Terry's 98 Cherokee SE 2dr

[TerryD]

Hello All! My name is Terry and I have a problem..... lol

I've always loved exploring, ever since I was little and my younger brother and I would go off wandering around the family farm. Now that I'm grown up, I just flat don't have time to do as much as I would like, but that hasn't stopped me from wanting to.

The Jeep "Baby Toter"
This is going to be a little long winded, but I'll try to stick to quick facts. Back in 2006 I got the chance to buy a 1998 Jeep Cherokee SE two door with the 4.0L I6, AX-15 5 speed transmission and NP231 transfercase from my Dad. The 89 Cavalier RS I was driving at the time had seen its better days. A gift from my Dad after my first car was wrecked , I got that car with 170K miles on it and managed to run it for 6 years until the body was too bad to pass inspection.

Back to the Jeep, it had near 140K on it and Dad and I had just re-bearinged the rear axle because the little plastic plug on the differential cover had let the fluid leak out and rebuilt the rear springs with leaves I had laying around from an old S-10 project. Apparently the PO wasn't much on preventative maintenance. So, I ponied up the money and drove off in my "new" Jeep.

How it looked when I bought it (minus the rocker panel damage I inflicted two days after purchase):


Dad and I took our Jeep's riding in the snow but it turned out to be ice. Hair-raising little ride that was!


It suited the bill for what I needed. I was getting ready to go back to school as I had found out that I was going to be a father soon and needed to get a job to support my soon-to-be family. However, I am my Father's son and it didn't take long for me to want to modify it.

There was a local off-roading club close to where I was living at the time and I had a few friends who were members. They got me going to meetings and on little outings here and there with them, and the bug stuck!

I saved what money I could as we were living close to the bone while I was in school. I managed to get a pair of V8 Grand Cherokee (ZJ) coils from Jeep Forum for $30. With them on there, it leveled it out where the rear packs we had built for it were a little tall.

Playing around on the local trails a little after the Grand Cherokee coils were in:




Milli-seconds after that last picture was taken, it took off free rolling after the rear tires lost contact and when the fronts grabbed again after a short distance, it picked both rear tires up in the air about 3'. My friend who was taking pictures got this picture and one just as the rears touched down again. We always seem to miss the shots of my truck doing cool stuff....

[TerryD]

It didn't take long before I was wanting more lift and more tire. I did some reading, looking, studying and even some reading trying to find what I wanted.

More than 4" of lift and you run the risk of drive-line vibrations on a Cherokee between 97-01. Broke college kid with a baby..... nope, can't afford a SYE and new rear drive shaft, so under 4" it is.

I scowered the forums I am a member of trying to pick up used parts and make what little money I had for this project go as far as possible. I managed to get a pair of TeraFlex 3" coils for a TJ (about 4" on a XJ BTW) and a pair of Rubicon Express 1.5" lift shackles NIB, DayStar extended front bump stops and some other odds-n-ends reasonably. I spent the money on a new JKS adjustable track-bar though. I didn't want to chance a used one and my factory piece was loose enough it was beginning to wander around the road on me.

I took a weekend a put them on, as well as did a tape measure alignment and using tire spoons from my buddy's shop, put some used 31x10.50's I picked up from a guy on my factory wheels. While I was there, I pulled the rear swaybar too. I had some disconnects rigged up for it, but it wouldn't clear my rear tires on the stock wheels, so it had to go!

Poser shots after the lift:




I had put some YJ front brake hoses on it when I did that because of the amount of front flex it had. The 4" metal tube on the bottom of them at the caliper proved to be too long at full stuff and it killed a brake hose on my way to work one day, also taking out the caliper and brake pads. I completely rebuilt the front brakes with ceramic pads, new calipers, and brake hoses from a early 90's Chevy C1500 2wd truck.



I wrapped the hose in PV tubing cut in a spiral (fun with a razor blade!) to keep it from rubbing on my shock or anything else under there.

The frame side bracket you have to make to use the Chevy hoses. No big deal, just a piece of flat stock cut with a grinder and bent in a vise with a hammer. One hole for the bolt, one for the hose, and a brake hose clip to hold them in place. I made sure to leave a tang on the bracket and bent it down to keep it from turning. You can't really see the tang there, it's directly behind the steel line.




With the exception of building another set of rear leaf packs when the passenger side one fell completely down on the bump stop one day, the suspension is still exactly the same.

[TerryD]

Needing a full size spare now, not only for safety reasons but it's club rules, I had to figure out where to put one. It won't stand up in the rear so I had to lay it down. I also wanted to get my High-Lift in out of the weather as it was bolted to my factory cargo racks with a pair of u-bolts and was rusting profusely.

I decided I was going to use my sinch-straps to hold down the tire, and I'd attach my High-Lift to the tire some way. I picked up these little D-rings from Tractor Supply Co for a couple bucks each and drilled out the factory riveted tie down loops. We then bolted the D-rings in place and drilled the 2nd hole for them.



With fender washers on the underside to help distribute the force some:


Well, Matt asked me why I didn't use the High-Lift to hold down the tire..... Like a dummy, I had never thought of that. We ran down to the local hardware shop and picked up these 1/2" eye-bolts. Using the side of a tractor bucket, we opened the loops to allow them to slip over the D-rings, and viola, both the spare tire and High-Lift safe and secure in the back of the Jeep!!!

A couple of wing nuts and washers to make it quick-release!


My tool box, air compressor and tire iron were also held down in various ways.


My approach angle wasn't everything it could be and I was constantly listening to the air dam on the front popping when I ran it into something. So after being called a sissy a few times sitting around one night, I took a pair of tin-snips and a pair of dykes and cut it off.



The red squares are where I wanted to put d-ring mounts and the front receiver:

[TerryD]

Next I wanted a CB in it. It's nice to have on a trail ride so you can communicate with the front or rear vehicles without everyone having to stop and walk one way or the other.

I decided on a Cobra 18WXSTII with 10 weather bands since it's rare you hear the weather on a radio station anymore and there's not any TV or internet where we camp.

I mounted it on a piece of 1/8" aluminum between the visors using the visor bolts to hold it up. It's been there going on 3 years now and still tight as the day I put it in.



The power wires are run down the passenger side A-pillar to the fuse box and attached to it with a piggy-back fuse holder/tap.



The coax is run above the head liner down the driver's side to the rear gate. It goes through the grommet with the washer fluid hose between the body and rear gate, then is routed around the rear window and through the back with the tag light wire.












Another friend, Don, helped me do this with his HAM radio experience. He also got me interested in HAM radio and is one of the reasons I have my license, even though I don't use it much.

My first antenna mount:




It was made from the same aluminum flat stock as my radio bar, and didn't last long. When it broke, it took the plastic cover over the tag light with it. I had a 5' Wilson Silverload fiberglass antenna on it when it broke and it damaged the antenna as well.


My second-gen mount was better, but made from steel and rusted very quickly. I soon lost my ground and the CB quit working for a while. At this point, I added a brace to the inside of the gate to keep it from flexing as much and put on a 102" S/S whip.


And finally, my Gen III mount made from stainless steel, welded by a guy I work with. I added a heavy duty mount as well and the CB has worked flawlessly ever since. I did have to add a 6" extension to get the proper tune of the CB antenna to get the Sound Tracker feature to work properly.








I also made this little trick to turn my mic bracket down. On hard acceleration or a hill climb the mic would slip out and invariably hit Julie in the hand, getting me smacked pretty hard...

[TerryD]

Hopefully this post will get me up to date on what I've done to it!

Ok, so, I've got some lift now, a little ground clearance, decent flex for what I've got in it, and now it's time to get stuck.... I don't like the idea of getting stuck, but the prospects of getting unstuck without decent tow points is always a scary thought. For the rear it was easy, I picked up a used receiver hitch for $30 and the nut plate for the driver's side from Chrysler for $30 and that was all pretty simple. Pull the back bumper, rivet in the nut plate, chase the passenger side plate's nuts with a tap, bolt up the receiver and reassemble the rear bumper. No biggy, and also no pictures...

The front on the other hand, is a different story. You can get the factory tow hook setup. But that just covers the 3 factory bumper holes. It also doesn't tie the front end together or add any rigidity to it. With a unibody, you'll need a steering box brace with any amount of lift and offroad use, and they don't help with that either.

So, I found a .pdf of a steering box brace on NAXJA.org and started thinking. XJ's are used in right hand drive configurations as well with no change to the uni-body at all. Ok, no problem, I made two steering box braces and planned on building a bumper with them. Yippee, right? Nope. Ran out of time for that project and back burnered it for a month or so.

I then came upon a member of the club selling some 2.5" square tube for cheap. Dude owed me a favor or two, and that didn't hurt the price either. So I bought 4' of it and set to planning. This is what I came up with:









I have still yet to use it at all, but it is there if I need it!

It also hides behind the factory bumper and license plate bracket:






If the license plate bracket doesn't look factory to you, it's because it's not. The Jeep came from North Carolina originally where you don't have to have a front plate. This is off a 88 Chevy C1500 pickup.

Somewhere around this time, I re-geared it from 3.07 to 3.55 with a set of gears a friend gave me when he went to 4.56's in his. At that time, I added longer rear bump stops.

After a few years of the spare laying down in the back and never having any room for stuff when we traveled in the Jeep, I decided to build a set of the back seat relocation brackets that Go-Jeep (Marcus Ohms http://go.jeep-xj.info/ ) made for his and stand my spare tire up.






Like Marcus says on his web site there, the back seat stands up much straighter than it did, but I have not had anyone complain about it, not that anyone buy my daughters really ride back there much.

As you can see there, I've still managed to pack that space full of stuff. I've got my tool box (that has saved my bacon a few times), an Action Packer from Wal-Mart with fluids and a few odd-n-ends in it, a first aid kit (fishing tackle box) and my little compressor. Then the High-Lift laying in the back and a little bag with my recovery straps, High-Lift rebuild kit, and some other little stuff under the back seat. I travel about 3hr's one way to work during the week and stay in a little apartment, so I carry a little more than I would if I had a support team no more than 30min away.

Just last year, I put on a set of Rough Country 9000's series shocks and a set of General Grabber AT2's in 31x10.50xR15. I have about 6k miles on them and could not be happier with either the shocks or tires. I also upgraded my speed/fuel only dash to the full gauge cluster. It's an easy swap and there are tons of write up's on it, so I'll spare you the grueling details.

At home, as I type, I have a set of Old Man Emu Heavy Load rear leaves for it as well as a set of JKS Quicker Disconnects I got for my birthday. I have not yet had the time to install them and with a major outtage at work starting next week, it's unlikely I will this month, but I will sometime.

I hope to re-gear it to 4.10 this summer, and possibly add a Detroit True-Track to the rear axle. Also in the plans are a NP242 swap (because I like AWD in the snow) and installing my Icom 2100H 2m HAM radio.

[bldeagle10]

beautiful XJ im a fan

[rdonahe]

Nice work. I like the creativity around finding suitable parts and saving some $$.

[TerryD]

I just finished a 3 week stretch at work, so this weekend is for rest instead of work, but I found an amazing deal and picked it up on the way home. I scored a NP242 with a SYE installed that was rebuilt (new chain and all) about 5k miles ago and removed when the Jeep was wrecked. It even came with a new rear CV shaft. Only cost me $150 for it all!

Hopefully next weekend I'll have picked up a NP242 shifter and bezel and install it all as soon as I get caught up on other stuff around here. We're looking at buying a house too, so maybe I'll get it done this year....

[alexfm]

Dad and I took our Jeep's riding in the snow but it turned out to be ice. Hair-raising little ride that was!

Your dad's Cherokee looks a heck of a lot like mine.



But besides hijacking your thread, I figured I'd say you've got a nice rig, and I like where its going. And I wish mine was that clean.

[TerryD]

That's a good looking Jeep alexfm. Dad's is pretty rusty, but it's his daily driver and gets about 50 miles a day put on it. He figures it'll do him till retirement.

I've got that same set of wheels you have in that picture that I run a set of BFG Long Trail T/A's on during the summer when I don't need as much traction. I also had a set of the Adventuro M/T's I ran for a while. Those were good tires, but didn't suit being driven at interstate speeds for 6hrs a week like I have to do. I had to bead balance mine to get them smooth, how do yours do?