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Expedition Build ?s

Keithmania said:
I'd also add that, if you are wanting an extra layer of comfort for the long haul, if you are planning on doing any interior upgrades, you might wanna look to put in some sound deadening insulation. It will help when the days are long and the tires noise droning in your ears put you in a semi hypnotic state in which your dad could get all of your banking information out of you :p, it will also add a layer of insulation and help with heating/cooling needs.
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I've been thinking about this. When Jim and I have the interior out to install the wiring harness I will probably do some sound deadening at that point.

On the drivers side.
\

The passenger side will remain noisy so I can get HIS banking information. Oh yeah...
lol

He owes me about 39 years of back allowance anyway. LMAO!!
 
katuah said:
I'm interested to see this build, you are thinking somewhat along the same lines as me, although I expect to spend more time on rock and sand because much of what I want to "expedition" to see is in the desert SW.

Also, would you post up pics and your thoughts on the Karnage bumper (and the company/cust serv) when you get it? I asked about those guys on NC4x4 when I saw their product on ebay, and the responses I got were not exactly encouraging.
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I plan on doing a bit of back country wheeling along the way. But the goal is to get across these trails rather than go out and break stuff rock crawling. SO you and I may not be that different after all.


I think the product from Karanage should suffice nicely for what I have planned. I likie the design of the bumper. Once I have it in hand I will post as objective a review as I can. With pics of course.
 
Awesome thread ... and congrats on meeting your dad. I've taken a lot of trips through the Mexican baja desert all the way up to AK. Most recently in my XJ and before that, a ratty old Chevy pickup, and before that a rattier, older air-cooled VW vanagon.

You gonna put a fatter alternator on there to run the fridge and all that other stuff? Go with the 2003 Durango 160 if you want a budget alt upgrade. Make sure you get it off the 5.9L motor, not the 4.7. You can get one at a junkyard for as little as $35.00 and rebuild it yourself for as little as $30.00. New brushes, new bearings, and a good cleaning solve 99% of the problems with Denso alternators. Even a new rectifier is only $40.00, but you probably won't need to replace that.

http://car-part.com/cgi-bin/search....337617&userUID=0&userBroker=&iKey=&userPage=3

I'll be watching this thread to see how it turns out. Be sure to give us some pics of your progress. And some trip pics too. I have kids now, and need to live vicariously through others for a while.
 
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Sounds a lot like my build with RTT and all that stuff. I already have drawers, 50lt fridge, RTT and awning, UHF radios, dual batteries, snorkel, incarpc with topo maps and street mapping, winch bar and winch, 35's on D44 with detroit and Hi pinion 30 up front etc etc etc. I head off on my 1 month trip (9000km to the most Northern tip of Australia and back) 3 weeks from today :)

Good luck with the build :)

Cheers
Steve
 
A fridge uses an almost miniscule amount of amperage, but it's almost never a bad idea to have more than you need. Especially if you decide to upgrade/add more lights, winches, etc. But as far as what type of alternator to get, consider this thread:

http://naxja.org/forum/showthread.php?t=1066262

I know there's not much info in it yet but if you feel like doing a little leg work for me then I would appreciate it and it could definitely pay off. The goal isn't to get a "bigger" alternator, but one that produces more amperage at idle. Yes, larger alternators tend to produce more amperage at idle than smaller alternators do. But as the thread shows, there are some alternators that produce almost all of their power at very low rpm's which is desirable for what we do.
 
The alternator is one thing I never found the need to upgrade. In Summer I have the aircon on while crawling as well as te fridge, incar PC and UHF, Dual batteries and no issues. I have recently switched my rock lights to LED along with my driving lights to 55W HID from 100W halogen (Headlights are 130/100 though) so the load has dropped even when night crawling.

Cheers
Steve
 
I saw no mention of it, but get the head checked and look around on here for the right one to swap in. I can't recall if the later 0331 heads (from newer TJs) were preferable to the ones in XJs, or if you just swap to an older head, but the 2000-2001s came with the 0331, and it is prone to cracking.
 
montanaman said:
Awesome thread ... and congrats on meeting your dad. I've taken a lot of trips through the Mexican baja desert all the way up to AK. Most recently in my XJ and before that, a ratty old Chevy pickup, and before that a rattier, older air-cooled VW vanagon.

You gonna put a fatter alternator on there to run the fridge and all that other stuff? Go with the 2003 Durango 160 if you want a budget alt upgrade. Make sure you get it off the 5.9L motor, not the 4.7. You can get one at a junkyard for as little as $35.00 and rebuild it yourself for as little as $30.00. New brushes, new bearings, and a good cleaning solve 99% of the problems with Denso alternators. Even a new rectifier is only $40.00, but you probably won't need to replace that.



I'll be watching this thread to see how it turns out. Be sure to give us some pics of your progress. And some trip pics too. I have kids now, and need to live vicariously through others for a while.
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Ther point you make about doing these trips in beat up old Chevy's and VW Vans makes a good point. You don't NEED a high end Expo buitl vehicle to do this! I want to make sure I have some mild to moderate off road capability and a dependable vehicle.

I've got ther bumper, winch and rear recovery points covered. I have a new set of 31x10.50 BFG ATs. I can roll with this if I want. Right now I'm going through the Jeep and doing maintenance and repair and the other nbods will come with budget and time. But none of them do me any good if I can't get from point A to B without breaking down.

In my OP I presented what I WANT to do. But the bottom line is I'll roll with what I've got come next July.

In a VW van... that's awesome. Have a blog? Pics??
 
Steve F said:
Sounds a lot like my build with RTT and all that stuff. I already have drawers, 50lt fridge, RTT and awning, UHF radios, dual batteries, snorkel, incarpc with topo maps and street mapping, winch bar and winch, 35's on D44 with detroit and Hi pinion 30 up front etc etc etc. I head off on my 1 month trip (9000km to the most Northern tip of Australia and back) 3 weeks from today :)

Good luck with the build :)
Click to expand...

Have a link to a build thread or a blog? Would love to see how you're set up.
 
Darky said:
I saw no mention of it, but get the head checked and look around on here for the right one to swap in. I can't recall if the later 0331 heads (from newer TJs) were preferable to the ones in XJs, or if you just swap to an older head, but the 2000-2001s came with the 0331, and it is prone to cracking.
Click to expand...


Great!! Now I've got one mor thing to think about while driving through AZ heat next summer! LOL

I'll do a leak down test on all cylinders and an oil anlysuis to see where I stand. Will probably leave well enoughb alone for the time being.l But thanks for the info in case I DO need to makle a swap.
 
LYKOS said:
In a VW van... that's awesome. Have a blog? Pics??
Click to expand...

That trip was in 1989 ... took the Alaska highway through Canada and worked for the Forest Service and salmon canneries in AK all summer.

I loved that old VW. After the '89 trip to AK, I went to Mexico with a friend in winter of '90. All the way down the Baja Penninsula, and we took just about every side road we found.

In 1984, I drove to Alaska in a beat-up 1977 Honda Civic. With no spare tire! Just some camping equipment. That was when the AK hwy was still gravel the whole way, and there was very little oil & gas exploration in northern Canada. Still a raw wilderness for hundreds of miles in any direction. I spent that summer working in the salmon canneries near Kenai and living on the beach off Cook inlet.

I do have some slides in a box somewhere, but they aren't scanned. It's tough to scan slides. I should pull them out sometime and see what I can do.

I might have some pics on my computer of my XJ in Mexico ... I'll see if I can find them.

Here is a pic of the old chevy:

http://www.montanasoft.com/images/ktent.jpg

And that's my wife about a week after we first met. I ran into her in the middle of the desert in Mexico ... then we drove up to the Grand Canyon together.

Oh ... one thing you might consider ... I don't know if there are still gravel sections of the AK Hwy, but if you plan on going on the dempster hwy or some of the other gravel hwys in Northern Canada, the trucks kick up a huge amount of rocks. There's not much you can do for your windshield, but you should get some wire guards for your headlights. Both of mine broke, and my windshield cracked up pretty bad too.
 
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katuah said:
Also, would you post up pics and your thoughts on the Karnage bumper (and the company/cust serv) when you get it? I asked about those guys on NC4x4 when I saw their product on ebay, and the responses I got were not exactly encouraging.
Click to expand...

Will do.
 
LYKOS said:
WOW!!! Dude, I'm single and if she has a sister I can put my Pops on a bus back to Alabama. LMAO!!!
Click to expand...

If I was your dad, and you met a hot chick on the trip, I'd EXPECT you to put me on a bus ... hell ... I'd pop that idea myself!

She has a sister, but she got married 2 years ago. And she's in Hong Kong, so the logistics of that would be pretty hard.

Here are some more pics of me and my wife. She and I both like to travel the same way ... adventure travel:

http://www.montanasoft.com/kashuen.php
http://www.montanasoft.com/rob.php

That little dog is part Aussie, part Border collie. I got her in Valdez Alaska in Summer of 1984 when she was 9 months old. She lived to be just about 18 years old. I buried her on top of Lolo Peak in Montana in early October of 2001. A good travel dog and she loved backpacking. She would go nuts while I was putting on the pack.

I now have a bigger Aussie/Border mix ... she's the perfect wilderness dog ... doesn't even sleep in the tent at night. If it rains, I set up a little plastic tarp for her. She's a tough tough dogpound dog ... but she's really good to us:

http://www.montanasoft.com/images/brandy.jpg

Oh ... If you're in AK, you might want to make the drive from Kenai to Valdez. It goes through some beautiful stuff. They call it "Little Switzerland."

I'm f**cking jealous, dude.
 
My clutch fan has taken a dump. I think I know what the next mod will be. LOL
 
Yeah so I'm resssurecting this thread just because... Well, it makes me feel good. Maybe someone else can relate to the failure of the best laid plans.

Not long after I started this thread and my father and I started making plans for AK there was a huge shift at work and I took a %40 pay cut. :(

Can you say devistating? Yeah, so AK is off the list for a while.

On a happy note I finished my medic classes and am now a Nat'l EMT-I/99. In VA that is what most fo your ALS providers are. Check that off the bucket list. :)

So here is where my little expedition build stands.

A 2001 XJ with 140,000 miles is not a showroom vehicle under the best of conditions. So as money allows my "Expedition Build" is all about makiing the Jeep as reliable as possible.

With that said my cooling system has taken a crap. In no small part a resulty of my lack of maintenance. In fact I'm plaicng the order this week for a CSF 3 row, Dc controller, Taurus fan and water pump. More than likely I will go ahead and order a condenser as well.

Since the Jeep has overheated several times and I cannot guarantee the head is not cracked, and because of suggestions on this thread and others, I will go ahead and replace the head at the first point I can. Even though it's asymptomatic it will get replaced if for not other reason than peace of mind.


Their are some other small items (the aux wiring harness my buddy built is just waiting to go in first chance I can make it to Bluefield), my window fan, builing a storage box/system in the back, considering building a RTT on my own etc. that are on a slow simmer but are getting done.

In my county Volunteer Rescue and Fire get a yearly reward check. Since I spent over 1000 hours last year training and running calls I don't mind taking that $500 check. That money is earmarked for new AC compressor, drier etc to get my AC up and running for the first time in five years.

Right now, with money being tight but still suffering the Expo Build bug, I am looking at other ways to cut corners.


One of those is being happy with what I've got. I can't see why a locked (eventually) XJ on 31's won't go wherever I need to go to get from point a to b. I'm not a crawler, I'm more of an explorer. That means no more lift. Worst I might do at this point is drpopped LCA brackets to smnooth the ride out a bit.


Then of course there is the "how do I get the money to take a month or two off issue.

Well, if any of ya'lla re in AL and want to buy a nice Harley, I'm your guy. PM me.


Ahhh yeah, ain't life grand!
 
I feel your pain. Unforeseen medical bills and home repair wiped out every penny I have been saving for the jeep, plus some. Sometimes its better to sit back and rethink needs versus wants, the jeep will still be there, and capable enough.
 
I may be bias because I run one, but you can save time and money by keeping that NP242 transfer case instead of swapping for the 231. I like the full-time 4WD capabilities of the 242 for flexibility on the road under weather conditions. And you can still do an SYE. Just a thought.
 
The Cherokee is already a dependable and capable overland Jeep. I don't know how much you plan to hit off-road "this is hard for the sake of hard" trails, but if you just want to do dirt roads I'd scrap the lift / tires / winch / bumpers & do this:
Bilstein HD shocks
New OEM water pump, accessory belt, tensioner pulley, radiator cap & thermostat
Freshen air filter, plugs, wires, cap & rotor as needed
Make sure you have decent tires + a good spare at the specified pressure.
Add an h4 headlight conversion, high powered Hella bulbs, & a headlight harness kit.
Upgraded fuel injectors (maybe)
Cold air intake (maybe)
Gas tank skid
Transfer case skid
Enjoy.
Contrary to popular belief - you don't need bumpers & armor or even a lift to enjoy a scenic drive on a dirt road or even to do some of what most people would think of as crazy off-roading. A Jeep Cherokee, a 4runner, Xtera, whatever - if it contains a solid rear axle and a pitman arm, it will probably do just fine without any aftermarket help.
 
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