Hey guys, my name is Corey and I'm new to the forum. I'm familiar with the offroad world but I've recently purchased my first Jeep. I work at a car dealership in Kentucky and one of our customers was "hard up" for some cash so I bought his Jeep from him to help him out. I'm on several other forums and my project log has been known as the "Low Budget Crawler", I'll explain why in a bit.

I'll explain a little about myself, I'm a typical 22 year old guy, I've been into cars since before I could drive them. I'm on a couple other forums for all of my vehicles. I've always been a Mopar guy at heart, owned 6 Avengers and a Sebring, more recently a 2.0 Turbo'd 95 Avenger. In addition to that, I also own a 1985 Celica GT and a 2005 Ford F150, the Celica is one of my favorites of all, 2nd owner, 95k and original paint with all documentation since day one. I've owned a ton of vehicles in my 6 years of driving and I doubt I'll ever quit buying them, sometimes that's a bad thing. I look forward to meeting/talking to you guys and any help is always appreciated! Anyway, without further adieu, here's the story on the Jeep!

It's a 1984 Jeep Cherokee Pioneer, 2.5L 4 banger, 216k miles. I originally bought this Jeep solely to flip it for a profit. I paid $400 bucks for it, running and driving, ate up with rust, and ugly as can be, saggy leaf springs and all, this is how she look(ed).




After owning it for about a week, I decided to put it to the test (to see what all the Jeep rave was about). That was a mistake because offroading it one time made me want to keep it. I decided then that it would become my "Low Budget Crawler".


1984 Jeep Cherokee:



-Purchase Price: $400
-U-Joints: $32.xx
-3” pucks front lift: $30
-Rear S10 add-a-leaf driver/pass: $23.00
-120' of 1.5" steel tubing for exo cage/Tube Front Bumper: $100 parts
-Explorer Hatch: 30.00
-Rough Country Front Shocks: $67.83
-Explorer OEM Rear Shocks: $40.00
-31/10.50/15’s: trade
-Tie Bolts for add a leaf: $3.00
-Ubolts for leaf pack- $20.00
-Fuel line for tank relocation: $17.00

For a grand total of $762.83

I still have to pick up some long arms and a couple other misc pieces but I'm in this thing for well under a grand, which was my ultimate goal for a cheap trail rig!

All of the above mentioned items were used for a 3-3.5" lift, cage, bigger tires, etc. All in all everything has come along quite nicely. I'm almost finished with the cage and I've gotta weld the rear ends up for some real crawling. There is a local offroad farm (Wishbone Ranch in BG, Kentucky) that I'll be heading to this weekend to take her out for the first real trip. Hopefully everything pans out! Let me know what you guys think! More progress will be updated.

 

Welcome to the site

 

Welcome to the forum. Nice xj!

 

I appreciate the welcome, buddy!

Thanks man! She's coming along quite nicely. I've gotta add front support bars and rear tie bars tonight, then put some lights on it and I'm trail ready. Hopefully all goes well this weekend, I don't plan on breaking too much stuff but we'll see!

 

Welcome to the forum man!

 

Alright guys, the verdict is in. This little Jeep can crawl! Here are some pics from Wishbone last weekend. She did great! Only some minor issues (busted a few fuel lines, brakes lines, busted a shock mount, and a coolant line). Started overheating when the line busted but I was able to fix that on the trail so no big deal. My buddy on the other hand had some more serious issues. He's in the white/orange Cherokee. Front differential took a dump, making him 2wd, I ended up having to pull him a couple miles up and off of the trail. Otherwise, everything went good. We're heading back on the 22nd/23rd, anyway here she is!