Its a little late on the build thread and I mean very late but this summer I am going to be redoing a lot of things so I figure I should start a thread. Better late than never right? So here is a run down of sorts of what has been done.

I got my 96 jeep cherokee when I was 16 (3 years ago), my dad bought it for me from a family friend for 1200, It was mine as long as my grades where good, I worked, and payed for everything it needed.

Here she is when we first got her. Her name is T-Bird.

The deal was great very low miles I think around 130xxx and since then I've put about 40xxx since then. The previous owner took very good care of it, she was the original owner and had a 3" binder packed with records of everything that she had done to it. Only bad things about it was the faded paint, rust hole in floor (its still their :brickwall), and it's a two door (but now i never want a four door! love 2dr!)

When we got it I don't recall doing a lot of maintenance to it just that when I first got my license and drove her to school the first time the radiator decided its time was up and was shooting anti freeze out like Niagara Falls. That was a little embarrassing at school.

 

I drove the Jeep around for about a year or so before I really modified it. Took me a while to save up for parts. Also around that time My dad and I had brought home this beauty from our farm house in West Virginia. The father and son project. I got more interested in the jeep than the 52 plymouth and sold my half to my dad which got me enough for the lift kit.
I regret selling it to him all the time especially now that its finished .


Now with all my money in order I called up Rough Country and ordered their 4.5" full pack lift. This was the most complete kit I found and was a very reasonable price. I Also got a set of Cragar d-windows and rapped a set of 31" Dunlop Mud Rovers (DO NOT buy these! they are cheap and suck!) I dont have many pictures of the install because it took place around 10-2am with my dad and we were very tired and frustrated.

We got it finished the next night after I got off work and took it for a ride to my Uncles. I had never been so psyched about anything it was so awesome ridding around in it.

I had my second Birthday with the jeep a little after this and that ment jeep goodies! It wasn't much but got one of my favorite mods out of it My Hula Girl!

 

The blank paint wasn't for me but yellow was!






One of the things im going to be redoing this summer is the paint. It was a cheap paint and is starting to fade and offroading has done a lot of damage to it and I want it to still look nice. Getting the dents out is gonna be rough!

 

Scored a Sucro rack for free from a friend!

and also got some warn side plates as a gift from my dad. It really needed something black to break up some of the yellow.



I am the rescue jeep for a few local friends whenever they get stuck they call me its pretty funny except when its late at night and they are stuck in a friends woods or mud pit.

mud pit on the side of the road at a neighbors house silly awd v8 zj's
my friend sold that and got him self a nice wj which we just lifted.



Me and the guy in the zj went to trails road for the first time. this was my very first time offroading.





these pictures remind me I also picked up a sweet winch bumper off ebay for like 300. I believe the guy who made and sold them has been banned from ebay and has really bad rep. At least that's what i heard a few months ago.

 

Man I wish I started this thread when I began the build. Well I'll throw up some interior mods I have done.

so here is the first thing



I grabbed the sound bar out of a family members jeep. they have 2 totaled cherokees so I get to grab all my parts from their. Once i ripped the bar out of the headliner i sprayed it with some paint and popped two pioneer speakers in it.

I also swapped the stinky cassette player with a nice new pioneer head unit. The head unit has a jack for my iPod and I didn't want to spend 30 bucks on some sort of holder so I fabricated my own which looks way better in my own opinion.





Skipping ahead a bit, last year for my birthday I got quadratec floor mats. They are awesome! driver side is showing some wear though.



Last year I bought some lights at the All Breeds show in PA so here is where i put the switch. I'll get to the lights later on.



cut a hole right next to the e-brake and popped the switch in.

sorry for crappy cell pictures.

 

Alright leaving off with the first trip to trails rd I dont think much changed with the jeep except that a guy on the forum (our girlfriends played softball together, small world) gave me some jks quick disconnects for the use of my stock wheels and tires to pass inspection.

My second trip to Trails Rd was a meet and great put together in the maryland thread over on jeepforum.com. On this trip I meet some great guys learned a lot and made some cool friends that I now wheel with monthly.

Here are some pictures enjoy!

Most of us where pretty new to this but here is out fearless leader
jonathoner













the yj wasnt very impressive for all that it had







I haven't looked at these pictures or videos for a while and watching the video I used to be so timid now I know my jeep and my limits and I just go for it. A lot of the guys I met this day also peer pressure me when wheeling today, Im glad I do it though!

 

Since that trip to Trails Rd the next thing modification besides little minor maintenance things I cant remember was trimming the fenders oh and tires.
Well I picked up 2 brand new 33x12.50r15 KM2's for around 250 off craigslist, it was a sweet deal and made a new friend! I bought the other two from NTB for retail price. I mounted them my self which i think may have destroyed our mounting tool (the one they pops the tire off the bead). Good year charged me 60 for balancing which I think was high but they were the only ones near by that had the weights for those tires.

I was pretty hesitant on doing this but knew it had to be done with the new 33s so I spent hours searching for a write up that was clear and Well looked the best. I met a Family, members at the country club where I work and surprisingly they off-road. I talked to them and went over their house when I got off, They had 2 xj's and one jk that they wheeled. When I was their they just finished trimming the XJ's fenders and he showed me the write up he followed which was awesome.

I cant find any pictures from when I did it (got a new computer at one point, some pictures didn't transfer) but here is the write up I followed http://alum.wpi.edu/~kastein/NAXJA/Front1.pdf it allows you to retain factory flares so if you make an ugly cut its ok! you can hide it. I did the trim a little differently but based my moves off of this. I believe i cut around 2-2.5" out of the fender. I never did the back because I had more room for the tires and just didnt get around to it but it is coming soon.

Trying to flex around the house







The passenger side was almost fully stuffed, If I had something a little taller to flex on I could have sat that stock control arm in their.

 

I just started this thread the other day on jeepforum.com so im copying everything over here for now till i get all caught up. Starting a build thread three years later sucks.

 

Nice rig.

 

that last pic you paint your nails lol just messing but i hate you im so jelous of that yellow looks amazing you rattle can it? cause thats something i wanna do

 

thanks man

Ha damn that's my sister didn't even realize that. I used spray guns and set my garage up as a paint booth, I cant remember where I bought the paint from though but it was pretty cheap and is now starting to fade so i'll be repainting sometime soon and have a lot of details to go with it.

 

I'm bout to come to you you redo yours ill do mine Haha always wanted a 2 door in yellow next step is the 5 speed lol and good luck with rest of the build

 

Where do you go to off road?

 

Also good work with the paint.

 

I love the yellow and the rack is really awesome as well. Great job on re-doing the jeep. Total Transformation. Do you have any pictures of the finished 52 plymouth??