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

[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....

[DETOURS]

Sooooooooo.............Since I reorganized the center console, moved the auto shifter......went back to the orig. transfer case........I had to somehow figure out how to shift the T case..........

The solution was simple...........


That cheap~arse knife which we've all had for years!!


Mmmm, free & easy..............thats always good!

Okay.......So with the T~Case shifter in place, it's time to try to wrap up the console & interior portion of the project..........

The top of the console is 14gage steel, it screws down to position, here are a couple progress/fitting pics.........note the twin brake levers.....





The brake levers operate independantly to each rear brake.......
The top of the console also houses the lockers switch's and few other electrical items.......(not shown.......)

The cage has been painted a battleship gray to match the interior, I was going to buy a new carpet kit, but did'nt care for the price.......



So, I figured I'd go see what Lowes had on the shelf........
I bought 2 commericial entry rugs, gray, rubber backed....32.00 each
6 feet of gray hallway runner.......2.10 a foot...
1 large roll of black rubber like shelf liner........12.00 bucks
1 can of contact cement......(man, talk about loopy.....)

It all came out amazing, I took my time and got the carpet laid front to rear, only tacking portions of it with the contact cement.......The sides of the console I covered with the runner material, secured it with contact cement......and portions of the top of the console I used the black shelf liner, again securing with the contact cement........for less than 100 bills, taking my time......I could'nt be happier with the results.....









Couple things left undone I'll cover later, but this chapter is nearly complete!



Until then...........check THIS out!!.....

[ame]http://youtu.be/1hEU9zUvvyE[/ame]

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[DETOURS]

Alrighty then......still owe you one or two pictures up front, but what do we do about junior? I know I'm as concerned as you, cant just strap him accross the hood like an old buck....

Gotta seat junior......ebay had lots of 'Jr' racing seats but the shipping was stupid money.......blew the deal.....

And Jr racing seats........I mean as a dad, lets just think a minute, I mean they grow up soo fast..........



Oh ya.....................fun times!

I was'nt sure how to seat him in the vehical correctly since there was no longer a rear seat until I stumbled on............."boat seats"!!!

So, unhappy with plan 'A'.......I went to plan 'C'........a folding boat seat with a 250lb limit for 72.00 shipped of ebay!



A five pcs harness will be adapted to the seat along with arm rests, pics to follow on this one.......

Okaydokay..........full shot of console.....



Getting on board.......(hehee....get it?)......heres the proposed area for the rear boat seat, it'll be centered and bolted in, most likely create some grab handles and such around the seat.



The dark green portions of the seat will be dyed gray......



The seat folds, so thats an added benny......once in place, open areas around the seat will get decked & hinged to create compartments, unsure if I'll deck with aluminum diamond plate or cover with fabric just yet, the compartments will be lockable, this way if the worst happens, things wont be flying around......



Back to work!