The......"Rolling Felony" story.........

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More to come! Thanks!

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5" of lift, 33" Maxxis tires, I had fun with it as is, added a snorkle for only god knows why.........because the one night it did get stuck in rebelous wheeling, slept over night, talked to frogs in the am.......stuck, 36 hours later was 12 feet under water............Sheriff was checking on folks in a canoe I later learned.....I recovered the XJ with a Hi~Lift & 3 hrs of grunt, the Hi~Lift now remanes worthless......it's junk.

Ahhhhhh, those were the days.............Party on Garth.....





....WHOOOPS.......wrong pic.......oh well........


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Then it began, the morphous......the no return.......the dare to be different..........



Well, not THAT different.........................but different...

And it started....

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Alrighty, obviously......the Round Headlight Conversion is'nt n everyday thing and gets some attention, it's been said I suffered flashbacks from post High School antics inwhich I was'nt found for days..............NOT TRUE!
It's this guys fault...............
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I don't know him, never spoke to him........but the day I saw the picture of his Cherokee, I knew what I needed to do..

I was'nt out to copy his conception.....




But rather, create my own incorperating the round headlights.....a more street friendly version and so.......
It rolled of garage looking like this.......

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The Conversion........

Most ALL of my old photo's of the fabrication have been lost, there were some in photobucket, but also lost......if I find somehow find some searching through old forum archives, I will edit & add them.

It's one thing to just install roundy rounds, but how do you make it all work? I decided I was going to introduce 1-1/4" (OD) tube at the same time, wrapping the nose & creating solid flares.



I removed the facia and removed the old headlight areas.....completely, the base of the facia was also removed.....
I whipped up a cardboard template, tracing the outter ring of the CJ light buckets....(gotta keep it Jeep!)....trim, hold them in place, trim....trim....I kept doing this until I found what I wanted....the pattern was then transfered to 1/8" steel, cut, smoothed, CJ buckets cut in, drilled, tapped....done..
Behind the facia is the steel (I say that lightly) header, after some light notching and a bend.....I found the sweet spot & tacked them in.
The tube was then introduced, it worked out really well, I sectioned it in and today.....6 or 7 years later, it's held up exceptionally.
The front fenders were trimmed WAY back to accept the tube, the front portion of the fender was actually rolled down and around the new headlight areas, welded & ground smooth.....



Having to stay legal, I needed side markers........I looked at my stock ones and decided I could work with them, I basically reshaped the light using a belt sander as much as possible, created a nest for them & mounted them up. The lower steel around the base & top of the lights is 5/16" stainless steel round rod welded in place.



End results have again, held up very well.......6-7 years later.....



Once the fabrication was complete, I primed all the bare steel, then went to my local Tractor Supply store for some black impliment paint & hardener.
End result in finished paint.....




It came out great, just what I wanted, I was happier than a tornado in a trailer park!!



Next.....the quicky bumpa'.....

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The quicky front bumper........was pretty much that, I took a BackBone System, mounted it up, and built the around it........



Basically, I did'nt want to obstruct my tires, it's a stubby of sorts.
I incorperated Whalen LED's as turn signals, and just kept it to a minimum, coating is Duplicolor bedliner rattle can..........it's a crappy bedliner for a truck, but an excellent choice for bumpers, slyders and things of that nature......

From there.........I basically went wheeling again for the next year......



Back then, the list of mods looked something like this.......

Neon Disco free interior
Cowl snorkle
1" throttlebody spacer
Unibody Stiffy System with Slyders (Detours)
Slimline Rear Bumper/Carrier (Detours)
5" short arm lift (mixed parts)
Grandprix louvers in hood
33" Maxxis BigHorns (Nice Tires!)
Custom nose job
Superwinch Ep9000
Battery relocated to rear of vehical........

Otherwise, stock axles, 3:73 gears, open diff's........

Truth be told, I was loosing intrest in the XJ...............I had another dirty little secret I was working on.........

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If you're getting bored, or awaiting further updates..........watch this to tie you over..................

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