Joel's multipurpose XJ build (rocks/boulevard)

[Redsnake]

Joel...

Thanks for the GREAT reply! The XJ's weight is a catch-22.... the light weight is great for being nimble around town and street driving, but the 'fragile' subframe design is not very tough when it comes to offroading unless you're just driving on soft trails (which is 99% of my offroading).

 

[frijolee]

Redsnake,

No problem. My biggest fear with mine was that in occasionally flexing the suspension pretty hard, I'd end up with fatigue cracks and it's almost too late to stiffen up at that point. I paid a bit of a premium for this rig since it had been so thoroughly gone through by a shop prior. I know I'm planning to sell it someday (could be a year, could be several) which means I needed to do what I could to keep it both nice and whole.

FWIW, I actually did find my first fatigue crack during this stiffening process. It was at the outboard corner of the leaf spring hanger and seems to be tearing from the last spot weld.

I don't know what the heck Jeep was thinking as the floorboards are paper thin here (how is that a load path?) I was able to get a good stitch weld at one end, but unfortunately, keep blowing through on the other (hence why I know it's paper thin).

Decided I need to do a bit better reinforcement here. Anyone have suggestions?

I was thinking maybe a 1x1 square tube running left right between frame and rocker (much like my rocker ties but shorter so the leaf spring clears under it). I could pick up the OEM bracket in question on the vertical seam, maybe use a doubler on the face holding bolt.

-Joel

 

[dan1977p]

Redsnake,

Decided I need to do a bit better reinforcement here. Anyone have suggestions?

I was thinking maybe a 1x1 square tube running left right between frame and rocker (much like my rocker ties but shorter so the leaf spring clears under it). I could pick up the OEM bracket in question on the vertical seam, maybe use a doubler on the face holding bolt.

-Joel

Driver's side on mine is completely rusted out so I'm replacing the metal above it the same way I did where the shackle box used to be. That metal will be probably a 5/16 plate that goes from the rocker edge (so I can tie it in to some 2x6 when rocker replacement happens) to the unirail (so I can tie it into the stiffeners when that happens) and stitched to the good floor along the way. Tying the shackle box into the 5/16 made it a ton stronger but that could have just been because it was tied into nothing before.

 

[VaBeachMike]

Family time is the best !! Awesome Shot!!

 

[frijolee]

Trip report:

Headed out to Johnson Valley Thursday night. Some folks were already set up in the canyon I had been heading for so we ended up in the next one over. Pretty sure it's actually the entrance (could be exit) of "Hammer Down" in Cougar Buttes.

Woke up to beautiful blue skies. Man it was pretty. The Jeep's too shiny... time to get 'er dirty.

Little glamour shot of the little RV the other dad brought in the reflection too. This was a daddy/daughter weekend so two dads up front and three little girls in back, all in my XJ. We didn't do anything too nuts both due to the littles and challenges of self recovery.

Drove the full desert leg over toward Johnson Valley proper. Chased jack rabbits down the trail and clocked one doing a little better than 30 mph. I think that Soggy Dry Lake is one of the smoothest of the three lakes out there (Melville and Means being the other two I know of, so we had fun going fast and spinning donuts.

Ended up at the sand dunes south east of Melville. Other dad and his girl.

We found some wet sand digging down in a gully so the girls made sand castles. We headed back via Old Woman Spring Roads for a bit then cut back offroad to approach Cougar Buttes from the East.

Back at camp, couldn't help but think that XJ's look damn good when dirty so I snapped a couple pics.

We also climbed the mountain next to our camp which the girls though was soooo cool. Me and my little ladies.

Maybe my best shot of the trip...

 

[frijolee]

Day 2:

Spend a bit more time playing in rocks today. There was a really fun boulder pile near camp that I messed around on while my 6 year old shot pictures on my phone.

My little one was having so much fun…

The sand dunes had been so popular the day before that we went to try to find another set. This time we cut over to JV via Old Woman Springs and came in on Boone Rd. I drove up around Chocolate Thunder and then turned south to the dunes in the valley on the East side of that ridge.

This area has some of the nicest sand I’ve ever seen. Super fine, smooth, and no junk in it all. Better sand than any beach I’ve been on. Couple more glamour shoots from the top of the hill.

Back at camp that night we finally got a group shot with a pretty nice sunset as well.

Jeep ran great. Almost no creaking anymore. Sometimes you’d hear a squeak from the rear hatch seal but that's about it. I do want to work on my front bump stops a bit more but the rear bumps were perfect. No noise, good alignment, smooth engagement. I also felt like the bastard pack worked as intended to level out the rig a touch. There a just a couple things I still want to do, but I'll get into those when completed.

-Joel

 

[frijolee]

I did have one small failure on the weekend... I didn't leave quite enough clearance between my billet muffler hanger and the leaf spring. Add in a little sideways deflection and apparently it hooked the spring at some point, broke the fabbed upper mount.

Simple fix to redo, but that's the kind of thing I'm thinking about when I say there's little stuff to address. This is as good as time as any to point out the turndown I added to the exhaust tip. Previously I went straight back but it was getting one of the one of the rear leaf spring bushings rather toasty and that was egging out.

Quick cut and snip on the tail of the exhaust:

You can see the before and after bushing parts here:

Note, I couldn't find the original bushings BDS uses on their springs so I ordered a Chevy part that at least was the right length and OD on the bore.

The flange was a little thicker than I needed so I did shave that down on my disk sander.

I probably could have saved some time and ordered from BDS, but I'm still pretty unhappy with those guys. How they heck do you offer a "no fine print warrany", that only applies to the original purchaser? Non-transferability is a heck of a line of fine print in my book.

I do need to investigate a loose bushing on my driver upper control arm and I'm hoping to avoid dealing with BDS if I can help it. Any suggestions on an appropriate bushing up there?

 

[frijolee]

About the last thing I did before leaving for the desert was finish off my front fender fold. This was another one of the cases where I wanted to figure out how I could do this job just a touch better (to my eyes anyways) than the folks who’ve gone before me.

I’d liked my minimal cutting version of the rear fender fold quite a bit. That was back here:
http://www.naxja.org/forum/showpost.php?p=246367481&postcount=282

So I wanted to try something similar. However, without the metal inner fender to support I wasn’t at all sure I’d be able to get the metal to stretch enough in the corners. I also really wanted to keep the plastic fender liners. I’m sure someone else has managed to keep the liners but all the one’s I know of just went without.

This was my plan of where to cut to.

I probably should have cut longer to be sure I could shave it back to a smooth arc (curve is the diameter of a 4.5” angle grinder disc BTW). I needed a smooth arc to avoid stress risers least the fender have potential to tear, but I think I could have had an extra 1/8” or so at the point of minimum bend if I’d started longer and shaved to final fit.

Everywhere else I left the lips of the fender fully long to try to help support the fender liner once folded. Since it was a stair step I couldn’t use my fabbed tool from the rear fold effort. Vice grips working slowly got it done. I took it to about horizontal but not much past.

Trimming the fender liner was just a series of cuts working slowly.

Are here they are together, not shown are a couple zip ties at the tips.

I might make a little patch panel someday to close the gap remaining but it’s not a huge deal and it’s still a great deal better at keep crap out than it would be otherwise. Seemed to work well in sand (close up from trip report).

Only other thing I might change would be to use 2 piece removal plastic panel clips. My feelings on Christmas tree clips…

-Joel

 

[hjeepxj]

On your usage of POR 15, did you use their initial cleaner/degreaser & metal prep ?

Forgive me if I missed it in the thread.

 

[clean4drxj]

The best thing I've done to date was stiff the uni rails and use these rustys mounts

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[frijolee]

On your usage of POR 15, did you use their initial cleaner/degreaser & metal prep ?

Forgive me if I missed it in the thread.

Used both everywhere it was rusty. Most of the stiffeners were just sanded bright metal so those I just wiped down with acetone and jumped straight to POR.

The best thing I've done to date was stiff the uni rails and use these rustys mounts

Is that a replacement control arm mount? Can't quite tell from the pic.

 

[hjeepxj]

Used both everywhere it was rusty. Most of the stiffeners were just sanded bright metal so those I just wiped down with acetone and jumped straight to POR.

Gotcha, so the metal prep can go over existing rust it sounds like. Sweet.

 

[frijolee]

Yep, that's what it's for. Converts ferrous oxide to ferrous phosphate (benign) which can then be sealed in. They claim it etches the surface as well so it's for for anything and probably a good call if you have smooth steel. Mine was rough sanded and I wasn't sure it'd do anything to the partial mill scale I had left so I called it good enough and went for it without.

 

[clean4drxj]

No that's a leaf spring bracket to tie in the front mounts to the floor and unirails


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[frijolee]

Chiming back in with a couple maintenance things and an intake upgrade.

I happened to pick up an AFE Power intake a few months back as part of a package deal when I was shopping for some other stuff. Figured it couldn't hurt to add a few horses to offset some of the weight I've been adding and this one is 50 state legal.

While I had the air box out I swapped in a new lower radiator hose. My power steering reservoir weeps a bit and drips on the radiator hose below. The fluid exposure seemed to be affecting the rubber and the hose was soft right at the spot where a drip forms on the underside. I'd previously wrapped the hose with silicone tape as a temporary band aid but needed to change it.

Comparing you can see it was starting to bulge. I wrapped the new one as well to keep it dry until I can troubleshoot the power steering. Kinda boring but worth mentioning in case someone else has the same issue.

The AFE intake seems to be a nice piece. The divider box is wrinkle power coated metal and dropped right in. The kit includes nicely sized edge trim to support the plastic tubing and even had a pad for where it can lean on the brake booster.

The one piece of the kit that wasn't so good was the plastic bung to tie back to the PCV system. Not a huge deal but took a good bit of filing and sanding to get the hose on. I had to take the leading edge bulge almost all the way off.

And here it is buttoned up. I'm using the dry sock pre-filter as well to help keep dirt from sticking to the filter.

How's it drive? Well when I first fired it up it stalled and died so I momentarily thought I'd done something wrong or it wasn't sucking air. Nope. Turns out my Jeep didn't like sitting for the time I was working on it (the bigger downtime with all my welding was likely the main culprit but this little session didn't help). Repeated trickle charging didn't enough to bring the battery back. Apparently I bought the old battery in Oct 2010, so I'm not feeling too bad.

Out with the old:

In with the new (trying a full size AGM this time):

OK, so how's it really drive? Nice. The power bump is enough to be noticeable. It pulls a bit more eagerly getting up toward the top (never a jeep's strong suit admittedly), responds quicker when you stand on it, and doesn't feel like it's constantly trying to change gears as often if you're 3/4 throttle powering up an incline. Supposedly makes about +9 hp, but I'm sure that number is mod dependent.

Link for some dyno testing on a I-6 4.0 for reference:
http://www.fourwheeler.com/how-to/engine/154-0804-jeep-wrangler-intake-shootout/

Happy New Year!
-Joel

 

[clean4drxj]

Let me know how the duralast agm holds up(going to be in the market for a stronger battery).


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[frijolee]

Let me know how the duralast agm holds up(going to be in the market for a stronger battery).

No issues so far. Fires vigorously and since I've gotten my RX7 back on the road, the Jeep gets driven a bit less.

I like AGM batteries a lot as they seem really powerful for the size and you can run them a bit harder with no impact. That said, you still never want to let one drain flat as they don't seem to recover well if you get them really low.

One weird tip that I found helpful. A great deal of smart chargers are too smart and freak out if a battery is really low (especially true of AGMs). Where-as you might bring a regular battery back from the dead at 9 volts or whatever with an external trickle charger, that same charger will through a fault on a AGM battery that gotten that low. If you apply the charger to two batteries in parallel (a good and a bad tied together with jumper cables or whatever), with good battery will prop up the voltage of the lower battery and it won't fault out.

The charger just sees a bigger battery with the average voltage and it's happy to charge both together. eace:

 

[bad_idea]

Cool build. I especially like the rear cargo area storage compartment. I'm tired of packing the recovery gear every time I want to go out. The high lift is under the back seat and I'm tired of pulling the car seat to get to the jack when I need it. That looks to fix both of those issues. I have a question about the car seat attachment point though. How is the anchor point attached? Fastened to the wood panel? Through bolted to the Jeep?

 

[frijolee]

Thanks for the kind words. The car seat attachments are just another GM Tahoe anchor. There are only attached to wood, but since it was just the vertical and not the main load I figured that was enough. These days my girls are rocking high back booster chairs so there's no more strap needed.

I still like the storage I built a lot it's perfect for maximizing space hauling all my daily crap (jumper cables etc). If I needed access back there and was running full loaded a great deal, I could see doing it with drawers instead of hinged lids as every now and then I have to move something to gain access. On net, I decided I didn't want to give up the volume drawer slides would sacrifice, but this is a trade and your opinions may vary. The amplifier felt I used has held up well.

 

[frijolee]

Well it's been a bit and the big news was that my parent company closed my office. That means I had a choice to move to pursue opportunities in Georgia or to pursue opportunities elsewhere. I choose the later. On the upside work has been clearing out a metric ton of stuff and the XJ's been used as one hell of a hauler.

I dragged home a metric ton of randomness they were giving away and the garage went full cluster mode.

Don't you need a dozen or so rolls of edge trim? Of course you do.

Yeah, nightmare... Good stuff, but nightmare to stumble around.

This was me sorting just the bins of electrical goodies and hoses...

There's a shed in work, but I'll have to get back to that...