Project Heavy Metal XJ- Diggers saga
- Thread starter Etatum
- Start date
Etatum
Well-known member
Time for an update.
I haven't driven Digger in over 3 months due to a few reasons:
Reason #1: I own a perfectly good family hauling, mall crawling, boring and reliable 2001 Tahoe that has hot heat, cold air, quiet tires and a smooth ride. Now.... I know this is a no excuse for a car guy, but lately I haven't been anything close to that, nor have I had the time.
Reason #2: My favorite wheelin spot is only 30 min away and has enough challenges to get my blood pumping if the need arises, however it is private property that is VERY illegal to be on. The fact that its illegal is fairly new information to me. Recently they have cracked down on the trespassing... giving out tickets, confiscating vehicles, etc. according to heresay, however thankfully I have not seen this first hand. I consider myself a reasonable person, and none of these consequences seem remotely worth a few hours of fun to me. The next closest spots are about 1 1/2 or 3 hours away ...... which leads to......
Reason #3: Driveability and reliablility.
When I first bought Digger, he drove like a 1/2 ton pickup, which was perfect. Now driving down the highway is like wrangling an angry, drunk and confused old bull with no reason to hurry, stop, or move for anyone!! Bigger tires, no swaybar, poor caster settings, worn mud terrains, poly motor and trans mounts, a locked rear axle, and another bent front axle attribute heavily to these characteristics.
My wife refuses to drive him and the kids ask to take " Daddys other car" whenever given the choice. Everytime I try and go more that 50 miles with the thing, something else brakes or leaves us stranded. SO...at this point I think I have two choices.
Choice #1: Buy rubber motor mounts and trans mount, add sound deadening to the interior, add a quiet exhaust, buy new tires, rebuild another new D30 without bent inner C's and truss it, ditch the rear Aussie and go selectable, add a drip tray to the hood vents that keep destroying my serpentine belt (another story), fix the alignment angles somehow, and add a swaybar with disconnects or and Anti-Rock
OR
Choice #2: Sell the damn thing and lose a ton of time, effort and money to ditch the hobby altogether and take up something else. Then buy a cheap stock TJ/YJ for the VERY occasional local offroad excursion.
So I ask my fellow Jeepers..... Any Thoughts? [headscratch]
I haven't driven Digger in over 3 months due to a few reasons:
Reason #1: I own a perfectly good family hauling, mall crawling, boring and reliable 2001 Tahoe that has hot heat, cold air, quiet tires and a smooth ride. Now.... I know this is a no excuse for a car guy, but lately I haven't been anything close to that, nor have I had the time.
Reason #2: My favorite wheelin spot is only 30 min away and has enough challenges to get my blood pumping if the need arises, however it is private property that is VERY illegal to be on. The fact that its illegal is fairly new information to me. Recently they have cracked down on the trespassing... giving out tickets, confiscating vehicles, etc. according to heresay, however thankfully I have not seen this first hand. I consider myself a reasonable person, and none of these consequences seem remotely worth a few hours of fun to me. The next closest spots are about 1 1/2 or 3 hours away ...... which leads to......
Reason #3: Driveability and reliablility.
When I first bought Digger, he drove like a 1/2 ton pickup, which was perfect. Now driving down the highway is like wrangling an angry, drunk and confused old bull with no reason to hurry, stop, or move for anyone!! Bigger tires, no swaybar, poor caster settings, worn mud terrains, poly motor and trans mounts, a locked rear axle, and another bent front axle attribute heavily to these characteristics.
My wife refuses to drive him and the kids ask to take " Daddys other car" whenever given the choice. Everytime I try and go more that 50 miles with the thing, something else brakes or leaves us stranded. SO...at this point I think I have two choices.
Choice #1: Buy rubber motor mounts and trans mount, add sound deadening to the interior, add a quiet exhaust, buy new tires, rebuild another new D30 without bent inner C's and truss it, ditch the rear Aussie and go selectable, add a drip tray to the hood vents that keep destroying my serpentine belt (another story), fix the alignment angles somehow, and add a swaybar with disconnects or and Anti-Rock
OR
Choice #2: Sell the damn thing and lose a ton of time, effort and money to ditch the hobby altogether and take up something else. Then buy a cheap stock TJ/YJ for the VERY occasional local offroad excursion.
So I ask my fellow Jeepers..... Any Thoughts? [headscratch]
ShaunSweeney
Well-known member
You have to decide if the time and money you're going to invest fixing your current rig is more or less than replacing it with a wrangler. Only you can determine that.
The kids are going to love a convertible if you go to a TJ , and your wife might to. Yours needs a good bit of work, but its mostly easy stuff. If you want to sell it for good money your going to have to fix most of the stuff anyways , so why not fix it and drive it for a bit?
bobthetj03
Well-known member
Sell the XJ, buy a TJ or LJ, and build a trailer to haul all your gear. 😀
357transam
Well-known member
The fact of the matter is this... It's all of you LJ owners that make him hate the XJ. I say sell it, and buy what you want. But we have been down this road before, over and over again.... [headscratch]
Seriously, an LJ on 33's is perfect for what we do, and you know it!!! 👍
And maybe the next one won't be cursed... [nailbite]
Seriously, an LJ on 33's is perfect for what we do, and you know it!!! 👍
And maybe the next one won't be cursed... [nailbite]
357transam
Well-known member
G Beasley said:
Yeah, but we all know you have problems... [laugh]
Seriously though, he hasn't really ever been happy with this rig. It's just never been HIM, if that makes any sense. We tried to get it there, but I don't think it's going to happen. Why spend the time, effort, money, blood, sweat, and tears on something that will still dissapoint?
ShaunSweeney
Well-known member
I've been there. The LJ is the rig I was chasing all along. I seriously love this thing.
Etatum
Well-known member
I apologize for not responding sooner to anyone interested. Things have been a bit crazy since the holidays and the hobbies have taken the back burner. After the first of the year we decided to upgrade my wifes car from a Camry to a Highlander, and took on a car payment again. This changes things a bit for me for a couple of reasons. We can now take her car on the longer family (including dogs) road trips , so I really don't need my Tahoe anymore for that. However, I now have a car payment absorbing some of my "allowance" , so mods will come a bit slower to anything I decide to upgrade. I can sell either the Tahoe or Digger and still have something to drive which opens up a couple of options. Ultimately I've decided that I need a Cummins tow rig, a beater wheeler that seats 4, an expo rig for those long trips, a Pro touring '69 Camaro, and a 2015 Mustang 5.0 in red to drive every day......... .......... [monkey] ........or something like that!
All joking aside I've really been looking at selling Digger and buying an FZJ80 land cruiser [nailbite] . This would allow me to build a mild, capable and reliable wheeler that was still comfortable on the long road trips. I could drive it everyday and still wheel 90% of Colorado. I could fit the family, dogs and all our traveling junk easily in the bigger vehicle, and the Toyotas are known for their reliablility. After it was built, I could sell the Tahoe and buy a cheap TJ to tinkering with as a toy and wheel locally.
I'll be cleaning up Digger some more, repainting all the armor and diff covers and posting it on craigslist to gauge local interest. If I can get enough money back on Digger to justify the change I'll carry on with the above plans. I known I'll be losing money at this point, but pouring money into a vehicle that no longer fits my families needs just doesn't make sense.
All joking aside I've really been looking at selling Digger and buying an FZJ80 land cruiser [nailbite] . This would allow me to build a mild, capable and reliable wheeler that was still comfortable on the long road trips. I could drive it everyday and still wheel 90% of Colorado. I could fit the family, dogs and all our traveling junk easily in the bigger vehicle, and the Toyotas are known for their reliablility. After it was built, I could sell the Tahoe and buy a cheap TJ to tinkering with as a toy and wheel locally.
I'll be cleaning up Digger some more, repainting all the armor and diff covers and posting it on craigslist to gauge local interest. If I can get enough money back on Digger to justify the change I'll carry on with the above plans. I known I'll be losing money at this point, but pouring money into a vehicle that no longer fits my families needs just doesn't make sense.
Tonellin
Well-known member
A first gen taco is a dream truck of mine...unfortunately I don't have an extra liver to sell to afford one that is a decade and a half old with 150,000+ milescescuzzy date=1423108309 said:
Digger is a great lookin XJ - I think you'll definitely end up missing it especially since it's getting very difficult to find clean ones for sale
Etatum
Well-known member
Figured I would get the ball rolling on Digger this weekend and hopped on the alignment rack after work to access the situation. Apparently when I swapped over to th HP 30, it never occurred to me that caster could be an issue. Well it is. 3 1/2 degrees!!! Might as well be a shopping cart going backwards down the highway. Good news is, the front axle is straight which was one of my concerns. I'll tear down the front end next weekend and adjust the arms then check pinion angle and see howuch better it drives. I'm also thinking about hitting up the salvage yard and grabbing an open carrier and muffler, but we will see. Oh, and disregard the toe... That's fixed now
Attachments
357transam
Well-known member
Sideways picture! In any case, I say we get you an open carrier for sure. Maybe find me a couple Toyota axles...... [nailbite]
