And it would probably make your doors leak. It's called a rain gutter for a reason.

The rain gutters are the seam of the roof. Body filler is not the answer. You will have to reweld the roof back on and then use filler to shape it up.

It's people like you that encourage PVC steering links...

Yup. That's what I said.

Would not surprise me if somebody actually thought about it after all the crap I've seen here.

Shaving the rain gutters equals bad idea.

Thanks for not getting upset, we're all just having fun because most of us have come up with something we thought would be an awesome idea only to discover it wasn't so awesome... at least you asked before bustin' out the Sawzall. Could have been ugly.

Cherokees aren't meant to be clean. They are a box, all right angles and protruding pieces and panel gaps that are measured by how many fingers you can fit in them, to take that away would be to remove the essence of what an XJ is which may be the reason for some being butthurt by your desire to "clean it up". That, and your roof will fly off, of course.

Hey, if you want to shake it up and shave em. Do it. It would definitely look cleaner. But is a lot of work. I plan on doing this on my bronco 2. If you do end up doing it, send me some pics. I'd love to see em.

Waste of time and effort, especially since you'd be taking away something functional.

No reason to get upset, my asking was to ensure it wouldn't cause any issues. I totally agree on the box description, it's one of the things that draws me to the XJ too.

To the original poster:

hey bro, I agree with the guys here I wouldn't shave them off.... I did take off the little black beauty strip, but that was because I was putting bed liner over the entire thing and I thought that it would look better without the beauty strip... The main reason I didn't shave them off was eventually I plan on building a roof rack and wanted something there to attach it too.

Just remember, it's your ride bro, do what you want.... but I learned an important lesson when cutting my fenders.... it's a lot easier to REMOVE something than ADD it back if you take to much off!!!! Have fun with it!

The rain gutters are that bad and mine are in good shape, bot even teh trace of rust. probably will clean up the black trim pieces that sits on top of them.

I have shaved the gutters off several old cars.
It improves the look of the car very much.

I will try this on part of my XJ, and see what it looks like...

here's my problem, i got the front (start) of the rain gutter stuck on a branch as i was going and 3/4's of the right side rain gutter cover tore and hung off the rest that remained intact. but the 3/4's of the way that did come off is now all bent and kinked and i dont really see it going back on.. any other options than just taking them off and welding all around?

I've already been think about shaving my gutters off and welding it back together, then repainting it (rattle can). The owner before me had a roof rack on it and somehow destroyed the gutter and its pulled apart and rusted. It is even "open" like pealed about and you can pull chunks of rusted gutter of it. Pretty sad situation. I would like to have another roof rack put on though.

Take the whole skin of the roof off?