Well guys, I got a question for yall, I have a few MAyor problems with my xj, 1st being lots of RUST AND ROTTTTT, second i broke my uppercontrol arms and bracket on axel.


My question is do i part her and scrap it or buy another jeep and put my parts in it. ( this is the tricky part, buying a house and wont have extra cash for a while to buy another xj) OR do i try and fix the rott problem.

I am very mechanical inclinded and can weld pretty good. I own a plasma cutter, torches and a welder, I know i can do this if i want to but im wondering how over my head i will be getting if i decided to tackle it.

If i do so i plan on using a sheet of 18gauge carbon steel some scrapes i have and ordering some 2x6 3/16 thick tube for the rockers.


Hear are some pics of the carnage. My main concern ( stryctual wise ) is where the control arms mount to body and where real leafs mount to body,












Axle tab bent, Anyone have a pic of a straigt one?

 

Mines got the same kind of rot in the rockers, im just gonna cut off what i can of the old ones, spray on some anti rust paint, weld on new rockers, paint them up in bedliner and put sliders on

 

That would be a great rig to build. KEEP IT. Tear it down and build it up. At least you know what you have there.

 

Definately keep it. Just cut out the old and weld in new. Good steel box tubing makes great sliders. Get to building my friend!

 

Is this fab? Or chat?

 

Nothing in the pics looks un-fixable, if you aren't afraid to get dirty. But actually still you start cutting, welding and bending. This should prolly be in Cherokee chat.

 

Looks shot. Scrap time...
Yes, its fixable, but itll be alot of time and work, not to mention the "frame" might be beyond repair and the leafs are about to rip out.
I hope youre not driving this...

 

Ive fixed em where that whole mounting area for the spring was gone. But it was a long dirty job. But im attached to my jeeps! I would fix mine. But i have welders and steel already.

 

you can bet if there's that much rot along the uni-frame, there's more than the eye can see. regards to the leaf spring mounts.

i'd say it's time to get a better chassis and start fresh. you've got a lot of time to invest to get that one back to road condition without the mot giving you a hard time.
however, if you have the time and the funds/material, it would be a fun build.

there are so many of these still around that are in very good condition to not want to go that route.

 

I agree

 

yea that body is shot. Gotta love what NE weather does to vehicles..Thats why I stopped using mine as a DD.
I agree with caged on this. I'd strip it and get another body at least or just a whole new XJ or whatever to start over with. That is not worth the effort to repair.

 

Was this XJ jumped? The drivers side upper control arm is bent beyond recognition and the passenger side upper control arm mount like you said is collapsed. That can be fixed easy. The rot is another story. But if you can weld like you say you can,go for it!
Bottom line is,finding a rust-free XJ for cheap isn't easy!

 

X2 on not being worth the effort. It's not like this is a super rare vehicle and you're not going to find another. Find somebody selling one with a blown motor cheap, buy it, swap it, build it. It's harder to work with rotting metal like that than to just build from scratch and the fact that this is a unibody vehicle makes that really tough. You'd probably spend close to the money in supplies to fix that rust as you would to buy a new shell.

 

Well I finally got all my fab tools set up in my garage and what better way to test them out than building a winch bumper. Still looking pretty grim but a grinder and some paint will fix that.

 

Some more pics. Tie tabs and a front stinger are soon to come !