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Just another XJ

I win! Made it a whole ten min down the first trail at aop last night. Pretzeled the rear driveshaft. Luckily I've got an extra with us. Gotta swap a u joint and we're good to go.
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What he's not telling anyone is a rzr and a jk did the same trail.... :stir: and :rolf: for real though it was a **** bounce that could happen to anyone
 
And Hagan just about made me part of the trail. He just idled right on around me. Lol
 
Hey Luke, I've got some 2" DOM and 1.75" HREW

Also, the 2000-2004 xterras and frontiers use 1310 driveshafts up front and 2" weld yokes. I used pieces from those and some 1350 2" weld yokes for my shafts. Cheap and plentiful donors, and since they have auto locking hubs, the driveshafts hardly ever spin and the joints tend to be like new.
 
Well, figured I'd update this. This thing needs to be named the Hardline spare parts build... Everything is off someone else's leftover stuff...

Since I got the ton swapped, I've decided the cage needed a little beef, frame tie ins, tube doors and a spare tire carrier. So I got with @whiskeymakin on that. We used some 1" tube and ground down some bolts to use as hinges. For latches, I ordered some 1/2" weld on pop pins(similar to what you'd find on workout equipment).

Here are some pics with one of John's spare 43 stickies laying around. We recycle some jk control arm bushings and the struts are stock 96 cherokee rear hatch struts. They are rated at 175# a piece. With my 39" irok spare on an allied beadlock, my wife can open and close the rear "hatch" with one hand. John absolutely killed all the extra add-ons on this thing.

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While it's doing decent with the stock 4.10's, it obviously needs deeper gears. So I've started a diy 231/231 doubler. I was scouring around facebook and saw a 241 out of an auto jk for sale, $50. Snagged it. But decided I wanted an easier to find cases, in case I broke one of them. So 231's are the obvious choice. So I cut the 231 in half, swapped in the 6 gear planetary out of the 241, changed the input shaft to a 23 spl from the 21 spl, and switched to the wide bearings that were found in later year 231's. Eventually I'll pull apart the 231 in my rig and swap in the 241 wider chain. @xjmarc had a spare aw4 laying around. So I snagged it, cut the output shaft off, along with cutting the shift rail and main shaft in the 231 range box. I need to button this up and get it to ole Three Finger Steve to let him machine it all together for me. I've had a few people tell me that the stubshaft won't survive if you key the two together and then tig them. And I've had some people tell me they've ran them that way for years. Maybe they won't? Maybe they will? Won't know til I try and run it.
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Meanwhile... The XJ leaf's are dead. they're completely flat. Supposedly they're aftermarket. But they sure look stock with add a leafs to me. Regardless, @Trailabite had a set of 52" Chevy Springs laying around. They appeared to have been in a pond since 1975. But the price was right. So I busted them apart. cleaned them off, through them in the harbor freight tube kinker to re-arch one set that had sagged a little bit. To do this, I took two old leaf spring plates and put them on the ram(to spread the load width wise over the entire leaf), then compressed the leaf a bit, released, repositioned the leaf 4 time in each direction, and then repeated process. Took me about an hour to re-arch the entire leaf back. They originally had a 2" sag, I literally can't tell them from the other pack now. Pardon the messy workbench....62303360909__824943DB-621A-45DD-AD1B-A259DE7F5EEB.JPGIMG_9520.jpg
I'm still yet to put these on. But I did relocate the gas tank from under the jeep to inside the back storage area, until I pickup my fuel cell. For anyone that does this, you can knock out the drain plug behind the back seat in the middle, cut a piece of old fuel line lengthwise to work like a grommet, and run everything through there. Good clean fit. Add about 10" to all of your wires, hoses and everything and you're good to go. There is a hard vacuum line that I cut a few inches off to make it line up with the grommet better, but it's optional.




No pictures of this one, I can if someone would like. But the stock motor mounts gave it up. The poly bushing kit I ordered for the leafs, came with two extra bushings that fit a 1.5" tube perfectely. Built a T out of some scrap tube on a 1/4" flat plate, stuffed the bushing in and TA-DA. Motor mounts!4

I also ponied up some money and went with the ECGS 14bolt Disc Brake kit. The reason I went with it was it came with all new hardlines, weld on brake line brackets, etc... Got all that done. Of course, no pictures. That said, first ride after the install, we were at Harlan, dropped in Lions Den, crushed the oil pan, being towed out and the single flare brake line gave it up, lost all brakes and crashed into @jeeptj99. Thank God his tires hooked and got us stopped before we went off the side of the mtn. Got home, ripped out the new hardlines and put the old hardlines back on. They never leaked, had no issues, etc... So for now, that's what I'm running.

Since I haven't installed a 220 outlet for my compressor in the garage, all I have is a 12volt Viair. While it's good, it won't just burst and pop a bead on, especially if it's got gorilla tape on it. So, I stack an old tire(not on a wheel) under the one I'm trying to seat, run the hose to the valve stem and stand inside the wheel. Give it til it hits about 15 psi or so, and you can step off and let it do it's work. The bead popped on mine at 45 psi.
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Shackle angles absolutely suck on Cherokees. So you can buy some shackle relocators, or build your own. Piece of 2" square tube inside the factory shackle mount, weld a nut inside in for a bolt through the front of the bracket and then hang two pieces of angle, grind them up all pretty and bam. Shackle relocators for like $6 in hardware and scrap steel. Only downside here is that the shackle bottoms out before the spring does. So I'm adding a 1" poly round bump to the mount that the shackle will hit, instead of contacting steel. and then doing a progressive rate bump on the axle housing itself.
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In the very near future I plan to narrow the back end. It's too wide for my taste. I'll also being making all of the lights functional again. I'd like to make this as streetable as possible so I can atleast go pick my kids up from daycare and look like the cool dad.

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The remaining fender flares and wheel wells in the rear are getting cut out.

Then addressing the front. Trackbar and steering is still being an issue. I managed to almost rip the entire drivers frame rail out at Harlan. We welded in a piece of bath house angle iron from the trackbar mount to the fender tube to stiffen it up. So we're go to handle it this way...
Building a crossmember under the winch tieing both frame rails together.
Then it's going back to @whiskeymakin for some front frame rail reinforcement(3 tubes from bumper, fender and slider to stiffener on each side), Trackbar mount beef, new shocks and shock mounts all around, bump stops front and rear.


AND EVENTUALLY I'LL GET SOME NEW TIRES. These poor Iroks have had it. I recently swapped on two that I found on facebook (4 for $120). Honestly, they're better than what I'm running. But until some work stuff gets resolved, no money is getting spent on the jeep. For now, it gets me and my family out in the woods.



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Unless you get some 40"+ stickies, you'll be dissappointed in anything else besides bald iroks (unless it's rained in the past month, or someone steps in front of your rig to take a leak, or there's a particularly heavy dew...)
 
Unless you get some 40"+ stickies, you'll be dissappointed in anything else besides bald iroks (unless it's rained in the past month, or someone steps in front of your rig to take a leak, or there's a particularly heavy dew...)
Honestly, anything with tread would be better than I have if it's wet out. I literally got stuck on flat ground at Hale. No rocks. No swampy mud. Just a road. Flat ground. All four spinning.
 
I never thought that post was gonna end. Bravo on it, like to get out and wheel with y'all soon. Like to step up to 39 reds and link the rear of my xj. It does damn well on 37's and D44/8.8 for now though
 
I need to do something like that to my leaves. They were 4.5" once upon a time, maybe 2" if I don't have anything in the rear now. I've got some cutting to do too, 40s rub a wee bit more than the 38s.
 
I need to do something like that to my leaves. They were 4.5" once upon a time, maybe 2" if I don't have anything in the rear now. I've got some cutting to do too, 40s rub a wee bit more than the 38s.
Yea, I tried to keep the fenders. But it ain't happening. The 52's supposedly stretch 4" and net about 4" lift. I'm curious to see if that's the case.
 

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