92XJT

Well this is my first jeep - loved it and had fun building it. Here's a quick run down of the project. I am now leaning towards selling or stripping down further and removing weight. Not sure which way I am going with it. Any suggestions of further build stuff let me know.

Day I picked it up - drove it home from Joliet, IL to Indiana - not too bad, but could see the pavement all the way home thru the floorboards.












Came with a few extras:
set of 32x11.50 AT tires
spare D35
rims
new rockers, etc

Came with:
4.0 mated to auto tranny and 231 tcase
8.25 rear
D30 non disco in front
4.5" RC lift with lifted leaf packs


Here was my original plans after the purchase:
2 more inches of lift
lockers and gears
34" swampers
snorkle
winch and winch bumper

92XJT

Soooo first plan was to try and tackle the floor boards - used some thinner metal I had around my garage and since the interior cloth was already ripped out of the floor decided to Herculine when I patched.









After cutting and rivoting in new panels:








Tried test fitting a 32x11.50 on a stock rim. Ah yeah didn't really fit too well.




So I sold my stock tires, the 32s, the D35 and found a deal on some baby boggers. 31x12.50 - 5 of them, and then bought some new white wagon wheels from Summit.










next to my DD and tow rig:




Currently at 3.54 gears and open diffs front / rear

89eliminator

what a piece of crap

92XJT

okay - computer crashed real quick, so now onto page 2.................


First wheeling trip - The Cliffs Insane Terrain ORP..

wheeling partner






jeep and the tow rig:




All and all did awesome on the trail - and exceeded what I thought it would do. Definetly needs lockers and bigger tires along with gears. But all in good time....

92XJT

lol - thanks Wade...... But it didn't get stuck in the mudflats in the swamp....... lol

92XJT

Next score:




actually cleans up pretty nice - lol, from a distance:


Storage area number 1 (say that cause it gets redesigned later on)








At this point picked up some spare 8.25 shafts and hub assemblies.

92XJT

Wheeling again - man the rear tire carrier makes some noise..... Still lacking a locker which made for fun on the rocks.







wheelin partners - course by far I am the smallest rig in the bunch...










Sooo after all this started looking for locker / gears. Found a deal on a 8.25 with a lock rite locker and 4.56 gears. It was only a 27 spline but the price was good and it was within driving distance. Bought new gears for the front, and had a shop install them. Well that cost me my tow bar. I used it to bring the jeep there, and bungied it up so it would be out of the way. Well when they took it for a test drive, they hit a bump, the tow bar flipped down and almost flipped the jeep. needless to say the bumper and towbar where shot - and got no compensation for the damage they caused. They got me with, "we don't touch anything not associated with the gear install". Even though she didn't say anything about it when I dropped the jeep off. Oh well - live and learn.

New tires - found 5 again, and now no baby boggers. These are 33x14x15 with 95% tread left on them. Already had a buyer for my baby boggers so didn't have to pay too, too much for these.











Well if I wanted to go just straight it was good to go - time for some trimming.

92XJT

Garage getting a wee bit crowded. Wife made me buy an atv, and I found a nice little cj5 I planned to play with.







Flare removal pics and fender trimming:










Trimmed up to one of the flare lines, and then made this cuts to help fold the metal over. Folded the length to have a smoother line so it wouldn't cut anything, and hopefully to make the fender a little stronger with the folded lip.








The rear was pretty much the same, but couldn't trim much initially due to the pinch weld. Trimmed maybe an inch off, then made the cuts up past the pinch weld and folded the fender over. Also at this time add 1.75" blocks to the rear to level out the jeep.


All done fender trimming - also trimmed the rear quarter panels.

92XJT

Next purchases:




Don't expect any write-up on the lights cause I never used them - sold em.

Some high strength jeep mounting points - lol.






An acquired taste - some love it while others hate it.....




Well this next part isn't jeep specific, but since I now have a trail rig, it effected my tow rig. I had a 1/2 dodge ram - lifted with 35s for towing/winter and 37s for summer. Well it just didn't tow the greatest, so found a great deal on my new tow rig. 07 fully loaded Powerwagon...... Another plus it freed up my winch on my old dodge so it got transplanted in the jeep.









Trimmed rear quarter pics:

artur1808

Great looking build, I love the look of those wagon wheels

92XJT

Next wheeling trips - finally got a rear locker, wishing for a front now - lol. Did pretty good on the trails and mud - though the rear shocks are now limiting my down travel.








Well after a few warm wheeling trips - the gears got turning about making some sort of soft top / open top. I did know if I went this route I would need a rollcage to strengthen the rig back up after ditching some of the roof. So made some initial marks inside the roof to see where I would like to trim. Decided to leave the supports in place and just remove the flat areas. So it would have a T-top like front and then another larger opening in the rear over the back seat.







I had an old soft cover for my gen II ram that was already trimmed down to fit with a toolbox. So I figured what the heck we could use that, the snaps and maybe some of the frame to make a removable soft top for the jeep.




I planned of going over the existing part of the roof rack, so the back section of the top I planned on using some of the soft cover frame work to make it flush. Also added some more weatherstripping so it would fill in the raised section of the roof line. Use 4 bolts to attach the frame to the jeep roof.




Well no turning back now - lol:






Did one more last test fit - once I had it marked out, brought it to an apholstry shop to narrow it down to fit the jeep. Also planned on using the existing cross bars to be used as the roof bows to limit any water from building up on the cover.






cut the rear out:




Starting to fit up the trimmed down cover:

92XJT

Inside view - sealed up nicely:




Got diff guards during this time as well:




Also during this time I decided to change out the unit bearings - started to get some very little play, but figured better safe then sorry. Conducted a test here as well bought once cheapo from ebay and then the other was from rockauto - national brand one.





Also swapped out my sagging leaf pack:


Interior removed for cage install:

92XJT

Cage installed - needs more triangulation, I know, but for now it suits my needs of stiffening the body up after removing the roof area.

Added these straps to the front of the top before towing the jeep to the shop for the cage install. Have a feeling the wind will be flowing up and under the cover and undo the top.







Started making my new storage area for the cargo section:










Not a huge fan of this shaft holder since its pretty much aimed right at my head. But figured since my top speed is pretty low (don't drive it on the highway) I should be safe. Plan is to get that cargo net stuff to go over the back area right behind the rear seat.


Moved the CB here and made an enclosure for it to limit any water getting by it during transport.


Non certified padding installed:

92XJT

More storage:



So what wheeling rig isn't complete without half doors:


Driver's side door went pretty good - had to cut one of them lovely torq heads off (stupid jeep engineers)




Deciding on how low to cut for the doors:


During the door building process, I decided that them white wagon wheel rims just didn't look right so went with a new color:



went from this:

to this:


Anyways - back onto the 1/2 doors:

Passenger door sucked and had to cut off most of them torq heads.




So figured I would try my luck and cut slots in them cut off bolts and screw them out. Yeah, that worked on the first one, and then the entire assembly fell out of the holder and nothing was left. Plan for this was to use use nuts / bolts to hold the door pin assembly in place.

92XJT

For the most part I will just show how I did this on one door since its pretty much the same for both sides. lol - only difference the second door went much quicker.

So figured out how thick the door was and made my cuts. My plan was to add that amount to where I want my actual opening to be so I could bend over the area and use that to fill in the gaps between the door. Will still have to add some filler metal, but this will cover most of it.

This is the first cuts - before any bending.


Bottom section bent inward (starting to bend - lol):


Front section bent inward:


Rear section bent inward:




Templates for the filler area:




Filler metal - since I don't have a welder I went with a little thinner metal, and planned on trying that epoxy style welding goo.




Door latch: