift solenoid 2 electrical

The Jeep is shifting fine but I haven't had much chance to drive it yet so I cleared the code and will take it for another drive soon to see if they come back. Hopefully it was a fluke.... a guy can hope right.

royalcherokee

Watching this one for sure. I am right over in the commerce and Waterford area in Michigan.

OxfordCherokee2

Aright so after a busy weekend and week I finaly got back to it. I started to work on my shackle relocation boxes. So I started by unbolting the shocks and shacles and lowering that down. The jeep is on jacks of course.







So then I took the plasma cutter and removed the stock shackle boxes. And I must say that this was the first time ive used a plasma cutter and it is by far the single most fun tool you can use. It cuts steel like butter. I used it on some thicker steel as well last night and it cuts 1/4 inch plate like nothing is there.



So I then moved to the drivers side which is a little scary because you are cutting right near the fuel filler neck. But its not too bad. When I took the sheild down it had 2 inches of dirt in it haha. I will be making the new boxes tmrw and welding/bolting them in on saturday.



I plan on doing the same thing that HD Offroad sells. But I only paid 28$ for the steel and the shackles were 40$ from autozone. I did have to cut them down because I dont want more than an inch of lift but either way. Its way cheaper than the 90$ the people sell the same shackles for.