For those of you following along, you have already seen several pictures and the progression of the XJ that my boy pilots around the hills. With him nearing the magical age of 16, the little rig is about ready to hit the road full time, and I figured it was a good time to document the current state of affairs before the inevitable becomes reality
We picked up this little gem back in June of 2020, off a tip we got from everyone’s buddy Don Healy. Turns out that Don’s father in-law runs a local dealership, and when they took this Cherokee in on trade the FIL immediately called Don to see if he was interested. Don called me because we had recently discussed my love of the platform and desire to find one for the minion(s). Next thing you know, we were driving it home!
It’s a 1999 Cherokee Sport, with the venerable 4.0L, AW-4 automatic and NP-231 transfer case. The front is a high-pinion Dana 30 and the rear is a Dana 35, both sporting open diffs and 3.55 gearing. Ordinarily the D35 would be considered a negative, but it was the only rear axle offered with anti-lock brakes, and that is actually a HUGE positive in terms of insurance for a teenager so we’re going to run it. The Jeep had about 162k miles on it but did not show its age; the older couple had owned it since new and used it as a towed vehicle behind their motorhome. The glovebox and center console were stuffed with receipts and service records, and the paint was smooth as a baby’s you know what. It was actually far too nice of a vehicle considering what lie in its future…
The first order of business was to ditch the plastic hub caps, replace a couple of burnt-out bulbs, and get the flat tow wiring reconfigured to match my fleet of tow pigs. There was also a rear wheel cylinder that was leaking so a quick rear brake job was accomplished along with an oil change and an overall once-over. With everything tidied up, we spent the summer using it for baseball games behind our motorhome, and even took it to the hills a couple times:
Parts availability in the summer and fall of 2020 was not great, but we managed to source a few bits and pieces to meet our needs. Namely, a 3” suspension kit from Rusty’s and a Smittybilt 9,500lb winch. The lift was very straightforward and installed with nary an issue. We found a set of 33” Wildcat MT’s and put them on, and while they looked cool in the parking lot they ended up being a pretty miserable set of tires, both on the road and off:
We gave him the winch as a Christmas present, and we spent some time around the holidays building a front bumper and a set of rock sliders:
Snow wheeling absolutely highlighted the terrible performance of the old Wildcat tires, and as luck would have it a nice set of 33" BFG A/T’s popped up for sale, and I snagged them. The overall improvement was nothing short of remarkable:
The next round of upgrades were all minion-inspired. He wanted a cool set of headlights and an LED light bar. The OEM headlights were, in fact, terrible compared to what is considered acceptable today and our friends at Amazon provided an impressive pair of aftermarket units that have a cool halo option that acts as a daytime running light, further improving some semblance of safety:
The light bar required a quick arts and crafts session to fab up some mounts, and overall it turned out pretty clean:
So that brings us up to date. For his 16th birthday, he has requested a trip to Moab so we will be making the pilgrimage to the promised land later this fall. Stay tuned for a run report on that
The Minion XJ aka GGv3.0
The Minion XJ aka GGv3.0
Yep, I've wheeled one of those, too...
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