Yeehaw!

This picture was taken on the powerline road near the Rock Candy Mountain entrance of Capitol State Forest by Derek Pearson. He is a professional photographer and managed to get this shot as the daylight waned. If you need a wedding photographer, he's your man. Evidently he does Jeeps now too. Nice picture Derek!

My XJ's History

I bought my 1991 Jeep Cherokee Laredo XJ in January of 1998 as a replacement for my car that was destroyed in a serious car crash. I would love to say that I knew all of the details about Cherokees when I bought mine, but the truth is that I didn't know very much about them at all. Yes, I knew I wanted the 4.0 liter engine, but I had no idea which axles were offered, what other drive train options were available, or the subtle differences between the model years. My wife liked them a lot and she was actually much of the reason I began looking for one. After seeing a lot of bad examples I just wasn't sold on the idea until I took a trip down to Vancouver, WA.

I was responding to a classified ad from a salvage dealer that specialized in acquiring wrecked XJ's, rebuilding them, and then selling them. I was looking at a different XJ that was advertised in my price range but, after driving it, found that the automatic transmission didn't shift properly and the 4.0L motor was very tired.

When I returned from the test drive I zeroed in on an XJ on the other side of the lot that had caught my eye earlier. It was out of my price range but it was beautiful! The red paint with grey trim really caught my eye, as it was in great shape. The interior was grey and in perfect condition, with the exception of a slightly bent steering wheel and small cracks in the dash under the steering column. It had just under 100,000 miles on the odometer.

It became apparent that this Jeep had been in a frontal collision and the driver had caused the damage to the steering wheel and dash upon impact...ugh. This prompted a check under the front end of the XJ. From the outside it looked pretty good, with some of the body panels showing slightly tighter gaps in some spots and wider gaps in others. A check underneath showed a left lower control arm flange that was tweaked but workable. The right front frame had been straightened and rewelded. I decided I couldn't live without it so I talked the guy down quite a bit and drove the Jeep home.

As I know now, I happened to get a pretty good XJ model. My Cherokee Laredo has the 4.0 liter HO motor (good), AX-15 5 speed manual (good), NP231 transfer case (good), high pinion Dana 30 non disconnecting front axle (good), and the Dana 35 rear axle (bad). Only one 'bad' is pretty good considering I wasn't even looking for most of this stuff. After all, I could have ended up with the Peugeot BA-10/5 transmission or a vacuum disconnect front axle, right?!

Little did I know, this would be the beginning of a long and pleasurable relationship! The Jeep gave us many many trouble free miles and I simply fell in love with the thing! It endured multiple family adventures, mild off-road excursions, and a trip to Michigan and back.

After spending 5 years of it's life in the salted winter roads of Michigan, my good looking Jeep started developing scabby rust on it's entire undercarriage and on some of the body panels. When we moved back to Washington State it was time to provide some much needed maintenance. I had grandiose ideas about lifting it, but knew that the cost would be prohibitive. Did I mention I didn't have much disposable income! All of the springs were sagging and rusty and the shocks weren't doing much damping anymore. They still had the Chrysler factory logo on them in 2004...OEM shocks from 1991! The horror! I looked in to stock replacement suspension parts. It became apparent that this option was also expensive so I began to search for a good deal on a mild lift kit.

One additional reason for lifting it presented itself one sunny afternoon while driving along some forest roads with my daughter Madeline, about 5 years old at the time. We were driving along in Capitol Forest and a conversation similar to this ensued:

I say, "Hey Madeline, look at that road that splits off. I wonder if it goes up to Capitol Peak?"

Madeline says, "There is a big berm in the way Dad."

I say, "I think we can get over it."

Madeline says, "If we try to go over it we'll get stuck and then we'll have to walk. I don't want to walk because it is a LOOONG way home."

I say, "Let's try it. I think we can make it."

(Sound of frame slamming down on berm)

Madeline says, "I knew we would get stuck! You promised we wouldn't get stuck!"

I attempted the shameful recovery process while my daughter blissfully played in the dirt, chased butterflies, pooped in the forest, and occasionally reminded me that she knew we would get stuck, but "that's OK Dad, this is still a lot of fun." I finally realized that I was ill-equipped to rectify my high-centered situation so I called my father-in-law, Gary, to pluck us from the jaws of Capitol Peak. Not very big jaws, mind you, but big enough to snare a stock XJ. Gary came to the rescue and I still haven't lived this one down...probably never will.

After many hours in front of the computer and multiple websites over the course of many weeks I finally stumbled across a screamin' deal at 4wheelparts.com that fit my budget and my near term goal for the Jeep. Amazingly, they were selling a 3" Skyjacker lift kit complete with front coil springs, rear add-a-leafs, extended lower control arms, track bar relocation bracket, and 4 new Hydro 7000 shocks for $320. This included free shipping and no tax with the internet order! I bought it and wrung my hands in anticipation of it's arrival.

I am pretty handy with a wrench and have been working on vehicles of various types for quite a few years. I hadn't worked on suspensions much at all until this project though. The lift installation didn't look too hard but I hadn't factored in the sheer amount of corrosion that I would run into. I figured that it would take two days...it took six. What a pain in the ass. Honestly, I had a great time doing it but quickly tired of breaking off bolts and getting flakes of rust in my eyes and nose. Even with safety glasses it seemed to find it's way into my eyes!

During the course of the lift I had to make multiple trips to the store to purchase new bolts as the originals snapped off...all but two shock mount bolts, track bar bolt, you get the idea. I also broke off one of the sway bar end links which required a run to the junk yard to find a replacement. This is when I found the novelty of the local pick-and-pull junk yard. I had no idea so many people liked to wreck their XJs! I quickly realized that I had stumbled upon a gold mine of available used parts. The Cherokees in the junk yard were, in many ways, in better shape than mine. With nearly 3 million Cherokees manufactured between 1984 and 2001, these things are everywhere in the junk yards! This would continue to come in handy over the course of the next several years. More on that later...

With the lift installed, the Jeep looked great. I still had the 30x9.50 mud tires on it with stock rims, so that looked stupid, but other than that it looked much better. One of my biggest fears was that I would lose ride quality or it would drive funny after lifting it. That quickly disappeared on the first test drive when I found that the Jeep now rode better than it ever had. It handled beautifully and had a nice tight ride without being harsh. Nice job Skyjacker! After about 50 miles I noticed that the steering was acting real funny. Further inspection showed that the track bar relocation bracket appeared to be loose. I checked the torque and it wasn't loose at all. A phone call to 4wheelparts provided a solution. They said that the bracket frequently does this and the best fix is to tack weld it in addition to the bolt. I drove up to their retail location in Tacoma and they tack welded it for free! Problem solved!

I finally scored some 31 x 10.50 Michelin X's from my Dad. I had just purchased Type 62 15"x8" alloy rims from Discount Tire because my stock rims were badly corroded (one even had a small crack developing!). The Michelins were originally off of my Dad's beautiful Jeep CJ-7 and he was generous enough to give them to me. The new rims and tires really filled out the fender wells and made the Jeep look good, aside from providing amazing on-road ride quality. Off-road was a different story. Rocks or dry dirt didn't present too many problems, but the instant moisture was added they failed miserably. Since I live in Washington, the XJ was screaming for mudders. More on that later...

My Dad was also generous enough to buy a K&N FIPK for me when I started towing our travel trailer. I was looking for simple modifications that would allow the engine to breathe a little better, and the K&N intake was the first step in that direction. The intake provides about 7 horsepower (according to K&N). Even better, it makes the 4.0L engine sound bad-ass at wide open throttle! An aftermarket header and Dynomax "cat-back" exhaust system is in the future. One day I noticed that the ol' XJ was starting to leak anti-freeze on the driveway. The anti-freeze was easy to see because the fluid beaded up nicely on the oil slick in my driveway from the various oil leaks from my engine:( The source of the dripping was the water pump. Coolant was leaking out of the little hole on the bottom indicating bearing failure. Great. I limped it along until payday. As I began to look closer at the water pump I noticed that the radiator fins were badly corroded. I ran my finger along some of those fins and they turned to DUST...just disintegrated. After I had a little fun turning 1/3 of my radiator to dust while chuckling to myself, I hit the phone book and started piecing together the parts required to restore the cooling system. The Jeep recieved a complete cooling system makeover for just over $300. While I was doing the work my neighbor, who is a mechanic and owns his own shop, asked me what the heck I was doing to the Jeep this time. I explained and he said, "Why don't you just buy a new car?". I asked him how much his monthly car payment was for both of his brand new Chevy trucks. "I see your point...", he said. The fact is that the Jeep had been largely maintenance free up until this point. I was more than happy to pour some cash into it to keep it going. The brakes would soon wear out...ok, not more than happy to pour some cash into it, but you get the idea.

After nearly wearing out the Michelins I finally broke down and bought a set of BF Goodrich Mud Terrain KM's. Wow what a difference! The on-road ride is good and they aren't noisy at all. Just a soft hum that I rather like! Off-road they are spectacular in mud and rocks. Anybody who has ever owned a set knows what I'm talking about. The only question mark is how many miles I will get out of them. Time will tell! I continued my trips to the junk yard, picking up various parts along the way. I added some extra leaves to the rear spring pack for towing our trailer (I later removed them when we no longer towed with the XJ). I added a temperature sensor, which my XJ was missing from day one. The overhead console was there, but the temperature read-out didn't work. Three bucks at the junk yard fixed that problem. I also picked up a replacement tail light box after some idiot kid clipped my rear bumper and cracked it. Five bucks from an '84 XJ...problem solved. I have replacement headlight bezels and just need a grille to finish replacing the peeling front end...5 bucks each for the bezels and 15 for the grille when one shows up. Everybody seems to smash the front end so it will probably be a while before I find one. While looking for a grille with Madeline, we ran across an XJ with a Yakima gutter mount roof rack on it. It included 4 towers and two cross bars. This set up would cost $200 bucks new...I got it for $16! I have plans for this setup in the near future after I get some new keys from Yakima to unlock the towers.

By far the best score I have had at the junk yard was finding an XJ with the Up Country package on it. These Cherokees came with a factory one inch lift, tow package, and front tow hooks, among other things. Most important to me, the Up Country also had a full complement of skid plates on it. I was able to grab the front skid plate, the fuel tank skid plate, and the transfer case skid plate. They were all in GREAT condition and bolted right up. The fuel tank skid required modification to fit around my Draw-Tite hitch, but the modification was minimal. The front skid covered most of my steering gear and also provided an attachment point for my JKS disconnect storage pins. The transfer case skid leaves a little bit to be desired but, hey, it's better than nothing. The best part? $25 for all of it!! $25!!

I wanted more articulation out of the front end so I began searching for some front swaybar disconnects. The bushings in my stock swaybar end links were completely shot. I am a firm believer in the idea that if you bother to replace something, replace it with something better...if you can afford it, of course. I would kill two birds with one stone by replacing the swaybar links with the disconnecting type. New bushings and the ability to disconnect, all in one. I bought a set of Skyjacker disco's but it became evident that these would be an utter pain in the ass to reconnect on anything but perfectly level ground. They were drilled incorrectly anyway so it provided a great excuse to return them and get what I really wanted, a set of JKS quicker disconnects. Let me just say that as far as manual sway bar disconnects go, these things are awesome. They are so easy to reconnect compared to other styles. They are also fully adjustable so I was able to dial in the correct geometry. My original stock links had been a little too short, so I guess I killed three birds with one stone...not bad!

Every modification is a slippery slope. Upon ordering the JKS quicker disconnects I realized that if the axle will articulate more, then the brake lines will have to be longer lest I pull a brake line out of the caliper and spew brake fluid everywhere...and pick the nearest tree to hit so I can stop. I pulled up some of my favorite websites and quickly discovered that extended steel-braided brake lines for the front end are at least $99 per pair. That wasn't in the budget. I didn't factor this in and now my Jeep is apart with yet another broken link. Yes, the other swaybar end link broke during removal. I wasn't going to replace that one with a junkyard piece just so I could put it back together until I could afford the brake lines. It was time for another plan. With a Google search I discovered more websites with great technical write-ups. MADXJ had already done the homework for me and discovered that brake lines from a '93-'95 Jeep Wrangler YJ were about 3 inches longer but still bolted right up to the XJ brake system. They also had extended metal ends that would protect the lines better than the original XJ brake lines did. I found the brake lines at the local auto parts store for $16 each. Much better than $99! I bolted everything up and am still surprised at the difference this makes in off-road traction.

In order to keep doing this...

...it became necessary to extend the breather tubes from both of my axles and my transfer case. The pictures above were taken in Tahuya State Forest. I extended the breather tubes in preparation for this trip and, upon inspection after the trip, didn't find ANY water in any of the running gear. My buddy Jeff couldn't say the same thing about his 2008 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited Rubicon (JK). His rear differential was full of water...he extended his shortly thereafter.

Since I was doing a lot more wheelin' with the Jeep I realized that it severely lacked any kind of recovery points. If I did get stuck, I was looking at causing collateral damage during the recovery process. I found some front tow hooks from Rugged Ridge that not only attached to the bumper bolts, but also attached about one foot down the frame rail for added strength. That took care of recovery from the front, while a birthday present in the form of a hitch receiver d-ring took care of a recovery from the rear. Now my friends with winches could pull me out! Also added to the mix was a Hi-Lift Jack and a hefty tow/recovery strap.
This is what the Jeep looks like now. It is far from done...definitely a work in progress. At 202,000 miles it is still running well and will get it's upgrades as the checking account allows. It does pretty good "as is", but there are just a few more things I would like to do!:)