Day 1
As we begin writing this, there are seven days left until we leave for the Moab Easter Jeep Safari, and our project truck Jinxy is having a few top-end engine problems (due to our being cheap a couple of years ago), and it looks as if there is no way Jinxy's up for the 1,000-mile road trip out to Utah. But as a representative of your favorite 4x4 magazine, we certainly can't stay home, so a new and quick (really quick) project is in order. Cash is slim around the 4-Wheel & Off-Road stables, but we really need to get to Moab, and whatever we get, it has to be trailready. After all, who wants to go all the way to Moab and not do some wheelin'? What's more is that we realized some time ago that thinking our '68 Firebird was a good daily driver was sort of a pipe dream for the more than 100-mile commute every day, so we needed a good commuter vehicle too. What the hell do we do? Put the Firebird up for sale, and borrow the money off good ol' Pop 'til the 'Bird sells. What better place to get a loan than from family, right?
We figure we'll take our own advice from our Unibody XJ Jeep story (Mar. '03) and try to find a cheap, good-condition Cherokee and scramble to get parts for a one-week buildup. We don't have the Cherokee yet, but if we want the parts here in time, it's crucial to put down this keyboard and start dialing the order lines.
Day 2
All right, we've got a $5,000 loan from you-know-who, so that's our budget. Let's recap: We've got no ride, but we do have five grand, and we've got less than a week until Moab to buy the vehicle and make it trailready. No problem (yeah, right)! We already maxed out the credit card yesterday getting a multitude of parts, so a lot of our loan will be going to pay back the card. So far, we've purchased a 411/42-inch Rockkrawler Suspension system, some Pro Comp X-Terrain tires, and a beefy bumper from Truckfarm. We're down to just under $2,500.
We still haven't found a Cherokee yet, Moab is six days away, and 4-Wheel & Off-Road Editor Rick Pw is looking a little crooked-eyed at us. He liked the idea of a one-week buy and buildup, but he was losing faith quickly. "You know we leave for Moab next weekend, right?" Right. Gotta dig deeper into those classifieds.
Day 3
Found one! A '93 Cherokee; strip-down model, but with four-wheel drive, a 4.0L engine, and air conditioning. Better yet, it has a salvage title (from being stolen, not crashed), which brings the price down even more. After a little bit of quick wheelin' and dealin', we walked away with a good-running Cherokee for just under $1,600. And though this may be a fair price for an '80s Cherokee, it was a steal for a '93. The '93 Cherokees were not yet ODB II controlled, no longer had central axle disconnect axles, and don't have any of the wiring problems of the pre-'90 Cherokees. What a score! And lucky for us too: we're not sure how much longer we'd still be working here if we didn't make this deal happen. We also ordered two last items: a Tuffy security console (we'll explain why later) and a fixed yoke kit from Currie Enterprises for the transfer case. Now we just have to wait for the parts to show up. All of the parts manufacturers know our dilemma, and hopefully the pieces will show up in time. This is the part that gives us ulcers: waiting and relying upon our faithful mail couriers.
Day 4
Our Rockkrawler suspension system arrived this afternoon while we were at 4Wheel Parts Wholesalers picking up our Pro Comp X-Terrains mounted on Pro Comp 15x8 wheels. We got a 33-inch-tall tire knowing that we would be doing some fender cutting to make them fit. The biggest tire you can put on an XJ with a 411/42-inch lift is a 32x11.50, but with moderate fender trimming, you can get the 33-incher on.