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Crazy Kevs 3rd and Hopefully Final XJ build.

Owners Name & City- Kevin Hurricane Ut.


Make, Model & Year of Vehicle- 1996 Jeep Cherokee


Engine- 4.0 straight 6 with cheap warm air intake


Transmission- Automatic


T-Case- 4 speed Atlas with 5:1


Axles-
Rear: Ford 10.5 Sterling 4.88 gears ARB
Front: Ford dana 60. Artec steering and truss with arb 4.88 gears.

Suspension-
Hybrid: Rear IRO 5.5 leafs with 1.5 inch boomerang shackles.
Front is Rock Kralwer 3 link Long arm kit with with 7.5 inch Rubicon coils.



Wheels and Tires-37 Maxxis trepadors stickies with inner air bead locks.


Winch- Warn 8000


Favorite Trails-Hanging tree trail, The Squeeze, Sand Hollow area and Moab area. Any trail with Friends and family having a good time. The harder the better within my rigs ability.


Other- Custom front bumper with below radiator winch mount, custom rear bumper, Armor ect...

My 1994 is on the right and the New build 1996 is on the Left. I took a couple before shots and comparison shots before I started.





 
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kmboren

kmboren

Recovering XJ owner anonymous
Location
Southern Utah
Got the 60 installed. Picked up some used 37 maxxis stickies trepadors and mounted on a second set of wheels I have that have have inner air beadlocks, they also give the jeep a little narrower stance. Also changed out rubber bushing style for rockkrawler link ends. Looking forward to it being the best jeep it has been thus far. 20200907_181255.jpg20200907_185754.jpg20200907_181228.jpg20200907_182008.jpg20200907_183533.jpg
 
kmboren

kmboren

Recovering XJ owner anonymous
Location
Southern Utah
Got a little more done on the XJ in prep for this next season of W.E. Rock with my daughter driving and me spotting. Got some PSC stuff at a discounted price so I bought the reservoir, pump and a new ram. I was running the .5 inch ram and we stepped up to .75. Our old ram and been tweaked/bent a little bit.

Installed some rear cutting brakes to hopefully give us a little advantage with front digs.

Then installed some Yukon(long side)/Nitro(short side) chromoly shafts. I think they come frome the same place because besides the length they look identical to each other. Tied those together with Yukon chromoly outers and Yukon Super joints.

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kmboren

kmboren

Recovering XJ owner anonymous
Location
Southern Utah
So some more updates. Upgrading the front outer to 35 spline. In doing so I couldn't find thrust washers to fit the larger 35 spline shaft so I improvised. I bought some fender washers and used a 1.5 hole saw to cut them to the right size. Then clamped the already sized washers on either side of the thrust washer and hole sawed that using the washers as a guide. Worked out great and now I have 35 spline thrust washers.
I then installed some Yukon hard core locking hubs. Much narrower profile then my old warn hubs.


We also got a new set of Maxxis trep stickies that we will go break in this weekend with a new set of newrower offset raceline beadlocks so we are that much narrower to help dodge cones.

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kmboren

kmboren

Recovering XJ owner anonymous
Location
Southern Utah
Center console is crowded. We got a new Rad design Shifter. We had an old school one but decided to upgrade to his new one. Rory sure is a man of genius when it come to shifting. Can wait to play with it in the sand. Hope Katelynn can figure out what does what with 6 sticks to play with plus 3 switches. 20210417_162920.jpg20210417_162859.jpg
 
kmboren

kmboren

Recovering XJ owner anonymous
Location
Southern Utah
So in the last 2 Comps (Texas and Cedar) The jeep has been on its driver side Cage A/B pillar 3 times. Our cage flexes as there is no true X brace in it and it hits the Jeep A/B pillar. With all the abuse it has taken the A pillar and pushed it in too far. This made our already cracked Windshield even worse and Tented the glass, so it was time for it to come out. Since we only had 2 more glass windows (rear hatch and passenger rear quarter)we removed them also. We also relocated to fire extinguisher to the rear quarter since the glass is gone and that made the passenger seat more roomy. We also made a new harness bar that hugs the seat tighter also more rear seat friendly.

While I was at it the jeep A pillars and roof to the B pillars might have fallen out also. The Driver side B pillar also was damage severely so that was also replace. The B pillars use to be connected to a tube on the sliders but I removed that tube from the sliders and just connected it to the 2x6 that are my sliders. By doing this I saved nearly 6 inches of width (3 per side) at the sliders. Added a upper bar removed and rolled a new lower bar and added intrusion bars and a middle top cage bar.

For comps we need a roof so a friend that helps me do all this work (Todd Little) had some messed up aluminium Side hy side roofs that he custom makes and with a little modification we made it fit the XJ just over the front seats. I love how it came out and looks. Plus I have tons of head room now.

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Coco

Coco

Well-Known Member
Location
Lehi, UT
Can you tie into the cage right behind the front seats, and then down to the frame? May need a bent or two versus a straight piece of tube, but I would think that could be doable? Regardless it is looking great Kev!
 
kmboren

kmboren

Recovering XJ owner anonymous
Location
Southern Utah
Coco said:
Can you tie into the cage right behind the front seats, and then down to the frame? May need a bent or two versus a straight piece of tube, but I would think that could be doable? Regardless it is looking great Kev!
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It would have to go through the body to my 2x6 rock rail. The seat is in the way of the B pillar and Cage. The way XJs are the seats sit behind the B pillar. Plus I am like 7ft 13 so the seat in my spot is very far back. We looked at it and looked at it and just didn't see a way to tie an X in and still have passenger seat room. The cage is strong and I trust it and we made it stronger with the couple changes we made. This is with my seats as far forward as they go. When my daughter let's me drive MY jeep the seats are farther back. If you zoom in you can see the bolt hole for my position in the white seat bracket.

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kmboren

kmboren

Recovering XJ owner anonymous
Location
Southern Utah
So more work from Todd. I purchased a Ballistic Fab shave kit for our Sterling 10.5. It requires the ring gear to be machined to 10 inches. To be done right the housing needs to be milled properly. I knew Todd would do it right so I pulled the axle and gave it him.

I'd say it turned out awesome. Ballistic says it give the clearance of 3 additional tire sizes. So I guess 1.5 more inches of clearance. It seems more than that but I love the flat plate and how much easier it will slide over rocks vs getting snaged on them. In the before picture you can see there is a 1 inch lip that is no longer there that would grab rocks, now it will just slide over them. Going to need that in the boulder field of Goldendale this weekend.

For fun we painted the skull a light sparkling Pink with fingernail polish.

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kmboren

kmboren

Recovering XJ owner anonymous
Location
Southern Utah
Not sure if people are interested but this is the course we ran that resulted in the roll of the XJ. We were doing really well up to this point. Super bummed we didn't get to compete for the national title. We absolutely love the new buggy and it is SO much better than the XJ.

 
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