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

[DETOURS]

Some may find the content within this thread objectionable, if you're easilly offended, under 14, or don't have an open mind, please move on to a different build thread..........



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Alrighty, I've been asked.......I'll do my best, as this is an on-going 6 year build.......

Once upon a time.........no no......wait.......
There was once a black............no, thats no good either......

Lets try........and this is 100% a true...........
About 6 or 7 years ago, I got a call from a used car lot about a '94 Cherokee, it was black, it was hacked, abuised, semi lifted, & full of mud.......




Now, the used car dealer owner knew I was into XJ's........and I'd be most likely guy to buy this internet-forum mistake.....(sorry to some out there)....it was VERY evedent that "Daddy" had enough of jr's mudding and was towed for the last time, to this used car dealer....to be gone! I doubt it sat on the lot for 48hrs before I got the call....."Hey Mark........."
There I was....young, dumb, and full of..........'junk'?/??




Sooo, I obviously went over, cut the deal, bought it.........it was'nt good..

The wife rolled her eyes as I handed over the thousand bucks for this machine that sat on what looked like 3" of lift on stock tires, shifted like crap, and stunk like mud as she followed me back to the shop.......

I quickly turned the 3" lift into 5" with left over parts and ACO's up front, shocks included..........but, the previous owners damage was still evident,
the rear wheelwells were cut beyond the spot welds, & he/she liked mud....the interior wells SPEWED mud into the interior whenever it rained, like a gutter system........that sucked, the disco neon light pods had to go quick as well......"???????WTF????????".......I could'nt do much with the white faced insturment panel, did'nt bother me much until I found the switch which made it multible colors at night........Ummmm, is this an upgrade or further disco intervention??? The crappy shifting tranny turned out to be a shifter conversion which makes an automatic basically into a standard in some ways..........I have yet to use or need this....

So anyway.........ammong other upgrades, hurdles.... I got it to this stage:

[4.3LXJ]

Hey Mark, where is all the pics of the rig in trashed condition? Those rear wheel wells look pretty nice. Did you weld in some panels?

[DETOURS]

It was never photographed........
The rear quaters were clamped back together & stitch welded...and if you look close, both the front & rear flares have been raised.

[DETOURS]

More to come! Thanks!

[DETOURS]

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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....

[DETOURS]

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.......

[4.3LXJ]

Good Job. Nice and neat.

[cantab27]

cheers mark ,, a build thread with humor ,,, will be watching for updates ....thanks mate

[DETOURS]

Life without humor................that would be horrible, Thanks and . . . . . it only gets better!!

[4.3LXJ]

Hey Spank, nice build. I love it when people fab up original stuff.

[alwaysxj]

I love this.... man I read through this and think of my self, I love the outrages down right useless jokes.... I was laughing pretty good. thanks for the laugh. cannot wait for more.

[DETOURS]

As I said.................I was loosing intrest in the Cherokee, it was okay and all but I felt I was missing something my previous Jeeps offered, which was just the door free, raw, open air feel of "Jeep"..........My wife and I had the his & her YJ thing going on at one time, but fell into XJ's somehow, again...his & hers.....and hers was better than mine for sometime....

Anywho.........I bought a CJ for short money (8 bills) .......not many folks around me knew what I was up to..........it was a dirty little secret, and thats exactly what I named it.........again with a bunch of left over parts, some used parts.......it could easilly do this........


I did'nt tell the wife I bought it at first, when she found out, she looked like this......


But........after a few beers.........


And a little........you know...............s m o o t h i n g over..........


She was kool with the new build.......

But then, HUH????
The new build all of a sudden became...............less than feasible..
Dead in the water.............

[DETOURS]

So, muddling through this..........my new Jeep intrest............



Suddenly became..............short lived..
I was having a ball with the build, picked up some perfect '72 Corvette seats for it, had the cage going, reinforced the frame, doing a custom exhaust, scored some narrowed locked n loaded 44's......etc...



Things were GREAT, on schedule, on track, looking good................until I went home one night and my wife said to me......."You're going to be a Daddy"........

Ummm, okay............what'ed you say??..............
Suddenly I found myself on a trail I've never traveled............
The trail I managed to avoid for decades..........
There I was, with no recovery, no CB, no cell service........
Bottles?
Diapers?
Crying?
Car seat?
I'd been avoiding growing up for years, now I had less than 9 months to do so....
My Jeep fund became the baby fund......even worse was the fact that my wife was going to loose her thin, stripper like body...........I was'nt sure if the new tax deduction was a fare trade.................it took about 72 hours.....but I finally came around to the situation, it was'nt easy, I ran away at first, and came up with the perfect disguise......
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But I was caught........

The Warden understood my story, let me off for the cost of dry cleaning...
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The next day, I faced my fears.........on to fatherhood!!!




Soooo.....The CJ had to go, too small, too drafty, too flexy....(too flexy?)....too everything a baby/toddler should'nt be subjected to.

It was time to focus back on the XJ, step it up.....but keep it safe, the game was on and we have'nt looked back since..........

The following, will be it's most recent rebuild and continue through as I continue reworking the XJ with upcoming, planned modifications......

As far as the baby goes......it all worked out fine, not quite a baby anymore.......(babies are quieter!)


On with the build!

[DETOURS]

With the CJ now null and void, it was time to focus back on the XJ....

The wife and I lightly discussed what we wanted from the XJ once completed.



She wanted or was missing the open air feel of a Wrangler, I was as well......the search was on for some "open air feel",
what I found was a rag top I could install in the XJ from,



Knowing a cage was needed as well, I felt this was a viable option, I contacted Streetbeat and ordered a custom sized
rag top, it took about 6 weeks, but sure enough, it showed up one afternoon via,



Installation of the rag top is straight forward, it's a pre-engineered, pretty much pre-assembled kit.

Basically, map out your cuts, get a right angle grinder with a .045 cutting wheel attached.......and go for it. I had no intention of retaining my headliner, so I left it it place while cutting, this way it caught all the sparks & mess while cutting.



From there, basically drop it in, drill some 1/8" bolt holes, seal it, bolt it down and gooooooo!



................Now you're ready to crank up some tunes & roll!.................

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[ame]http://youtu.be/Lb17Vaph3DI[/ame]

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[DETOURS]

Rage......in the cage....

So roll cages are in alot of Cherokee's now a days, I'm going to hit on some high lights of mine and try not to over do it.........

The first thing I wanted to engineer, before any tube was even cut.....was entry room and knee room........I mean without knee room, forget about this ever happening.................


With that in mind, instead of the A pillar tube going 'around' the dash, or thru the dash, I used bar stock and went along side the dash, similiar to what Poison Spider offered for their TJ cages, material is 1/4" thick.....

Top which would accept tubing:


Side:




The 1/4" material allows the door to shut normally, with the door shut, the steel is sandwiched between the dash and the door

Finished:




Once the initial parts were fabricated, I moved on to the overhead portion of the cage..

Progress:


The top portion of the cage was fitted to the roof line, at the same time it was fitted to the A pillar supports, removed, fully welded, and reinstalled. From there I worked downward at the B, C, & D pillar areas.........tube was also added horizontally down along the inside rocker panel area.



More to come, but at this point I was feeling pretty good about it and considering a new product line........



From there, I further studied the unibodies constuction.......



Decided it needed a bit more than most as I was'nt going to sell or disguard this XJ anytime soon......

I welded in a set of speaker pods from a TJ application, positioning include uptight mode to party mode...


Get yer gitty on.......


Next we'll get into body stress & whats up with that.........



Stress...............



Nobody likes stress........to minimize unibody stress as best as possible, the cage was attached/connected/welded to the XJ's roof line, B-C and D pillars.....
Up front I went left to right accross the dash area with 1-1/4" tube, I managed to keep the glove box operationable, I also created a new center console area from the same tube, this was then vertically covered with 12 gage metal, welded in position. The shifter was moved left & forward, this was to make room for the flipped Dana 300 T case planned, I eventually dropped that idea & went back to a stock T case......



If you look close at the pic above, I also added box tube accross the rear seating area....

more.....




The hole in the floor was for the Dana 300, this was repaired along with all the other bad sections of the floor with 12 gage steel...



I dont care much for floor repair......it's never much fun...

Knowing the rear seat was not going to be reinstalled, I took advantage of the new space & added additional support....



During the fabrication, I also built in some conveniences.....

Secure area for Co2....






And bracketry to secure my relocated battery along with the ARB compessor...





Welding cable was used for the battery feed.
With the battery in the rear, I also wired a "HOT" connection up front, this way I was able to jump another vehical or be jumped from the front or rear of the Cherokee.......





With a Superwinch Ep9000 mounted up front, I've always thought it to best best to move some move-able weight to the rear....