Cheap Jeep Returns

Welcome to Xtreme 4x4 and surely you guys recognize this yellow Jeep CJ seven

as project cheap Jeep

that's been kicking around the extreme shop for a couple of years now

and today it's back for its final upgrade

if you remember this project started as a bone. So

82 J

in desperate needs some serious upgrades to make it through the trails. And it all started with the popular spring over axle conversion.

Then the axles were torn down and quick locks installed both front and rear as well as a set of 35 inch

Boers

on steel wheels with rock stomper be lock kits welded to the outside. Then it was time to hit the trail.

Now, the little CJ actually did really well out on the trail, excluding some small complications with having a manual transmission, keep going, keep going, keep going. And since the truck was right on the borderline of becoming a hardcore crawler, the obvious upgrade next was gonna be an automatic tranny.

Now, some of you guys didn't want us to take out the standard transmission right along with me, but I lost the bet automatic went in along with some 4 to 1 gears in the transfer case. And then we brought the Jeep back in the shop one more time and treated it to a set of Hansen bumpers, both front and rear. And today is the last page in this book. It's gonna be two new axles on the cheap. Now keeping it old school style, we're gonna be putting a Ford nine inch in the rear and a high opinion Dana 44 up front

and

you

get, we, we mean me

now we put this J together just like you guys would at home in stages

and when you get this far and you've gone hardcore every other part. It's honestly time to upgrade the axle.

We knew these were the week, weeks up front and rare. But this 82 CJ seven will be a hard core crawler once it's got some

beefy axles.

Now there was a time when four length suspension, air shocks and coil overs were not the norm. 20 years ago, our little CJ seven would be considered cutting edge and a cutting edge move back then would be to swap in a Ford full width nine inch under the rear end.

The nine inch will allow you to upgrade to a super strong axle assembly and not have to get new wheels since the bolt pattern on the axle flange is the same as the stock CJ five on 5.5.

This nine inch came from the local junkyard for 100 and 50 bucks. And it's gonna go under our CJ at full width, 62.5 inches

with the housing strip down. It's just a matter of slipping in some new spring perches and bolting the axle under the jeep.

Now, the Ford nine inch has a removable third member and that's another reason why this axle is so popular. You can buy a dropout third member from aftermarket companies with a locker or spool and gears already set up shipped to your door.

Now, it's a little bit harder on the pocketbook and to save money, you can look around and find these used. Now, the nine inch has been used in racing applications for years. So if you get lucky, you can usually find a half decent gear set and a locker or spool for sale online. It'll save you a little bit of money

for our cheap Jeep. We're going to be welding up the spiders to give us full lock all the time

and then

swap in a set decision

alloy USA 514 to 1 gear.

When you're in the junkyard, getting your axle grab an extra third member from another nine inch to toss underneath your workbench.

That way, when money allows for it, you can rebuild it with a different locker and swap it into your rig with no downtime.

Now, I'm sure you've noticed that we're putting this axle back into the housing without the drum brake set up in place and that's for good reason, drum brakes have a tendency to pack up with mud and dirt when they're off road. So we're gonna want to change this over to a disc brake set up. But because we're building this axle on the cheap, it means we're gonna have to do some creative fabrication.

Three different sets of brake rotors to try a dodge half ton, a Ford half ton and a stock C JSE

front. All because they have the five on 5.5 bolt pattern just like our truck

and they all fit over the studs, but we will have to grind the axle flange to make our final choice fit.

Uh The caliper is off the front end of an 85 Chevrolet three quarter ton pickup truck and the bracket is from Blue Torch fab works. Now all in all, we have less than $100 into our rear disc brake set up. We do have one issue though and that is that the indexing ring on the axle flange is smaller than that on the rotor. Now, the this can cause the rotor to knock against the studs every time we hit the gas and the brakes and it can eventually wear them out and cause them to fail. If this was gonna be a daily driver on the street, we'd want to go ahead and have that axle flange machine to fit that indexing ring on the rotor. But because this is just a trail truck, it'll be fine and we're gonna run it just as it is

later on our CJ hits the trail. But up next the truck and Jeep Fest has got it all

mud

bogging

bikini contest and lots of die hard fans. We'll take you there next.

So, just where is the truck? And Jeep capital of the world?

We found it in a sleepy little farming community halfway between Cleveland and Pittsburgh where one weekend each summer, the sounds of

curry place with

this area has a Jeep history. Nearly half as old as the brand itself.

30 years ago, the first four Wheel Drive hardware store opened here.

The business was founded by a gentleman by the name of Tom Kennedy and he literally, ah,

started a business so that he could find Jeep parts for himself and his friend. And it grew into the largest mail order catalog and internet business for Jeeps in the world.

And now they've teamed with four wheel parts and the four wheel jamborees to create an event like no other.

Yeah, there was something for everyone at the Canfield, Ohio Truck and Jeep Fest,

including the first look at be of good Rich's replacement for their popular mud terrain.

The new KM two

who wants T shirt

and with $50,000 worth of prizes to be given out. My co host helps spread the wealth

hats and T shirts. Come on, Ian you can do way better than that.

Ok. Xtreme 4x4 trivia. Are you ready

at

the 2006 Indianapolis four wheel Jamboree? My dream came true when I got to drive a monster truck for the first time. What monster truck was it?

Was it the grave digger?

Was it Bigfoot or was it the Laminator?

What's your guess?

I'm gonna go with Laminator. Oh, that's right. Let's see. Tell him what he won. G

Zachary, you've just won body protection for your truck or Jeep from Smitty build valued at $500. Sweet.

Now, you gotta build a whole truck around those two bumpers. I can do that and I'll even give you the stickers. Sweet.

Ok, Cassie ready

here. Stream four by four trivia. Question is

name the 2004, 2005. Host of the power block on Spike TV. Is it a

Jessi Combs

B,

Paris Hilton

C

Michelle Spazzo

or D the indie car racer? Danica Patrick?

What's your answer? DDD is correct. That's right. You've won a lovely set of pro comp gloves to wear. So you don't get your hands dirty while you're working on your truck. Thank you. Those are nice gloves, aren't they?

Actually Cassie? You've won a magna flow cut back exhaust system with a retail value of $600.

0, my gosh.

Thank you

in season one of Xtreme 4x4. Something very unexpected happened during the initial build of the C Jse.

Jeep. Jeep I'm sure you watched that episode.

Yes,

I

did. Here's your three choices. A, a

leaf spring broke, knocking me unconscious. B

the truck was driven off the RT I ramp and broke the front shock mount.

Ok. C Jessi was rushed to the hospital for an emergency appendectomy.

That's a good one. What's your answer? I say C he goes with C. All right. Well,

we'll win that.

You see, actually right now you think you want a license plate,

but really

you want a K and N cold air kit, high performance intake system for your truck or SUV retail value? $250.

0, great. That's, that's great. I appreciate that. Wow, good stuff. Thank you.

Ok. We have Reed and his girlfriend Sarah for four by

four by four trivia for the pro compound.

Are you ready? Here's your question

in the final range of resurrection show. What led to the front end completely falling out of the truck? Was it a

no hydraulic fluid in the steering box?

B play

do used instead of poly bushings or C A sub grade bolt that shattered, sending the front link into the oil pan.

See, see you are right. You will get this beautiful Pro comp hat. Thank you very

much. But you know what would go really well with that pro comp hat. What's that?

Ok. I think we're going to give you a complete set of pro comp tires, wheels, a six inch suspension system

and a worn power plant winch worth about $6000. What do you think of that?

Yes, Reed. Your Jeep will now crawl over the competition with this complete wheel entire package. Four inch stage two suspension system all from pro com. Plus Warne's new power plant winch with onboard air compressor. Congratulations.

Thank you very much. Oh,

man,

I never thought that would happen. Everything that I gave away today was courtesy of four wheel parts and Xtreme 4x4. We'll be back right after this.

This extreme tech tip is brought to you by Mobile One providing advanced protection against extreme heat and stress.

Now, the hardest part about reusing these junkyard sees that you cut off your axle housing is that you have to heat them up before you slide them on the tube. They're press fit, but you don't want to heat them with a torch or the heat input can get too localized and you can warp it. So here's a tip for you, throw it on the old barbecue grill, let it sit on there for about 1015 minutes until it gets up to about 400 degrees. And the best thing is you can do double duty and make your lunch at the same time.

Oily.

Welcome back to Xtreme 4x4 and the final upgrade for project cheap Jeep. Now that we have a 49 inch in the rear, it's time to build a front axle on the cheap, but with a twist.

Now, this is where building an axle on the cheap takes on a whole new meaning,

obviously, we want a da a 44 full width axle to match the rear. But if we swapped in a junkyard piece, we'd have to take these leaf springs and move them to the outside of the frame. Because if we didn't do that, the pumpkin from that junkyard axle would actually sit right underneath this leaf spring.

Now, the obvious solution would be to build a custom with 44 and this can be done by tearing down a junkyard 44 housing,

cutting out the tubes and replacing them.

But working on a budget isn't always about doing things the cheapest way. Sometimes it's about how you spend your money.

Now, this high opinion center section and new outer

ale and

could make building your custom

ale a lot easier.

Now, the rear axle truly was built on the cheap with a welded up carrier, a new set of gears and stock parts throughout the rest of the assembly. Now, the front is gonna cost a little bit of money.

But as you guys know, whenever you're talking about a custom with axle, it usually means a little bit of cash to

change.

But how the money is spent will be, what makes the difference here. And since we already have a perfectly good set of 44 outer knuckles and beefy high steer arms from SRC precision products.

They will get reused on the new 44.

With our wind laid out on the floor, we can set both outer seas into position

and then measure for the location of our solid axle center section.

Then the three and an eight

half inch wall dom tubing can be cut to the correct length

and ground

and then slid into the housing.

Easy as pie.

No, it's not easy

tip for the home viewer doing this at home.

I think it was like $300 more. Just to get the T put on

axel, please.

Now, the front axle, we honestly could have just welded up a carrier just like the rear. But instead we're gonna install an aux cable shifted locker assembly in it.

Now,

how does this install fit into our budget aspect?

But when putting in the aux

locker, it comes with a heavy duty D

cover as part of the locking mechanism.

That way you save money because the D

cover is included in the package.

Now, we've built a lot of axles here at extreme. So we didn't take you through this one step by step. But here's the basic numbers and info on our new data. 44 front axle, the solid axle high P

center section allows the drive shaft to enter actually almost above the leaf springs that'll protect it when we're on the trail. Now, it has an integrated leaf spring mount so it was able to mount it really close to the passenger side of the truck. Now, the outer seas are set up with a caster angle of eight degrees leaning back or positive caster. As for the steering, I simply cut down the aftermarket high steer kit we had in there before and sleeved it with some dom tubing to make it wider.

Now for the axles, we went ahead and measured and ordered some custom chromo

units from alloy USA,

but we really want to take this thing out before the end of the show and we're not going to have time to wait. So I've done something that I honestly have no idea if it's gonna work. I basically took a 30 sply

old axle. We had landed on the shop and sleeved it with a piece of dom tubing and welded it onto the original outer. Now, obviously, this is not what you want to do if you wanna go four wheel it,

but we want to take this thing out this afternoon and test everything we've done so far. These will probably break, but by then our new ones will be here and we'll just swap them out

when you're building a custom

ale. You don't want to stop the pieces that hold it all together, do you? Well, stage eight is known for their locking fasteners like their head or bolts and are now offering locking set up for a 60

Dana 44

Ales and the best part about it is. They install just as easy as the stock pieces

and for as hard A W and we do, we'll never have to worry about our hubs coming loose on the trail

up next. The moment of truth for the cheap Jeep and its new Axo.

When Xtreme 4x4 continues,

we're back on Xtreme 4x4 with noticeable changes to our 82 CJ. We lovingly call our cheap Jeep.

Yeah. Don't forget to shoot the curb feeler man.

It helps us get around the rocks.

Feelers. Aside,

our upgrades include beer

axles with the new data 44 up front and a Ford nine inch out back.

The sheer girth of the solid axles mean we can now feed the Jeeps serious power

after a giant cloud burst, dumped an inch on the trails while we were there.

I would need to do some

ple mashing just to stay

swampy

trails are tough on any off road tire

and we upsize our Interco super swamper

Boers to 37

which clean out easily. Thanks to the void between the L.

We ditch the clutch in favor of a rebuild torque command 999 automatic transmission.

And of course our newly rebuilt transfer case with JB conversion for one gear set,

both may crawling up and over obstacles easy, breezy.

All the difference in the world.

The

quad

springs help prevent

a

wrap under throttle bumps because of the reverse spring, eye wraps.

And with the Terra

Flex revolvers front and rear good articulation is not a problem.

And as we close the book on our cheap Jeep, the receipts in our wallet show that we spent just under eight grand.

That's a reasonable budget for any gear head whose love for off roading is surpassed only by the desire to do it themselves.

So go twist some wrenches.