Ross's Jeep that will take longer than Rob's to build thread...

[foxwar71]

Its been a long time in the making, I've wasted many many hours of my life thinking about what I wanna do to my Cherokee. I wanna go as all out as I can the first time and not look back. I'll try to apply as many tricks and little stuff that I've picked up over the years. I'd much rather build something then buy it.

THE LIFE

I score my 99 off the NAC classifieds on here about 4 years ago. At the time, I was looking to buy a clean stocker 97+ to slowly build while I was in Wyoming at school. For the stuff it already had, the condition it was in, and the price, I ended up buying a Jeep that already had some key built components.

-1999, 4.0, AW4, 231 with SYE, 84k on it
-HP30 & 8.25 with 4.56's and a lockrite up front, 8" Skyjacker RR lift
-35" Baja Claws, rockrails, bushwackers, blacked out :greensmok
-other junk


The ad picture (front bumper not included):

It was a solid platform that preform good. I enjoyed the Jeep and daily drove it for about 2-3 years and loved every second of it. I drove it 2000 miles from MA to WY and drove around WY/CO for a year. I broke some 30 u-joints and wore out some stock TRE's. After a little while of driving it, I ditched the bolt-on SJ truss and re-did the control arms for Johnny Joints all around. Found a deal on a no-slip and alloys for the 8.25. Then I came home to MA and met some cool NAC dudes. I added more stuff like a WJ swap with cool stuff up front, built some bitchin bumpers that can smash stuff all day long, and fixed stuff as it broke. I proceeded to be influenced in ways which lead to the beating of my Jeep and more broken parts

DEATH!!!

I broke some more D30 junk; snapped joints, ate shafts, ripped apart ball joints, wore out a lockrite locker, and other damaging stuff. I had to wheel the last of its before life with an open front end and suck it up I decided its last run would be NACfest 10. It wheeled good for a couple days straight, managed not to break anything :greensmok The creeks and moans of the unibody let me know that it was glad it was time. Years of abuse on the XJ took its toll, in the dis-assembly I found many cracks and bends and stressing throughout the Jeep. ON TO THE JACKSTANDS IT WENT!!!

 

[foxwar71]

Re: The Life, Death, & Rebirth of a Black Jeep

THE REBIRTH!!!

I knew I wanted to go bigger and better on my Jeep (Duh, who doesn’t!!! :dunno. I knew I wanted to strip the Jeep down to a clean slate and start rebuilding everything. About a year ago I was cruisin around a local parts swap meet, I found myself a pair of axles outta a late 80’s F350. I turned around and sold the 10.25 rear and ended up with a HP60 for $200 This got the ball rolling and I started working on gather more parts and getting ready.

I decided to do some “stuff” to the 60 to get it ready for my overall plan…..

I showed off my manly hulk power and carried a 14 bolt rear at an-all-you-can-carry BY MYSELF!!! .!..!. Did some “junk” to that too while it was waiting….

 

[ROBZ95Xj]

Re: The Life, Death, & Rebirth of a Black Jeep

what a boring story:doh:





















just kidding, black jeep did awsome with its old setup, shall be even better with the new stuff

 

[foxwar71]

Re: The Life, Death, & Rebirth of a Black Jeep

The Current Plan

-64.5" wide HP60 up front, C&C 14b out back
-5.38's, orb of traction out back, either a spool or a lockrite or something up front
-cool unnecessary trusses for mounting stuff
-3 link up front, flipped/custom leafs out back with new mounts and shackle relocation
-hydro assit, custom built knuckles and high steer arms
-38 x 14.50 x 17's, either some KM2's or some new style MTR's with kevler
-full plating and reinforcing of the unibody
-dovetail the front nose a little bit
-cut the crap outta the body to slam it as low as possible!!
-throw some tube at it



Since I'm still waiting to buy new tires, I focused my attention at stripping the framerails and plating everything. Stripped a bunch of the undercoating and some brackets.

I've decide that I'll be running a 3 link up front, but more of a mid-arm setup with the upper link on the passenger side. The control arm mounts will be mounted solid on the frame with a tranny crossmember and bellypan being removeable. I cut out the lip and UCA mount on the inside of the PS framerail to give myself more clearence and a smooth mounting clearence for my mounts.

Thats about where I'm at now, I've got a pile of metal waiting for the Jeep. I'll be doing the middle rails with 3x3x3/16 angle iron and the front and rear rails outta 1/8 plate. It'll get boatsides outta 2x6 and some new crossmembers outta 2x5.

 

[MrSimon]

Re: The Life, Death, & Rebirth of a Black Jeep

Great looking work!! Should be a lot of fun following this thread!

 

[RCman]

Re: The Life, Death, & Rebirth of a Black Jeep

Looking good Ross.

A serious question for you:
With those tires you just bought; how are you expecting to clear a midarm setup mounted on the unirails with that narrow a front axle? Be sure to measure 9 times 13 different ways by 6 people.
I'm very interested in seeing how you work that.

 

[foxwar71]

Re: The Life, Death, & Rebirth of a Black Jeep

With those tires you just bought

:eyes: :shhh:

-38 x 14.50 x 17's, either some KM2's or some new style MTR's with kevler

Opps, you can throw that idea out the window

37x12.50x17 Maxxis Comp stickie Trepadors

how are you expecting to clear a midarm setup mounted on the unirails with that narrow a front axle? Be sure to measure 9 times 13 different ways by 6 people.

The plan is to mount the frame end LCA mounts inboard on the framerail a little bit. I was hoping to have the more centered on the rail, but once I get some rims and get things mocked up more, I'll have to see where lowers are gunna end up. And then, there's always bent and braced lowers.

Im not gunna touch the tape measure, I'll just wing it all and hulk stuff to fit. I will be sure to measure the angle of the dangle many many times though. I also expect you'll stop by and I'll let you crawl around and measure junk for me and point at stuff to do better :worship:





So, why not take these new big boy tires and roll them into place? Rough first estimate of placement with current axle widths and 8" wide rims with 4.5" of backspacing, front pushed forward a couple of inches and rear pushed back 3-4"...

 

[rweaver138]

Re: The Life, Death, & Rebirth of a Black Jeep

hey shes ready to wheel

 

[Hackmeister]

Re: The Life, Death, & Rebirth of a Black Jeep

:eyes: :shhh:

nom nom nom nom nom

 

[kastein]

Re: The Life, Death, & Rebirth of a Black Jeep

what is this fab stuff you are doing here, needs moar kitten pics :bs:

 

[foxwar71]

Re: The Life, Death, & Rebirth of a Black Jeep

Got a couple of days nice and a couple of days of rain. At least I was able to get some work done on the Jeep. Got the gas skid and gas tank outta there, followed by the fuel lines/evap lines/ canister thingy under the DS rear seat. Drilled out more spots welds and removed the cover and stuff around the gas filler lines. I wanna cutout the existing gas door and relocate it further back to almost the taillight and up a little bit to the body line. The next plan is to cutout the trunk floor and mount the tank part way thru the floor. I'll make a flat skid across the bottom of the rear framerails. I'll cut down some tank straps and make some mounts to hold the tank in place. I'll build a box to cover everything and enclose the relocated filler lines.

(if you look closely, you'll notice awesome unibody cracks on the back of the tranny tunnel)

Typical cheapass move, got myself half a tank of gas into the DD red jeep

Finished stripping the DS rail and removed the leaf mount over there.

Next order of business is setting up the rear leafs/rear unibody plating/other cool junk. I want to push the rear axle back a handful of inches to make more room for bigger rubber and get some more wheelbase. I'll be chopping apart the wheelwell and trimming up to almost the body line and extending the opening back a bunch. Got started on the shackle relocation setup I wanna run. I'll be running a set of RE 3.5" leafs and relocate the front hanger backward 3" from stock. I also wanted to chop out that little section of unibody at the corners to make room for corner supports. I trimmed down the stock shackle bracket and started boxing/plating stuff in.

 

[foxwar71]

Re: The Life, Death, & Rebirth of a Black Jeep

Got busy and got some work done, cut a big hole in the trunk. Used some angle iron to form a solid opening, its welded around the perimeter and a couple of plug welds. Theres a couple of Gr. 8 nuts welded onto the bottom of the angle for the upper tank straps to bolt down to. The area right around the hatch latch was sliced and had the angle go under it. You can see where the opening went slightly thru the rear shock crossmember.

Decided to make a frame outta some 1x1 for the tank to sit on. I tied a couple of bars across the rails and to the angle above, then ran some bars from that back to the rear crossmember. The bars line up where the factory straps sat in a flat spot on the bottom of the molded tank. I'll build a cool box to cover everything up and make it removable to access the tank and/or pump.

 

[XJ_Vikings]

Re: The Life, Death, & Rebirth of a Black Jeep

Nice work, never thought of doing it that way. do you plan on protecting the fuel line in the trunk at all or are you not concerned about it?

 

[xj9140]

Re: The Life, Death, & Rebirth of a Black Jeep

Nicely done.

 

[foxwar71]

Re: The Life, Death, & Rebirth of a Black Jeep

do you plan on protecting the fuel line in the trunk at all or are you not concerned about it?

I'll be relocating the existing fuel door on the quarter panel. I'll route and trim the lines to fit, followed my building an encloser to protect them for stuff inside the jeep. The rear of the jeep is gunna get all new wheelwells so I'll design an extra section that not only covers it, but is removable to allow access to the lines. The plan is to have the whole tank assem sealed from the inside of the cab.

 

[foxwar71]

Re: The Life, Death, & Rebirth of a Black Jeep

Finished up mounting the tank. Rear riser bars match the back, upward angle of the stock tank. Got an extra set of straps from Anthony(asp) and modded up bolt holes on both ends and got the tank secured down nicely. Later on, I'll skin the underside with some dimple-died sheetmetal and a layer of plastic with some countersunk bolts.

Finished up the rear crossmember and shackle boxes, I'll add the tabs on once I can swing the leafs/axle/tires under and get a nice angle. I choose not to add any plating across the rear crossmember, I just did the sides around the shackles boxes and framerails. I figure my stout rear bumper will do a better job then anything else. Also, the angle iron and tube frame for the tank seemed to stiffen the rear stucture up a little bit too.

Next up, I'll start making the plates for the middle and rear stiffeners. It should be very straight foward and quick. Since I'm gunna mount the front 3 link solid to the frame, I'll just make some basic 2x5 crossmembers with 3 1/2" Gr. 8 nuts welded to the inside of each spot on the stiffeners. One in the stock location, one just behind the output of the t-case, and possibly another to support a bellypan structure skinned with more sheetmetal and plastic. Once the middle and rear stiffeners are in, I'll build the front leaf hangers. By the time thats all done, I'll have purchased some wheels. I'm thinking something like a 17" x 8" or 9" with roughly 3.5" of backspacing will do nicely. I'm just gunna get some black steelies and either now or a little bit later, I'll add on some weld-on beadlocks. This will allow me to setup the rear axle and suspension. Thats about my goals for right now, once that junk is down, I'll start to move my way forward to the front of the Jeep and work on all that fun stuff.

 

[MoparManiac]

Re: The Life, Death, & Rebirth of a Black Jeep

:thumbup:

Awesome dude.

 

[xj9140]

Re: The Life, Death, & Rebirth of a Black Jeep

I'll be relocating the existing fuel door on the quarter panel. I'll route and trim the lines to fit, followed my building an encloser to protect them for stuff inside the jeep. The rear of the jeep is gunna get all new wheelwells so I'll design an extra section that not only covers it, but is removable to allow access to the lines. The plan is to have the whole tank assem sealed from the inside of the cab.

Don't mount the fuel fill flush with the quarter panel like I did. Sucks because when fueling I have to stand there and hold the nozzle or else it just falls out. For now I just open the hatch and fill it that way, someday I'll get around to fixing it.

 

[foxwar71]

Re: The Life, Death, & Rebirth of a Black Jeep

Don't mount the fuel fill flush with the quarter panel like I did.

I'm gunna do some bodywork and relocate the whole filler housing and door. It'll be just like filling a stock setup, except it'll be mounted further back and higher up on that flat plan of the quarter panel below the body line.

 

[nhrocker]

Re: The Life, Death, & Rebirth of a Black Jeep

Looking good Ross. Pretty much the same idea I've been wanting to do with my fuel cell for years to gain some room back inside. You just have this way of actually making "progress".

And I noticed you pointing out the grade 8 nuts every time you use them. Just remember any time you weld on/near a fastener you weaken it. That's why in those in progress pics from when I did Johnny's 3 link it was all cheap bolts. I swap in the grade 8's when the welding is done so I don't compromise them. :thumbup: