The "Get Me By" MJ Truggy by cgmrdc

8 minute(s) of a 99 minute read

i couldnt help it so i mocked up the hood and wheel base

got our plasma table running again

I had started thinking about making up the crawl ratio i was going to lose going from the 465 to the aw4 so got a really good deal on a brand new box for rocks kit and NWF triple stick set up. First I had to switch inputs in my doubler, luckily i had a broken 231 from the donor XJ

I had purchased another 300 a while back with a DEO flip kit to solve part of my 465-300 problems. had to woller out 3 holes to get the 231 clocked how i wanted on the pass side so i could get the 300 to fit.

I under estimated how long this drive train is... spent too much time staring at the 350-465-300

so even tho i have acquired 8 jack stands over the years i was running low so i reused the wheel center from the H1s, cut center plates and gussets out on the plasma table and built some permanent ones to hold the MJ at ride height.

and then i came up with this really good idea to repair the rust in the floor...

now i know what yall are thinking... wtf is the point of even building this thing? its nothing left of an MJ! why not just build a buggy and get the hell out of the cherokee section?! which to a point yall have some merit. so let me explain... one thing i noticed this year at KOH was the lack of clean hard core unibody rigs, and no im not talking about in the race, im talking the every day people that come out to watch and wheel. Another thing that blew me away was the amount of attention and positive feed back we got while driving around in LilNickTs XJ. One thing that every "XJ Buggy" in this forum has in common is they all maintained some portion of the unibody frame rails. and for multiple reasons that i completely undersatnd, most evolved over time into a "buggy" so suspension, drive train, all that was already in place and retained. very few have started with a bare chassis, ONEtonXJ is the only one that comes to mind but he maintained the majority of the body, factor firewall and engine placement. do to the direction this build has taken i was left with no firewall limitations, 75% of the frame was already removed and the rust repair was not something i was looking forward to, and why? All so i could still have the unibody? why not get rid of it so im not limited by anything but the drive train for proper link geometry? now back to whats the point? I think I saw maybe 3 MJs at KOH, im sure there were more, but the biggest i saw was maybe on 37s. I really want to finish this rig and while there isnt much of the original MJ left, what i have planned should bring back a lot of the MJ look, and yes its pretty much a buggy at this point, but im OK with that. and i wont have to worry about the unibody starting to crack 5 years from now after beating on this thing like i plan. agree, disagree, as you can tell from previous posts, i dont really care. Im really excited about the direction this is going and finally excited about finishing a rig again. sorry for the long soap box and back to pics!:beer:

I got the drive train in place, wheel base mocked back up, settled in at 115 with a 20" belly, which is a little longer than i wanted but with the coil overs i can easily raise ride height if im constantly bellying out, or step up tire size when the 39.5s wear out. should be room for 6 up/ 10 down, might be room for 8 and 8 but i think im gonna leave it at 6 just in case i do decide to raise ride height later on.

the plan is to narrow the hood and grill, winch is going to sit behind it with the light bar frenched into the top of the grill. thinking about leaving the mechanical fan in and building mounts the the tranny and power steering cooler right in front of it so i dont have to run lines all the way back to the radiator behind the cab.

took the cage from bend tech and imported into autodesk inventor and mocked up the drive train and axles

Geometry front and rear, will be adjustable up and down about 10% each way from this point. pretty happy with it, excellent pinion tracking in the model, flat roll axis front to rear and a negative roll axis angle at each axle, should be a very stable and predictable set up.

so the plan from here is to build a plate subframe, kinda keep the "unibody" theme and ive always really liked the extra craftsmanship it shows when people run them on their buggy builds.

so this is just in mock up stage right now, its a very simple representation that mainly is going to be used to verify the model and drive train placement so i can mock up links and check clearances throughout travel before i spend a bunch of time and material building the final version.

cut it out on the plasma table using some .125" i got for free. still fairly new to using the cnc so i also started experimenting with self jigging brackets. turned out pretty good, was in a hurry so didnt fully vet the drawing first so theres a couple tabs that moved do to drawing adaptivity that changed...

assembled and installed, appears to clear everything, i need to take about an 1/8 out around the tcase but pretty happy for the first shot

so i left the front of the subframe open to clear the drive shaft, i cant run a two piece and get the 10"s of down travel im shooting for. Im going to support the front lowers with a tube that ties into the dash bar, this will also act as the edge of my dog house/firewall.

final piece to bring us up to current, the sides of the subframe will cradle an 1.75 tube that will run front to back and serve as coolant lines.

That brings me up to last night, got a lot done in the last month or so and things are moving along at a good pace.