Just work better for me living in the rust belt. I seem to drop the rear axle for whatever reason atleast 1-2 a year and each time I have to buy new ubolts. This way It'll just be 8 5/8 grade 8 bolts if anything. Also they are super easy to stretch the jeep. Middle hole for leaf pack is stock, forward hole is 1" forward. Rear hole is 1" stretch. Then if you flip your leaf packs you can do like 4-5-6" stretch based on the whole you choose.

 

Progress today! Lots of it! Woke up at 10 ish, left the house at 11. Got back from getting all the remaining parts I needed and started working on it around noon. Had put hard lines on the rear axle, and drill out the top plates for leaf springs. Had the rear axle in by 130 or so. Don't have the brakes or shocks hooked up there yet. Moved onto the front, Put the cover on, painted everything, installed driveside long arm, then bolted it under the jeep. Got the coils control arms and shocks attached in no time. Time to do the ball joints!

Now heres where the amazing part happens. The balljoints came out EASY. Ive sprayed them with rd90 (penetrating fluid from work) 3 times since yesterday. They popped like nothing. I had all 4 removed and all 4 new ones in within 45 minutes MAX. Brought my impact from work home to press them back in. Installed the ten factory outer axle seals I bought, and the OTK knucles, chromoly axle shafts, and timken wheel hubs. Threw a new tierod on my steering and bolted er up. Installed rotors, new pads, and calipers and threw wheels on it. Finally back on all 4!



Rear is in




Seals and new spicer ball joints installed


Chromos and knuckles on


Axle hooked up



On all 4


Tomorrow I need to do the following

Rear
Hook up brake lines
Hook up Shocks
Fill diff
Driveshaft u joint
Attach breather tube

Front
Attach trackbar to axle
Fill diff
Attach drag link
Hook up driveshaft
Remove broken steering box bolt
Install bumper brackets
Attach breather tube

 

happy to see it back on it's own weight!

 

is that front truss custom? I don't see it on Aresfab website, love the build btw

 

Hes got a few different versions of the front truss. Call him to order. I honestly couldnt even tell you price its similar to the rear price I literally just had him group all the stuff together + add on his labor for the work done

 

FINALLY. Besides bleeding rear brakes, hooking up 1 rear shock ( have to trim u bolt eliminator) and getting an alignment its DONE! well this portion, obviously need a front bumper and other crap I want.



So once the axles were in I was having problems with the motor and trans I put in then never finished dealing with before I started the axles project.

Triple E-fan setup and alternator relocation.


Motor


My AW4 was shot, and for those who dont know the 97 cherokee uses the same transmission as 91-96 but has a different connector from that year, and from 98-01. So I had to use a 94 trans with my 97 connector spliced in. I've been throwing a p0700 and p0743 code ever since. Finally checked to ohm the solenoids out and I wasnt getting anything from the lock up solenoid (the p0743 code) SO I ripped open my splices and found out the wire for that one wasnt connected anymore. Temporarily fixed it back up, I think I'll end up soldering the joints this time around. So no more trans issues or codes!



The next problem. So its been misfiring and falling on its face. Throwing random codes that every time i checked them it was something else.

I always set it up on at TDC or used the timing marks, and put a pin in the distributor and everything, Never once dropping it in did the little built in clamp line up with the bolt hole. So i would always turn it until it did and it would stutter and have a mis. So eventually my buddy came over and we used a non built on clamp that I had and clamped it down in the position it was in and it ran BEAUTIFULLY. So screw it somethings gotta be off in the timing chain, either way I dont care, runs great now and has no codes. FIXED!

You can kind of see the clamp off position here


Photobucket has been crap lately and barely loading, so posting these days later because its annoying



Ignore the brakes light on, its because I never bled the rear brakes (needs new bleeder screws). This is the first time in OVER a year I have had this cherokee without a check engine light, good oil pressure, and a shifting transmission. So im super happy right now and can't wait to drive it!

 

Congrats man lots of work that's gonna pay off in the end!

 

clearly photoshopped, that thing's sitting at victory.

 

I prefer LKQ actually


Suprisingly drove it to work last night. Father borrowed my truck and trailer for the day had no choice, No issues just have some noises I need to give some attention.

 

Man I'm bad at updating this. Wheeling trip passed, broke it, more upgrades, more parts on the way, things still happening. Wheeling trip in 2 weeks hopefully.

I'm trying a new image hosting site so lets see how this goes, I've been using photobucket for 10 years but its been unbearably slow for the past year or 2 and I'm finally at a breaking point.

Wheeling was fun, Only broke my rear locker, which actually is my fault. When 4.56 gears are installed you're supposed to grind a tooth on the ring to make the centering pin fit, not the centering pin which is what I did. So onetime when I beat on it hard it ended up breaking the locker. I'm trying to warranty it but lokka is being a bunch of D-bags. So I ordered another, from a better company, Aussie.

I picked up a rough country 9500 winch off a buddy that was a year old a few months back for $50. Works great he had wireless remote issues and warrantied it out and they didn't want the new one back. So I finally decided on a bumper for it. My buddy James (Aresfab) Started making his evolution winch bumper into a stubby around a month ago. Just now He decided to make add ons for it, stinger, end caps, ect. So I decided to go with that to try and keep as much approach as possible. I'm the first person to get the stinger add on and wings add on. As of right now I'm not going to run the wings but maybe later. I painted it up today should install tomorrow.

I still need to figure something out about the rear shocks, I'm not entirely sure what I'm going to do. I need to get a new cowl panel so I can have washer squirters again. I think I'm going to put a rear seat back in it, and mount the rear spare at an angle so the seat will clear. Today I finished gutting the head liner and the 2 sound bars., I bought some 4" wakeboard speakers on amazon that clamp to the roll cage, I installed those today and they sound better than the 4 in the sound bars I had previous and are cleaner in my opinion. Also did new hatch struts. Trying to fix all the little issues one by one. I ordered an Adams driveshaft HD version aswell since I've always had driveshaft issues, and replaced the transfer case linkage with boostwerks I installed on saturday.

I need to grind the upper C gussets so they stop rubbing the coil springs too, that gets super annoying. I know I'm forgetting alot and I forgot to take more pictures, but I'll get them soon. Its 945 at night right now and this is the first time in months I've actually been home at this time and I'm pretty tired. Anyways onto the pictures.

Leaving the house, Jon and Scottie met me at my place at 8am


Stopped in momence after picking up Kyle to grab some Booze


Arrived at the badlands


Hot as hell had to go doorless, after clearing first obstacle on the trails


Jon coming through


Got Jon to do a questionable line, ended up not that bad


Scottie coming up a path I ended up taking


Scottie going down


Always has his headlights on...


Friday after Jon stapped a shaft back at the campground. Almost no mud my favorite!


Out of order a bit now, this was before the Scottie line


Stacked jeeps at campground


Booty


Jon on some rocks


Jon broke a shaft here, me and Scottie cleared no issues


Scottie snapped his drag link here


I had a bad moment here. My jeep unloaded and Felt like it was going to go over backward, So I told scottie to try it and of course he tried. Didnt succeed though


Where I broke my locker. You can probably see why, WooPoo




Alot of the pictures now are from others. Any of my jeep was pre locker breaking








Going home


Another angle of scottie


Me and Mikes jeeps


3rd day I my jeep was down and I road in mikes






Told everyone to go left and bypass, mike went straight








Locker apart at home..


back in


Modeling new bumper












With wings on


Priming bumper with Scottie

 

I would get some shrink wrap over those or better yet solder it. Butt connectors corrode out in the elements.

 

Its long fixed. That was temp while figure out trans splice

 

Stubby's gonna look sick

 

Great wheelin' pics man. What image host are you using? I've been using Picasa, but they've done away with Picasa and migrated everything over to Google Photos now - which is impossible to host images from. I moved away from Photobucket a loooong time ago because of how slow it was. I'm surprised you held out this long.

 

Wow. Just wow. I just read this whole build thread and am glad you decided not to sell. Jeep has come a LONG way. Looks good. I know its an emotional roller coaster when owning a Jeep, but its always worth it in the end