1997 Jeep XJ Country

[Callelle]

Did a fun small little project recently. Seats were collapsing and just getting over all beat so I decided to replace them. Did some researching and found that WJ seats will bolt right up to the XJ brackets. So I hit up M&M and scored some surprisingly good condition black leather seats out of an 04 with 10 way power for $50. The WJ I pulled them from was victim of a pretty bad driver's side impact so I wanted to double check everything, especially since it was leaning pretty bad to one side. Sure enough the seat frame was broken in two and the back was broken at one of the cross supports. Simple enough to fix, so I welded them up and got them all back together on the XJ brackets got finished installing them yesterday afternoon. 



I even got the power recline and lumbar to work. The seats are a lot more comfortable and more supportive than my old beat cloth seats. Only downside is they sit a bit higher so I'm even more cramped than I was before, though it's just like riding in any other car. Hopefully I'm going to be able to address this by pulling them out again and cutting down the brackets so they sit at least 1/2" lower, until then, I'll just have to deal with the ghetto lean.

Other than that I've also replaced my worn out (disintegrated) upper shock bushings with poly ones, and am going to be addressing my rear hatch's reluctance to open when I want it to today. I'm also looking for some suggestions on tires. Now that I've recently gotten a job driving and only burned one bus to the ground so far (yes, that's what happened on my second day), I've been putting some money aside and hopefully I'll be able to have new treads within a month or so.   I had my mind pretty much set on Goodyear MT/Rs with Kevlar, but after hearing a bit from smike and then doing a bit of research about them being hard to balance has me back on the fence. I don't really like mud a whole lot so slop performance doesn't really matter to me. My main concerns are going to be for crawling but I do drive my XJ daily as my main vehicle, so tread wear would be nice to keep in mind too. I'm planning on 35x12.5R15s. Any suggestions/opinions would be appreciated.

[gCracker]

holy cow.. what caused the fire?

[Callelle]

Long story short; blew a tire on the thru way, looked like a recap blew off of one of the duals, boss told me to nurse it to the nearest terminal. Half way there I look out my mirror and it's just billowing black smoke, pull over get out and "holy fuck I'm on fire!"

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[Callelle]

Fenders re-trimmed and ready for 35s. (still need to cut back my rocker but I'll be doing that soon)

[Callelle]

They're here

[smichaelR22]

fingers crossed for no balancing woes!

[Callelle]

^ That. Gonna be trying that Equal balancing compound stuff, a few of my friends have had good luck with it. I still need to get my rockers cut and old tires demounted so I can clean up and repaint the rims.

[Callelle]

 



Drove up and down the road to 60 on the speedo and no wobble or vibes

[etk300ex]

Looks more better!

[Callelle]

Thanks, I still got a few things to do before it's where I really want it. Ordered 8" lift shocks for the front, need another 1" of bumpstop in the rear, and shackle relocation boxes are happening this winter. For the rear bumps, I already have a 3" bumpstop sitting on top of a 2x2 square tube. I'm thinking for Rausch, I'm just gonna stack washers to get me by for one trip or until I figure something else out. I don't know if I really want to spend $100 on bumpstop plates to sit over the leafs just yet. Shackle relocation boxes are also going to have to wait until this winter just because I don't think I have enough time to instal them before next weekend. As far as the tires go, the only issue im having is a small amount of rub on the inner fender at full left lock while in reverse. I think it's just because of a combination of my size, soft springs, and no sway bar causing it to lean a little on the driver's side. I've tried pounding it in but it wont budge. I don't think it's something I need to be overly concerned with because I've hammered the pinch seam down flat and there's nothing sharp for the tire to get cut on. Whole bunch of extra things I just have to think about this winter and where I want the XJ to sit. I've been debating on getting some 3.5" leafs for the back and a little extra ride height and up travel, but for the low CoG set up I'm going for, my semi flat leafs in the back will be better for droop, especially once my shackle angle is corrected.

[Callelle]

  Bumpstop plates installed. Just need to get the new front shocks in and I'm as set as I can be for Rausch.

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[smichaelR22]

still locked in front? got your spare shafts!?! 

[Callelle]

Still locked and have spare shafts. Was working on getting shocks installed tonight and I fucked up somewhere in my measuring. They're about an inch and a half to long. I'm sure in the end it doesn't really matter, but I'm debating in my head which shocks to run. The ones that I had would net me the extra 1.5" of up travel where as the new ones would get me 2-3" of down travel. I know that I'm building my XJ based on droop and the only reason I'm considering keeping the old shocks is because of my already small amount of up travel. Like I said, I'm sure that it doesn't really matter which one I stick with and that I'm just debating 2 moot points within my head. I'll more than likely end up going with the longer shocks and add another 2" of bump stop in the front and just see how it does. Hell I may even just my old ones to Rausch and swap them if I don't like how it's acting. Any thoughts?

[MrMindless]

Severely limited uptravel is really uncomfortable. If you're stiffly sprung, I'd not go less than 3" of up. If softly sprung that's too little.

my 2¢

[xjh3]

35s look good! Remember to STOP when you hear the front shafts pop 

I probably have 2" of up in the front on my whooped coils. I can feel them bottom out sometimes. I still have 1" up in the rear (with really soft bumpstops, so probably 1.5-1.75" in reality) because my driveshaft is too long. I would have done something about either end if it bothered me.

This is all 99% trail time. It seemed fine in the 10 miles it's been driven on the road like this, but that is obviously not very extensive testing.