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Troy's "I need to quit working on my wife's Jeep" build

troy5118

NAXJA Forum User
Location
Ks
Story goes, 2 years ago my wife wanted a Jeep. She had one in college and missed it. I've never owned one but decided a Cherokee would make a fun 3rd vehicle. We bought what was already a fairly capable rig. After getting invited to take it to some trails by some buddies its been downhill since..lol I've changed all of it and would consider it 80%+ done. I've learned everything from these forums so hear is my thread to help others.

I'm wanting to attend the 35th anniversary in Moab so hears is the history and where I'm at.

Here's what it looked like when I bought it a little over 2 years ago.

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- 6.5" RC short arm lift
- LP Dana 30 with Ox locker
- Dana 35 with 30 Spline Ox locker
- 33"s

Rust free and in perfect shape. The previous owner had put some decent parts on it but didn't wheel it. Didn't even have disconnects. It needed tires so I put some 33" Treadwrights on it and powder coated the wheels. We then tossed the flairs and trimmed the fenders (I'll skip that stuff plenty of threads showing how to's)

Wife digs.

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Took it wheeling for the first time and found out two things.
1. This is alot of fun!
2. My weekend spent fender trimming was a waste because the Jeeps front flex trashed a fender 1st time I worked it = more trimming!

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First project was to build a front bumper. My goal was to keep all my additions balanced between weight and strength. This was built with 1.75" x .095" HREW.

Drew it up in Solid Edge.

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Wasn't long before 33"s were sold and replace with 35"s. Even though I had the super 35 kit in my Dana 35 I made a quick brace for it before we took it on a road trip to Arkansas for a friends wedding. He just happened to have the wedding near an ORV park.

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Last winter I did a ton of work to it. In no particular order.

- Inner fender clearancing.

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- Frame Stiffeners and Rough Country Long arm upgrade

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Long arms installed.

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Bilsteins.

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Next was a new exhaust. I'll go into a little more detail here. I wanted it all replaced with 2 1/2' mandrel bent tubing. New aftermarket header, Magnaflow muffler, high flow cat and Performance curves tailpipe.

New stuff.

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I wanted to get rid of the junk crimped down pipe so I bought an extra piece of mandrel tubbing to build my own.

Old downpipe.


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Old exhaust.

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The new header need the weld in the port ground down so I fixed that first.

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New downpipe.

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Basically I reused the flange that bolts to the header and the back half of the downpipe that was already 2 1/2" with the opposite flange and factory hanger. I cut out everything in between and tig welded in new tube and O2 sensor.

The rest was pretty straight forward. I mocked it all up keeping it as high as possible and welded as much of it together to lesson clamps and leaking. I also added a flex connector to relieve stress on the header.

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Installed.

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I'm very happy with how it turned out. I wish I could of done a back pressure test. It would have been cool to know how much better it flows now :cool:
 
Then it was time to get more serious on the axles. I'm going to keep the thing on 35's to keep it daily drivable. I've got good parts in my axles but the front was a Low pinion and I wasn't happy with how this thing darts all over the damn road since it has no caster anymore. I found a high pinion housing and swapped the Ox locker and 30 spline shafts across. It was 4.10 ratio so I re geared it to 4.88.

The new housing got sandblasted and the following done to it.
- Cut the C's free and re clocked them to give the Jeep 8 Deg of positive caster. It was near 0.
- Welded C braces on
- Welded Lower control arm skids
- Welded Upper control arm plating on
- Made a truss using 1.25" tube and dimple died 14 GA

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I decided to sell the Super 35 since it needed re geared too and used it as an excuse to build and 8.8. It got rebuilt with a Detroit, 4.88, and a similar truss.

I've got a thread on it here.

http://www.naxja.org/forum/showthread.php?t=1085727

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Misc that was done before this winter.

Rough country Shackle relocator.

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Love this addition! I have my shackle angle back and a nice ride.

Converted the interior lights to all L.E.D. and changed the cluster out to one that has gauges instead of the dummy lights. Also did a white readout.

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This is also really nice as compared to the old bulbs. half of them were burnt out and the ones that worked were dim. If you do this L.E.D.s aren't adjustable voltage so I picked a mid brightness bulb so it wouldn't blind me and hurt my night vision.

Gave the Jeep a good tune up. New Cap and rotor with Brass contacts, plugs and quality wires.

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We took it down the Arkansas river and buried it which soaked the interior. So we pulled it apart and resealed the floor and put in new carpet. Much nicer now.

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- The power steering blew up so I bought a Reman Durango box, new pump, lines a tranny cooler.
- Did a SYE
- New Fuel pump and 5 hole injectors
- New blower motor
- New oil adapter seals etc etc


Ripped the doors off.

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Made tube doors using wrangler latches.

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This thing crawls up stuff like a monkey now!

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Next on the docket was to get a real bumper on the back. It need to have a tire carrier, receiver hitch, D ring mounts and rear L.E.D. lighting.

What I drew up (similar to something out there).

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All it had were front door speakers and I have to have tunes. I added a soundbar and built a box for it.

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We took it to Cat House again in Western Ks and Tuttle Creek in Manhattan last summer/fall and its taken everything we've thrown at it and drove home with the cruise in style.

Cat House ORV

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Tuttle Creek

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Time to start getting more serious now as I have been finding cracks in this thing. Stupid uni body. So I made the plunge and ordered a pile of tubing and started building a cage for the Jeep :cheers:

I started this phase after Christmas and have been working on it since then. From what I've learned from others the cool thing to do is rip out your perfect rockers and replace them with rectangular tubbing and cut the bottoms off all your still pristin doors for more clearance...ok! :greensmok

I marked the doors to remove 1.75" and cut the rocker at the bend.

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Grabbed the cut off wheel after having a can or two of liquid courage and went to work.

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I made filler panels out of 18 ga for the doors and spot welded them all in.

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I used 2" x 5" x 1/8" tubbing for the rockers. I wanted them to be flush with the door as I will be adding tube steps to them also. I decided against 3/16" as I doubt I'll seriously need the extra material. We don't have a ton of rocky stuff out here and I didn't want uneeded weight.

Mocked up with jack stands.

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After some welding.

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Here is the front brace that ties the rocker to the frame.

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And here is one further back that will act as the anchor for the cage.

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Here is how it looked underneath.

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I decided against doing full boatsides as again I don't think I'll need them. I made 10 ga filler panels to tie the Rectangular tube to where I cut the rocker. Before welding them on I primered the area and welded .75" x .125 angle iron clear down where the plate would weld to the body seam to give it more strength. I've seen this done before and it looked like a great idea.

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Also here is the step I made out of 1.5" x .125" hrew tube.

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With all that out of the way I can finally build the cage! I've seen several great hybrid cages the are a good balance between protection,interior space and strength. Being as this is still a driver that's the route I decided to go myself. This was all built using D.O.M. With 70,000 psi tensile vs HREW's 40,000 tensile this is a no brainer. Yes it costs more but the 75% increase in strength is worth it. Also it all 1.75" diameter something I feel is the minimum for a heavy Jeep. It's all .095" wall except for the main tubes that run down both side of the drip rail and the tube that connects them across the A pillar. This is an area that needs the extra strength.

I started with making the tube weldment that will fit behind the seats first. Everything else will tie into this one way or another.

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Thru roof.

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Then I moved to the bars that will go thru the roof for the C and D pillars. I wanted to maintain as much space as possible so I decided to run them into a Y that would hit the floor tight to the wheel wells just behind the seat. If I had ran a separate tube for the D pillar to the back floor corners it would of interfered with the fire extinguisher and sub box so this was a compromise.

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Here's a plate I welded on each side to give the tubes some better footing.

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After tacking it to the frame tie in I moved on to the roof bars. I spent some extra time making the bars contour with the roof. Here's the B-Pillar bar.

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I did the roof bars for the C and D Pillar the same.

Then came the main bars that run the length of the drip rail and tie into the roof bars. They were a pain in the a$$!

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Once that was done I tacked in some more support tubes and cut the whole thing free to weld on the floor.

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I made 2 dozen of these dimple died gussets to weld in the corners. They'll be great for tie downs.

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Painted with Rustoleum black "Hammered"

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Then it all went back together. I tacked the whole cage back together then lifted it a couple inches so I could get to all the uprights on top of the roof.

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I used 1/16" silicone bronze to weld the roof to the tubes. Its great because you can run the amperage nice and low to save distortion and keep from blowing holes thru the roof.

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Adding bracing to the B Pillar bars.

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With the bend I had to do in the B pillar uprights to fit the seat it's especially important to tie them into the Jeeps B pillar. I don't have a great pic but you can see the 1.25" tubes I used in this pic.

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Here's the floor tie ins after finishing with sealer and paint.

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Plate to support center tube on the tunnel.

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I still have a few more braces to weld in but we had a big snow storm hit 2 weeks ago so I threw the rig back together for winter duty. Here's a couple pics of it with the cage.

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I'm currently working on fenders for it. When that's done I'll finish the rest of the braces for the cage and be done!

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Future projects include.
- Getting the winch put on
- Lighting
- 4.6 Stroker
- Better Alternator and cables
- Better steering

Thanks for all the info I've picked up from others on here and hopefully this will do the same :wave:
 
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