• NAXJA is having its 18th annual March Membership Drive!!!
    Everyone who joins or renews during March will be entered into a drawing!
    More Information - Join/Renew
  • Welcome to the new NAXJA Forum! If your password does not work, please use "Forgot your password?" link on the log-in page. Please feel free to reach out to [email protected] if we can provide any assistance.

Beginning of 1993 Cheromanche build

dave, i'm still waiting for a pm or a phone call, but i'm ready to lend a hand, if you need it. you just gotta let me know what you want. i'm no body man, but my dad is, and i could show the pictures to him and see what he thinks about lining those rockers up. i think as far as getting the welder from mark goes, you'd have better luck with a telephone, so you can actually make some arrangements....
 
IMG03.jpg


2007024.jpg

I would LOVE to do this and put a big diesel in, D60s, low gears, put it on 32"s, and make it one badass tow rig.
 
I know thread resurrection sue me. Always hated that burgundy cheromanche, it's just way out of proportion. As is the OP's
still an interesting build from the standpoint of what can go wrong that no one ever really suspects.

Jeepers tend to be can do jump in and start cutting types. But there's some obvious lessons here...

That rear window, and lower rear door, has to be figured out and even fabricated (even if only roughly) before you finish grafting the main bits together. you can't assume the back (latching) end of your door will line up and correctly mate with the door opening, because the B pilar on a XJ might not be pointing exactly square with the new "C pilar" (the MJ B pilar becomes the C pilar).

Two of the only really finished Cheromanche's both went the half way compromise rout, by either leaving the 4 door opening and using the 4 door rear doors (see below), or by using the 4dr door and grafting "filler panels" in (see the upper rear door of the burgundy cheromanche above)

A more professional compromise would be to use the 2 door (or MJ) door opening at the C pilar, and then graft the lower rear corner of a MJ or 2d XJ door, so you eliminate the wheel housing shape from the 4dr XJ C pilar. this allows you to use the 4rd window/door frame, while making it look less "hack" on the lower portion.

Everyone loves those blue photochop MJ's the only problem is the rear door and window are a tall order. you can do them with the above graft suggestion for the lower rear part of the door, and then have custom glass made to fit your custom frabricated upper rear door frame...

It would be much easier and in the end maybe better looking to just forgo the MJ rear window and use the metal rear hatch/graft of an 97+ XJ. This kills two birds:

A) your roof line problem becomes much easier (you're effectively shortening the rear of a 4dr XJ) so you take out ('section') a few feet of the cargo area, and graft the roof and upper D pilar of the 4 dr, and graft in the lower back of the MJ cab. plus the bed rails.

B) Fixes your upper door lines to look like they belong there. and your lower door lines can use the lower rear corner of an MJ style door.

C) Optionally you can get REAL fancy and do something Chevy Avalanche-like with the rear hatch.

This is my personal preference, and what I plan to do eventually myself (retirement project maybe?)

My personal idea is to use the upper half of the metal 97+ hatch cut off the bottom, use the D pilar of that 4dr XJ, and the lower back cab of the MJ. In such a way as I end up with a mini-hatch and possibly a fold down lower hatch, with a bobbed MJ bed.

Slightly longer than this, with slightly longer wheelbase (not a photochop, should be familiar to NAXJA old timers):
46f31.jpg

In short something very Explorer Sport-trac or 4 door Durago proportioned.
 
Last edited:
@1bolt

Exactly! Someone else sees the issues!

The problem with the methods you have proposed is that it does not leave a lot of headroom for the rear seat passengers. Maybe you mean to address this but did not write it in your post.

There is a reason why the MJ has such a thick B pillar. It's so that there is room for the occupants heads while wearing a hat and/or in a mild accident situation so that the head has some room to bob/move/whip. Those old MJ benches really should have had head rests.

It's annoying to have parts of your head almost touch the interior of a vehicle.

Sit in your MJ and consider where your head is relative to the rear glass. There's a bunch of space between.

I've seen these chops done where the rear XJ bench top is right against the glass. Must be really uncomfortable for adults, even kids.

I agree the proportion on the red truck in your post is close to ideal. Very "SportTrac". I'd likely want to add some wheelbase by adding 6"-9" to the box forward of the rear wheel opening. I'd need to play with the image in PS and sketchup to see what looks good. I'd might try to add a few inches to the rear overhang too - not much but a bit more. What's the point of having a PU that can't used as a PU?
 
Definitely thought of head room, in fact if you look at interior pics of the red "sporttrac" style one I posted you'll see that he has some sort of hack jump seat setup in there, because of the lack of room behind the seat. Makes sense, if you look at a 4dr XJ the rear seat back is visibly behind the C pillar, and that's not exactly a roomy back seat either. I want the cab extended more than that but with similar proportions (so maybe 6 inches). When I combine the D pillar to the C pillar I'm going to put a filler panel in between them to get that room, and a comanche cab corner/lower door pillar (plus bed rail tie in in the middle of the XJ unibody). Which eliminates the wheel arch and lets me cut a triangular section of the bottom of the door off and graft it onto the 4dr door.
 
Yah I don't want to but when you've got 3 kids that are going without in this economy I'll do whatever I can to take care of them first and foremost. I've got someone interested in it that's going to come by tomorrow evening to look at it so I'll get some pics of it's current state today and post them on here. I got the passenger side door tacked together and loosely put in place but still needs slight tweaking to get all the lines straight. Really wish I could keep it though and see it through to completion as it's to the point I can see how the final product would look.
 
Yah I don't want to but when you've got 3 kids that are going without in this economy I'll do whatever I can to take care of them first and foremost. I've got someone interested in it that's going to come by tomorrow evening to look at it so I'll get some pics of it's current state today and post them on here. I got the passenger side door tacked together and loosely put in place but still needs slight tweaking to get all the lines straight. Really wish I could keep it though and see it through to completion as it's to the point I can see how the final product would look.

I would love to take and finish the project, but I know the thing is way too long to even fit in my garage. :( Really nice work so far!
 
It depends on the garage, the wheelbase is right at 12' and overall length from bumper to bumper is right around 16' i believe. I've got it parked beside my 05 impala and it's only a couple of feet longer.
 
Re: Re: Beginning of 1993 Cheromanche build

Crowdsource funds to crush/burn it?

The good news is, the owner finally realized how ugly this pos is.

It had potential, but the cab is too long.
 
Hi I believe I picked up this exact crewmanche in this thread this weekend, I do plan on finishing it and would mind to actually talk t ok the original builder?
 
Man this thing just keeps getting passed around. What's it look like these days?
 
Back
Top