CJ8 Scrambler Part V - Payoff!

Today, the hybrid scrambler cie

me will hit the road to meet the man who partnered with us to make this happen. Then join a slew of scramblers fanatics in Arkansas for a cheap love fest.

Join us for the pedal mashing roof crushing payoff right now on Xtreme 4x4.

Today on Xtreme 4x4, we had a great show planned for you guys. Now, our Jeep Scrambler that we put together inside the small two car garage space inside the extreme shop is out here in the warehouse for one reason, this truck is completely done. We're ready to throw it on the trailer and take it out to the scrambler Owners Association's National scrambler for some hard core wheeling. Now, if you guys remember we had a specific point in mind with this project, we built everything on this truck just using

common hand tools. The same way you guys would at home, we took the money we would have spent on hardcore fab stuff and bought parts instead. And I would say we've kind of hit the nail on the head. We have a one of a kind Jeep, a hybrid CJ eight CJ seven with TJ suspension, one of a kind axles and an awesome drive train.

But before we jump behind the wheel and go wheeling, let's take a look back at this project front to back some of the custom touches that make it unique as well. Let's look at some of the little touches that you didn't get to see because of lack of time. We'll start with the axles.

Both axles in this project are corporate 14 bolts and the fact that we have one up front is what makes it very unique. It is a steering 14 bolt axle that was never built from the factory. It's 100% custom how to make it. We had to take a rear axle shorten the TTH down and then add knuckles that we got from crane high clearance to convert the outer ends over to a Dana 60. Then we filled it with chrome molly shafts and CTMU joints and then outfitted it with a full hydraulic steering system from PSC to turn these monster 42 inch I

rocks. Now, the nice thing about having the 14 bolt axle is not only is it incredibly strong? More importantly, it's very unique. It's what's gonna set this Jeep apart from the crowd of the scrambler nationals, most people when they look underneath the front of this truck, they're not even gonna know what that is

when it came time for the drive train in this Jeep, we did something that we've never done before. We let you guys pick what transmission and transfer case combination went in this project. We put a poll up on our website and you guys voted for a great package. You picked a turbo 400 automatic transmission that we got from monster transmission and then behind it, a 203205 doubler set up with a 3 to 1 Lomax kit in the 205 case. Now, since then, we also went ahead and installed these Northwest fab cable shifters. Now, you've seen us use these before and they were great when you have a tight fitting application like we have in the Jeep and you have trouble getting shifters to connect to your transfer case. Now, the engine that's in front of this package is just a used 383 that we picked up online,

but the fuel that's running, it is very different.

The plan from the very beginning was to install the CJ seven hard top on top of the full length CJ eight aluminum body that we got from Aquilo

Industries. Now, we did this to give us lots of room inside the Jeep for four people to ride comfortably safe and out of the elements. But it also gave us this little bed area in the back to carry tools and parts and coolers or anything else we might need on the trail right now, we have in the back two very important items, a propane tank and a gas tank. Now, if you guys remember when we put our motor together, we put this motor together as a dual fuel set up and that means we can either run it on propane or gasoline and this Jerry can right here is tied into our gas tank underneath the Jeep. So we fill up with fuel right here in the bed. And when it comes time to convert between gas and propane, there's a mix

hat, it's on top of the carburetor. All we have to do is hit a switch on the dash and it turns off the gasoline and then turns on the propane. Now, the nice thing about running on propane is when you're in extreme wheeling situations and you're off camera a lot, you don't have to worry about the engine starving for fuel. But when you get out of those extreme wheeling setups and you just want to run on the carburetor, you convert back and just run it on straight gasoline. Now, a couple other things we did here in the back,

we went ahead and installed some of these off road only light dots to keep our truck relatively street legal in case we got to run down the road in between trails. Now, when we do that, we'll obviously want to air up our tires from a wheel and pressure to a road, pressure to do that. We will be using one of these power tank, two tanks. Now, this will not only air up our 40 twos when we need it, but we can also run air tools on the trail

in case something breaks

coming up, extreme hits the road to a place where scramblers rule. See how our hybrid CJ handles the Arkansas Mountains. That's next.

Welcome back to Xtreme 4x4 and the finale of our Jeep hybrid scrambler

for this extreme trail test. We chose super lift off road vehicle park during the scrambler Owners Association's National scramble

just outside of Hot Springs, Arkansas. This 1300 acre facility features over 100 rated trails.

Perfect for this group of CJ eight lovers who traveled far and wide for a weekend of crawling

and camaraderie

another day at work. Oh, it's hard.

First things first

unload the scrambler

and hook up with our buddy who helped make this hybrid project possible.

Rusty. Hey, Ian, how you doing? I'm doing well. How are you doing? Pretty good. Favorite logo and offload

if you're into Jeeps and haven't heard of Rusty's off road. You're living under a rock.

Rainbow City Alabama is their HQ and inside 50,000 square feet of space,

they manufacture and distribute everything from custom suspension components

to bumpers and accessories and ship it to wheelers all over the world.

So, Rusty was the first guy we called.

Well, what do you think, man? First time you saw her in person? It looks great. It

looks really good.

Got all your suspension stuff on there. Really?

Stretch kit in the back, all the brackets.

This has been battling around in my head for, since I was 16 years old. I wanted to put a CJ seven top on a CJ A body.

So, and it looks good. I think it suits it. Well, don't you? It

suits it real well.

The one thing that worried me the most on this whole rig was getting the 14 bolts to work with the TJ suspension.

It worked out well, I got the one spring perch we had to just sort of nestle right on top of the housing, but it, it burned in nice, a little bit of pre heat.

The rear kit dropped right on, clears that gas tank kit, no problem at all.

And all in all rides

for what it is. You know, it's 18 different kinds of Jeep, plus some 14 bolts and an off the shelf suspension kit. Just cruising around on some rough stuff, soaks it up pretty good.

So I'm looking forward to seeing it flex out and, and work real good.

The scramblers owners are much like our Cherokee owners.

They're very proud of their vehicles. They, they wanna come out and ride with the same people that have the same thing in common as they do.

Hey, guys, I'm resting.

We build suspensions, we build steering, we build skid plates, all four of the scramblers and we wanted to, to make sure that they knew that we were interested in their market.

It's an older vehicle but it's there, there's still a lot of them out there. There's other companies now that are building bear frames, bear bodies. If you decide you want to scramble, you can, you can go buy all these pieces from other manufactures,

come to Rusty's and buy the suspension parts and pieces and parts, just like what we've built on extreme core by four.

And you can come to these venues and go out and go trail riding with your vehicle.

So you got ready to go wheeling today. Russell, let's

go, get on the trail. What did you bring with you?

I brought our XJ Cherokee and then we also brought our JK to help carry the film crew.

Like most of our projects, there is no time for pre

run to work out any kicks. So this trail ride is our Scrambler's first run.

Yeah,

Trent mcgee.

I know that dude.

Although our Jeep Scrambler is a 100% bolt together project, we do have two custom axles under it.

We really were not sure how an off the shelf suspension kit would react with the massive unstrung weight of the 14 bulls, but the Rusty Off Road long arm kit soaked up the rocks quite well.

Our 42 inch I

rocks gave us good ground clearance, but we did get hung up on the center section of our axles from time to time

hung up.

No, we're high centered

Hey, Chris, I'm gonna have to get you to stack a rock right under this one. Maybe

after a little tug from the winch, I thought we were free and clear.

I should have just mashed it

and launched it up over those trees

on the second year in reverse.

No.

Caught a throttle while he reaches for the brake.

That's what I get for mounting the accelerator too close to the brake pedal.

He and those front 14 bolt axles held up real good. Well, I also think, uh, the entire weight of the jeep was on your rear link arms are kind of scratched but they held up just as well. Rusty.

Let's keep wheeling. Let's keep, keep on it.

It's hot, man. It's very hot.

We're not alone in them. They're woods coming up. We'll meet dozens of other scrambler owners who see these long gone tail dragger as the cat's pajamas. Stay tuned.

I told you this would happen. Ask that question one more time, sir.

What's it for?

Ah, that's a 14 bolt

with ad a

60 outer

all cut up custom built.

I told you, see, nobody would get it.

Welcome back to extreme. And Hot springs, Arkansas.

What better place to trail test our CJ eight hybrid scrambler than the Scrambler Owners Association's National scramble?

What a mouthful.

It's easy to understand why scramblers are sacred to this group of fanatics who make this an annual summer event.

We love the scramblers because it's a scrambler and it's one of a kind

and we have one of them and we're proud of it.

It's almost like a family, you know, and

we really enjoy everybody's company and, and it's just something that I don't get

too many other places, you know, it's, everybody knows just about everybody when they built them, they didn't catch on because it was long Jeeps. Nobody wanted the long Jeep. And they were mainly used for like a work truck. I had one for years used for a work truck, wore it out before I even knew there was rock crawling or trails.

And finally my son spotted on uh the internet.

So, hey, these guys take these on trails.

My name is Stephanie and I'm from South Carolina. This is my baby. She's got Dana 4435 inch tires, uh, just a standard 258 with a

ha

a car but she runs great.

It's a 1982 Jeep Scrambler.

Um We found it in the guy's yard, drove it for a month and decided that we're gonna lift it up.

Look,

I'm just sure

that

everything you see is either me or my dad did it most of it was me

because if I

built it, then I could drive it. I did a lot of the fabrication for the different pieces that we did for rust cut outs

along with welding up extra holes, plasma, cutting them out, building them fab bending them, welding them in,

um grinding them down, painting them everything like that. I did that

we decided that we would put a smiley face for the front pumpkin.

The back has uh the pumpkin. We painted it orange, made it look like a pumpkin. We can run with the bigger guys and have no problem.

We outdo them.

The nice thing about a scrambler event is everyone is welcome. Whether you're a casual weekend Wheeler running a nearly stocked Jeep

all the way to highly modified CJ

ski

on 44.

We just all have the exact same interest in the exact same Jeep. It's a really rare Jeep and I think we're all proud to own one.

Us too there, buddy.

But let's quit squawking and start crawling

more rocking and rolling at the Arkansas scramble. When Xtreme 4x4 continues,

this is the very end of Ingrid revenge.

Secret to this part of it is to get up past these two water holes here and try to keep your tires dried.

But at the same time, you've got to come up so high, you gotta keep from rolling over where he's sitting and if you roll over it's really not that bad. Is it?

Yeah, it's pretty bad.

Alright, let's hit it.

That's all right.

I'll just lay it down. We'll have a cool breeze in.

You see that it's the cool step on my slider

and so you can do it.

That's a strong 14

ball front. Axle

lock out.

That's it. We put an end to our CJ eight right here at the Scrambler Owners Association, National Scrambler at Super Lift off Road Park. We had on outside a little bit. We had a lot of fun and a great time with all these CJ eight owners. Let's hear guys.

Oh,

hot man. I'm out.

Let's go.