Green "FAKE XJ"

I finished up the body and painted my not a "REAL XJ".

Hundreds of feet of tube arives on thrusday, it soon will be safe to wheel some "REAL trails"

An yes its a slow week... (cross posting..)

were you able to open the doors?

with all that metal removed uni-body must have flexed pretty bad.

post the pics of the cage when it's done, i am planning on doing something similar to my 2-dor down the road.

dennisuello said:

were you able to open the doors?

with all that metal removed uni-body must have flexed pretty bad.

post the pics of the cage when it's done, i am planning on doing something similar to my 2-dor down the road.

Click to expand...

yes, was, able to open the door.....

The body did not flex and cuase the doors to bind up, even with the wheel wells cut out! The sub frame and 1/4in thick cross member/skid help Im sure...

My son opend up the drivers side door when on a side hill, the door swung open and over extended so it bent in the front fender. But this door damage had nuthing to do with body flex.
I can tweek it back, but havent yet.

I was suprised the body didnt flex alot!

Where's the trail Ashman?

Notice the same thing when i cut mine, it really does not flex as much as you think.
Looks great.....can't wait to see it when done.


Rev

C-ROK said:

Where's the trail Ashman?

Click to expand...

Its not much of a "Trail"

Its a washed out hill at the verry end of Garden Canyon, on Ft Hauchuca, in the Hauchuca mountians.

I was visiting the folks for the weekend in sierraVista and got a group together to do a mild trail.

On the 5 scale its probibly a 2.5-3.0

Im not sure how long it will take me to build my cage. Im starting on my friend's 4runner that's cut the body down to the frame.
We'll do alittle of his and alittle of mine each weekend and on week nights. It could take till after December with all the holiday partys and such.. It should be the most fun part of the build up.

It should be clean work compaired to working under the jeep: sub frame, skids, drive shafts, leaf mounts....

Aw man somebody beat me to it! I was gonna say, "But wait there's no tailgate hatch, everyone knows it holds the whole XJ together and keeps it from twisting into a taco!".

This proves as I suspected that the XJ uniframe is alot tougher than it gets credit for.

Mark

XJMark said:

Aw man somebody beat me to it! I was gonna say, "But wait there's no tailgate hatch, everyone knows it holds the whole XJ together and keeps it from twisting into a taco!".

This proves as I suspected that the XJ uniframe is alot tougher than it gets credit for.

Mark

Click to expand...

npt a stock uni-frame...

A little re-inforcement here and there never hurts How did you get that crossmember bolted in, did you use spacer tubes in there for the bolts to go through?

Mark

ashmanjeepxj,
Do you have pic or drawing of your intended cage? Looks good.

Click on my sig, on pirate I think page 1 or 2 I have a link to immage station showing roughly my cage plans,

The rear I did not tirm straight back so that will change...

why did you put the front shakles on backwords?

Ft Hauchuca? Those are the people that always lose my Dept. of the Army paperwork..pee on a rock there for me, willya?

DARKFLY said:

why did you put the front shakles on backwords?

Click to expand...

Shackle forward.. is normal for Jeeps. Shackle in back is normal for toyota's.

There are MANY good reasons.
1. First you dont need a super special $$$ bling long travel front drive shaft. I was able to re-use the stock one. I had to cut it down 1.5in. Easy-Cheep.

2. It dosent brake dive like my toyota does. This also shortens your wheel base when going down hills, reduces stability, with shackle forward when goind down hills the weight shifts to the front and your wheel base gets alittle longer, more stable.

3. If I ranc shackle in back Id have to mount the shackel under the frame and that would be WAY too muchlift, or Id have to make a shackle that goes through the frame. Through the 4.5in wide frame Those bushings would have no flex and would bind compaired to the 2.5in wide bushing shackle hanger I have in the front.

4. one minus is that my shackle hits rocks and could dammage the leafs. so I made them anti kickback shackles, at full drop my 1/2in thick shackle bottoms out. at full compression my shackle bottoms out, so it limits the leafs from over extending and will reduce the rist of bending a leaf.

Toy guys have converted to shackle forward, jeep guys have converted to shackle in back...

run what you got.

Id build it shackle forward.