My plan is to put in a nicely built waggy I found from a guy, 5-6" 35's or 37's. 8.8 in the back and long arms, suggestions for long arms appreciated, looking at Serious long arms, I like their tranny skid

 

Good looking XJ here, welcome to the dark side.

 

Looks like a good start, I’ll be interested to see what you do with her.

 

Black Friday lit the fire, ordered stiffeners, Cavfab long arms, 5.5" REs just to start

 

Looks like a great starting point. What year? Jealous of the vent windows.

 

it's a 92, salvage title. But the low miles on drive train and good cond (drivetrain, interior, AC, heater) is what got me. They're getting pricey out here even with high mileage. It had a hit in the back that was fixed but I noticed the frame still a little crumpled. It has a tranny cooler , factory tow lights and looks like it had a tow hitch but the build sheet states D35 which it has. Pretty sure the tow packages came with the 8.25.Curvature in the frame is normal, just pointing out the crumpled spots.

 

Black Friday fallout

and so it begins..........

 

I knew there were some auto dismantlers up the street but didn't realized one had a 8.8 out of a 2000 explorer. Made a call and shazam. Rotors have life, not too much gunk on the calipers

 

Nice pick. What gears?


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I think 373 but I'm regearing to 488, going to 35s

 

if this is anything like your YJ, this is gonna be one sweet @$$ XJ.

Good luck :thumbsup:

 

that thing looks clean as a whistle dude

 

I think I'm doing this backwards but I'm sure I'm not the first >

 

Passed (Calif) smog today, stoked. I wanna get a steering pump leak fixed and seal the front windshield (i can hear and feel wind coming thru) before any winter rains. Hope there's no big rust hidden. Hopefully Cavfab got my order started. Gotta wait for the frame stiffeners to come in before I start taking things apart anyway. RE 5.5" coils are still under $100 on Amazon, I thought it was a glitch. Got mine with the first set of boxes that came in

 

Got most all my parts (most bought during the black friday sale) together to include:
CavFab Alpha series 3 link
RE 5.5" coils ,4.5" leafs and ext shackles
1 ton steering set up
RE1660 Track Bar and mount
HD and Ruffstuff frame stiffeners
Ford 8.8, Grizzly locker and Yukon shafts (still needs to be geared to 4.88 and installed)
Spartan for the D30, planning on getting chromos for it too
got a T case with a SYE already on it, was planning on getting an Adams drive shaft
35" KM 2s on black steelies

gonna get started here in the next few weeks starting with the stiffeners. Gonna deliver the axles to my guy to get gears installed.

 

Had some time today and threw the Spartan in the D30 carrier I got for the axle since it needed a higher ratio carrier and it was out and dry. Of course I greased the parts up before putting them together. Foot note: If installing one of these I guess it's a common problem the hardened cross shaft has issue going in some carriers so after I installed the locker I had to pop it back out to grind down the carrier shaft holes a little. (might be common knowledge but it was new to me)

 

Well live and learn, learned from the drivers side frame stiffeners. Worried about burning thru the thin unibody I used a 110 flux core to weld on the stiffeners and that was a mistake. It worked but I didn't like the welds and even touched it up with my 220 gas welder that I shoula used. Passenger side came out a lot prettier. I prepped everything with weld primer (this stuff ain't cheap). Then I got busy on the 8.8 grinding off the stock hardware and welding the tubes. Gonna pull the D30 tomorrow and get both axles to my gear guy.

 

did you make those or buy them?

 

https://www.hdoffroadengineering.com/products/xj-frame-stiffeners
Bought. ruff stuff for the fronts

 

Was gonna say, looks like HD Offroad stiffeners. You’ll like them. You won’t notice they are there until your parked on a bank and you go to grab something out of your trunk, and when your all done you realized the trunk closed without having to find flat ground to park on. That’s how I noticed mine must be working the first time.


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Progress is painstakingly slow, took the front bumper off prepping to get the ruff stuff front stiffeneres on, got the axles ready to go to the shop, regearing to 488, Grizzly locker and chromos in the 8.8, Spartan and chromos in the D30

 

So delema in trying to swap my YJs 231 into the XJ, the input shaft from the YJ is too long. Trying to figure things out.

 

Looks like two options, either swap the shafts or get someone to machine a space to push the T case out. Cheaper option would obviously be to just swap shafts. Good time to change out any seals and check the bearings. Or SYE install.

 

So I got a SYE for the stock Tcase, Easy Off and a quarter car wash got it clean and able to work on, installed it after

Tried putting the CavFab cross member together and then mocking it into place but that ***** is heavy! Had to mount the sides first then the center.

Turns out my exhaust was getting in the way a little but just trimmed the cross member a hair and it fit fine.

Got it to support the trans/Tcase and everything looks good, ran out of day but whats left is to mark and drill holes, to be continued........

 

Drivers side frame stiffeners on, pain in the arse. I'm not a great welder so at good angles I got a decent bead but others not so great. Then the bumper had took a hit which bent the frame, had to drill through it and added backing reinforcement to the corner. My concern with these RuffStuff stiffeners is there's not a lot of meat to hold to with an aftermarket winch bumper. In hindsight shoulda got the JCR brackets and stiffeners. Gonna work around it, Maybe add some brackets.