Ask Joe: Project XJ Continues

Retoolin' a Jeep Cherokee XJ from the ground up

By Joe Bovee

In lieu of answering your questions about the noise/smell coming from behind your dash, or whether or not you should get a 3-foot-high rear spoiler (please god, don’t), Joe’s taking on a burly rebuild project and will chronicle his progress here as a series called Project XJ. Joe will also feature updates and photos of Project XJ online at the Voice blog, where you can check out additional info on and pics of Joe’s automotive trials, tribulations and ultimate triumph over one diamond-in-the-rough Jeep. Enjoy!

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The saga continues slowly but surely.

Becoming a street/trail Jeep requires a lot of compromise. For example, you wouldn’t want to lift a daily driver 12” and put 38” Super Swamper Boggers on it (however tempting). But, on the other hand, you can’t take a stock Jeep to TSF (Tillamook State Forest) and get very far. So to handle the long-term rigor of daily driving as well as whatever obstacles may get thrown at us on the trail, I have to consider what’s available and reasonable, and temper my urge to trick it all out.

So, my latest work on the beast has been on the suspension, wheels and tires (and at the time of this writing, the rear has yet to be finished…sigh). Thanks to the Bushwacker Fender Flairs, I don’t need a ton of lift to clear larger tires—which is good, since I acquired a set of factory Rubicon 16” 5-spoke alloy wheels and some very rugged and dependable Goodyear MTR tires. These tires have built their reputation on being tremendous off-road tires, performing equally well in rocks, sand, and/or mud. They have a bulletproof sidewall, great for airing down…and I won’t be afraid to air down thanks to the on-board air system from VIAIR (which I’ll be covering in my project wrap-up next month). The only real downfall to the tires is that they seem to get noisier as time progresses, but they’re so great otherwise I figure I can live with it. And with the light weight of the XJ, I should be able to get pretty good life out of them…but just to be safe, I’ll also be mounting a full-size spare (a must when off-roading far away from home).

For the suspension, I chose to go with a rag-tag bunch of components, the main staple of the lift coming from Skyjacker Suspension. Their 3” suspension lift is a nice product consisting of new front tubular lower control arms in their Value Flex series and new front coil springs. I also used their Hydro Series shocks. The control arms come with polyurethane bushings and Zerk Fittings for extended life. When installing the lower control arms (and with the help of some good friends –thanks, guys) we were able to trim off some material from the factory axel mounts and drop the axel another two inches! (Pictures on the blog soon!) Everything is a bolt-on part. To gain a little extra without breaking the budget (this is where that reasonable part I mentioned above comes in), I opted for the 2” budget boost from Trailmaster, which consists of a 2” urethane spacer up front and a ‘lift’ shackle in the rear. The front spacer shouldn’t hurt the ride any (and will actually give the little extra clearance for articulation that I want up front), and the rear shackle is a considerably stronger piece than the original equipment as well.

I’m also busying myself with some work on the body, and ‘small’ stuff like steam cleaning the seats, re-doing the headliner, putting the front grille assembly back together, and fabricating reinforcements. In the next issue I’ll thrill you all with tales of buttoning-up the suspension, installing the on-board air, and adding off-road lighting from PIAA!

Stay tuned...

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Online Resources:
www.naxja.com
www.sore4x4.com
www.jeepforum.com

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