A little background before the trip report: I sold my 98 XJ a couple weeks back, and my RAM was soon to be headed to the dealer for transmission service quoted at two weeks lead. Short of a functional driving vehicle and unable to find a suitable replacement in time, I made a deal with Chip to “borrow†his XJ and get it back into shape. He was assigned to get plates and insurance on it and hook its tow bar to it.
The 89 jeep Cherokee Pioneer has been sitting dormant for over 6 years after some aerobatics on a motor cross track new year’s day in the snow back in 2009. Since then the jeep had gotten a few upgrade projects and repairs started but time and Life got the best of Chip who was unable to finish and get the jeep back rolling going. Steering, transmission, driveline, brake and cooling issues were just the beginning of what had been removed from the jeep. The jeep has 33†MT tires, lockers front and rear, 4.56gears, ford9†rear swap, clayton front long arm, bumpers, sliders, and a clean interior! A really cool jeep that still shines with the dust blown off of it! I picked up the Jeep the day before I needed to drop off my truck at the dealer and got it over to my shop. I told Chip to pile any and every part he had that he thought went to the jeep in the back! It was great to see it rolling again and Chip was very excited! There were a lot of parts and hoses!
Thursday night after work I sorted through all the parts and began a plan of action. This list was BIG but I was up for the challenge. I love this kind of stuff. In two nights, 9 hours labor I revived the jeep and drove it to work Friday!
-PSC steering pump, reservoir, and brackets installed, belt tensioned
-trans found to be empty, no cooler lines. cooler lines and new cooler run
-oil pain found to be empty, filled
-new Efan installed
-steering cooler and filter installed
-rear brake flex lines and front flex lines run, all new brake lines in place, tightened.
-two front calipers replaced that had metric speed bleeders cross threaded in old calipers , leaking
-engine fired, steering bled, trans and oil at levels- HOPE RETURNED.
-both diffs filled
-3 new ebrake cables and adjustor installed
-vacuum assist brake hose back up
-front grill assembly reinstall
-bolted in rear exhaust cat and muffler, turn down
-exhaust hanger welded in
-drilled out snapped bolt in filler hatch door and mounted
-put back interior carpets
-snapped in all trim pieces, and kick panels, screwed in door treads
-mounted CB antenna
-hooked up aux power to front lights
-packed and condensed all boxes of used and unused parts
-brakes bled
-exhaust head pipe attached with bolts
-2 front unit bearings
-2 new tie rod ends
-front axle track bar mount reman'd with new steel
-all grease fittings lubed!
Test drove the jeep and all seemed well. I took it for a couple short trips. Cold AC still works! What a nice jeep. I ended up taking it to buffalo and back Sunday with no issues.
Last Friday at 3:30 with a change of plans and a free weekend, I called Chip and asked what he was doing this weekend. He was a little stressed out about some life issues so I told him I had the perfect solution and that I was headed to Wegmans to fill a cooler with food and beverages. In about 20 minutes we decided to make a road trip and head to Rausch for the weekend to meet up with some other members that had a trip already planned! We got packed up and loaded food, tents, clothes, a small tool back, some recovery gear, dusted off my Coleman camp stove, and we were on the road by 6pm heading south! We stopped for fuel ¾ of the way and then again to top off for the next day’s adventures. We pulled into the parking lot to set up camp around 11:15. Not too bad for a lifted trail rig convoy!
Saturday night we enjoyed a fire the group had already had going, and set up our tents to camp! Perfect sleeping weather with clear, cool, dry skys! Saturday morning we awoke, cooked some eggs and bacon for breakfast and headed over to the office to check in! Removed our sway bar disconnects and lowered tire pressure to 12psi!
Mark Wing in the willies buggy lead our group of 5 Cherokees to some great trails! We started on trail 1c I believe which is a black trail with big hills and bowls! On the first rock obstacle I soon got stuck and nudged two trees! O did I have some relearning to do back on 33†tires with a rig with glass and body panels! We worked through it with some rock stacking and spotting and got on our way! The little tan XJ did great all day keeping in mind we still had a 245mile ride home! Ran lots of blue and black trails including parts of trail 5, trail 8, yellow jacket, walk in the park blue line, quarry, S trails, boot hill, trail 4, and a few other places in the park i haven’t been to in a long time! The black climb off CV or O trail was a pretty good limit for the jeep. We passed on shoot the moon and a couple other black/red lines that a few of the other bigger jeeps in the group tackled. A solid day of wheeling and great weather was wrapped up with some Italian sausage and peppers on the grill with some potato salad.
The next morning we knew we had to hustle to be the rain so we broke down camp and loaded up all the gear back into the XJ. Thanks to RC air we put our tires back up to 28psi for the ride home and reconnected our sway bar links!. We were on the road by 9am and headed back north! Two fuel stops later and A LOT of rain we made it back to Rochester without any issues! We got back to chips shop to unload some of his camping gear, and while we were there I took a look at his black 97 XJ that had been sitting dead since December. In a short time and a new battery installed, I found a blown fuel pump fuse and a broken fuel pump relay socket! We got that jeep fired up and chip drove it home instead of me having to drop him off. We both went our separate ways! Chip is back and now has 2 out of 5 XJ’s running!
The Old 89 was back in action this weekend and clocked 518 miles with some pretty crazy trail wheeling in between for a street truck. This was my first experience ever of driving a wheeling jeep to Rausch and back, what a great experience. Can’t wait till next time to see Chip and the jeep on the trails!
Big thanks to the FLX crew for support (and laughter) on the trail with me and a D30 jeep. Mark and the group did a great job trail guiding and as usual I’m always grate full of a good group of guys and gals to wheel with at a moment’s notice!
Till next time!
