Budget TJ Part 1

Usual Wrangler one TJ, a little tired.

Well, give it an extreme makeover, Ian and Chris show you how to cut up a Jeep for a set of forties, plus how they keep drivers honest. In a 400 mile desert race with the watchful eye of Big Brother in the sky, we can pretty much catch anybody doing anything they're not supposed to do as well as everything they're supposed to be doing.

Welcome to Xtreme 4x4. You know, in the past five years, we've built a lot of trucks in the extreme shop, everything from budget friendly crawlers to high end crawlers. We've done mud trucks and even race trucks. We've done some street trucks, a couple tow rigs and we've even thrown in a few oddball trail trucks just for good measure.

But there is one vehicle that spent more time in the extreme shop than any other. And those are Jeeps

and we've run the gamut with them then from low B

classic CJ S

to full tube. Jeep inspired buggies,

new Jeeps

and even hemi

Power Jeeps.

Now, there's a good reason that we build a lot of Jeeps. You can easily argue that the classic Wrangler is one of the most capable out of the box four by fours out there. I mean, these Jeeps have been laying the smack down on trails for over 50 years. Now, I'll be the first one to admit they may have lost their way in the nineties with the YJ, but they certainly redeemed themselves when they brought out the TJ. What do you think of a trail rig? One of the first thing that pops into your mind

is a classic Jeep.

Now, recently Tony from Gen Wright off road offered to drive 1800 miles and drop off one of his TJ S stuffed full of parts so we could tear into it

and build a nice capable Jeep TJ.

Now to say that the back end of this Jeep is full of parts would definitely be an understatement. I mean, they couldn't even get them all in the back of the truck. They even had to bolt some onto the outside. Now, this build, it's not really gonna be a budget build because obviously inside the back of this, Jeep represents a substantial investment. What it really is. It's gonna give you guys an idea of what you can do by spending a little bit of money in the right places to take a regular old $5000 Jeep and turn it into a hard core wheeler

French fries,

the stock six cylinder drive train in this Jeep is in very good shape. So we're going to leave it alone.

And because of that, we're gonna save our inner fenders.

We're going to paint our tube benders instead of powder coat. So if they get scratched on the trail, touch ups will be easy.

These high line tube benders, raise the fender opening up three inches. So we need to trim the hood for clearance

before bolting on the fender

and the inner fender into place.

Now, you can see that we get a lot more tire clearance with the fenders installed. But more importantly, we got a lot of protection on this front corner of the Jeep. Now, we're gonna continue that protection all the way down the side with a set of gen right rocker guards. Now, these are

genre's new mini boat side rocker guards and they have this small angle built in right where the tub would normally have a 90 degree that'll give you an extra inch of ground clearance when you're out wheel. It,

they also have an integrated tube along the side to protect the Jeep and then a little dimple dyed step for getting in and out

to match the front of our Jeep. We're gonna be installing a set of high line tubular fender flares. Now, they have a similar construction as our front two fenders with 120 wall tubing and a flat plate design. Now, they're available in either a well done or a bolton. Now, we chose the bolton

because we're gonna be installing a set of aluminum corner guards. Now, these aluminum corner guards offer the same protection as the steel corner guards, but they're a lot lighter.

This entire package of rear corner guards, high fender flares, mini, both side rockers and front, high fender tube fenders will give us maximum body protection on the rocks. Plus this entire setup can clear a 35 inch tall tire with no suspension limit.

Now, it's pretty obvious to see that everything we've done today will not only protect our Jeep's body from the front all the way to the back. It also completely changes the style of what is basically a bone stock. Jeep TJ and we have room for larger tires and we could easily toss a set of 35 inch tall rubber on there and hit some mild trails. Have a great day of four wheel, but the name of the show is not mild four by four. It's Xtreme 4x4. So we're gonna treat this Jeep to some forties. After we give it a lift

coming up, we'll go inside this command center to learn how satellite technology is making off road racing safer. Stay tuned.

The off road traction of the pit bull tire is obvious.

The biased construction helps them conform to the rocks on the trail with ease.

But what if you want the drivability of a radial tire for your street truck with the proven tread patterns of a hard core off road tire

the wait is over

pit bull now offers a complete line of radial tires from their larger tire series. Mad dog radios to the factory replacement growlers,

radio construction ensures good road matters.

But with a tread design that's proven in the dirt,

you know, desert racing, whether it be Vegas Torino, King of the Hammers or any other type of high speed competition is certainly dangerous in its own merit. But most recently Big brother has taken up space in the cockpit. Not only to watch out for drivers safety, but to make sure no one's cheating

with over 300 racers competing in 20 classes. The best in the desert series is this country's largest off road organization.

Best in the desert is a great series. I mean, KC folks puts on, in my opinion, one of the best races for racers blasting across this country's nastiest terrain. A best in the desert race is never easy. We'll run to the desert 135 miles an hour

through big holes, rough terrain, you know, driving blind a lot.

It's a really intense sport. It's intense and every driver in every class is forced to confront the desert's brutality. Everything could go wrong. So

the attrition rate in these classes is about half. That's the desert is brutal

with races ranging from a short 250 mile event

up to the mega 1000 mile Vegas to Reno, an incident out here can leave a driver miles from the pit or even worse from hell, that

steering wheel fell off a 45 mile an hour.

So we hit a few scrubs, bent the T rod

back on track,

couldn't steer very good at high speed and went in for and, and rolled it not long ago. The severity of Clint's crash wouldn't be known for hours. Now, within a minute of impact, race officials knew that Clint was ok. Technology is, is a,

is a great thing. All the trucks and cars are equipped with

A

I

A track tracking system which is basically a GPS transponder and a satellite phone in a black box. If you have a problem,

then it picks up the satellite phone and calls out to your track to tell him that there's a problem back in the pits is the command and control center. Here, we have a

graphic representation of all of the tracking devices that we've installed in race cars at the moment.

Every one of these boxes has a inclinometer and a decelerator

in it. If the vehicle comes to a sudden stop, it will automatically send us an alert.

When that alert comes in. We're able to uh to pinpoint exactly their location from where they sent that alert. You know, get the closest be

and desert vehicle to there. The fastest first introduced in the 2003 Paris to

Dar rally

safety hasn't been its only function if this were an area where somebody could cut across, which it looks like it is. What we could do is put a, uh, a virtual zone right here. If a vehicle

with a tracking unit enters

that circle, the vehicle is identified and we're informed of it immediately. That means, uh, we can pretty much catch anybody doing anything they're not supposed to do as well as everything they're supposed to be doing

while there's no hiding from the eyes in the sky.

Clint Barry was hoping his truck owner had a harder time tracking him down. The coyote had 67 miles on a brand new and the guy Kyle Scanlan

had just paid for it for us for this event

and, uh, like giving him back a broken car. So that's not the best feeling either. Like the cactus and brush failure out here is just part of desert racing and all the competitors are grateful for their technological guardian angel.

One time we had a blowout and the truck stopped really fast and, uh, you know, they called us right away to make sure that everything was ok. One of the greatest things that, uh, off

roads

really come up with.

So far, we've thrown a pile of body protection at this Jeep and at the same time, made room for larger tires on a stock suspension. Now guys will go out and wheel a stock suspended TJ all the time and you'll be surprised at how, well they work on the trail, but there are some limitations to the Jeep TJ in stock form. And before we tear this one down, we're gonna take a look at them.

Jeeps always had an issue with their skin plates. Now, C J's had it worse of all because they would drop way down on the passenger side to allow clearance for the front drive shaft. But the TJ S honestly aren't much better. They drop down a good 34 inches before carrying across to support the transmission. Now, Jeep does this to keep the rear drive line angles in check if you're gonna wheel your TJ with a stock suspension. The best thing to do is get what's called a belly up skid plate that will move the entire drive line up and keep it even with the bottom of the frame rails. But that is honestly not your biggest limitation. Your biggest limitation is right here with these stamp steel control arms. They have these poly bushings at either end and those poly bushings really limit your axle articulation when you're out on the trail. More importantly, these stamp steel control arms are certainly not strong. You get these bound up on a rock and they're gonna twist up in no time. You mess up one of these when they're on the trail and you're stranded. Now, both of these issues can be fixed with a good off the shelf suspension system.

The kit that we have chosen is a good combination of easy bolt on suspension system with a little bit of custom fab thrown in where it's needed. Now, it's from Terra

Flex and it's called their LCG four inch kit. It's obviously a four inch suspension system, but the LCG stands for low center of gravity. It's designed to keep the jeep low and steady for when we're on the trails. Now up front, we have the standard four L

with a pan art bar just from the factory with obviously larger springs and some new shots in the middle. We have the terrile

belly up skid plate to raise that drive train up. Give us that ground clearance that we're after in the back, it converts the suspension to a triangulated four

length with no pan hard bar. So we get better articulation when we're on the trail. Now, obviously, the control arms are a lot beefier but more important. They have

hem joints at either end of the uppers and one end of the lowers. And that will give us more articulation when we're in the dirt. Now, the kit comes with everything we need to put it all in. There is some welding which is required when you're after this type of performance, but it even includes the exhaust patch that we're gonna need to clear those new upper control arms when they're bolted in

with the exhaust patch in place. The factory skid plate is removed

and will cut the upper control arm mounts off of the Jeeps frame.

Then the lower link frame brackets can be bolted into place, followed by the belly up skid.

The ter

flex, upper control arm brackets. Well to the fringe.

After that, we'll install the new upper arms,

followed by the lowest.

Then we droop out the front axle,

install the springs,

put the shocks in

and the new pan hard bar,

then we'll tear into the rear.

It's the same procedure as the front

spring.

Yeah.

Build on a budget Xtreme 4x4 projects that save you time and money.

Now, you Toyota guys know that removing the bearing off of the rear axle shaft can be a bit of a chore. It's hard to get a puller in here to get a hold of this bearing retainer and pull the bearing off the shaft. Now you can make your own tool to do it and I have one right here. I simply cut up the rear housing of a Toyota rear axle sleeved it and then added these two wings to fit into the press. All you have to do is bolt it in place, pull off your bearing.

Without this tool, you run the risk of damaging your backing plate or even messing up your axle. But with it, you have the benefit of knowing that you built your own tool and you can loan it to your buddies

maybe for a case of beer.

We've just finished installing our four inch long arm suspension system on our Jeep TJ. And no, you guys are not imagining things this side of the truck is still completely stocked. We haven't clearance the body or put any tube vendor on here for a very specific reason. We really want you guys to

understand the difference between just lifting a Jeep for larger tires and lifting it and clearance in the body. As you can see, we have less than nine inches between the top of this 30 inch tall tire before it's gonna contact this fender lip on the other side where we clearance the body, we have a lot more room

five extra inches. As a matter of fact, just by installing this tube, fender and trimming the bottom of the hood. As you can see, we have a lot of room in here right now for some serious wheels and tires

for this Jeep. We've chosen a 40 inch tall Maxis Creepy crawler tire. Now, the nice thing about the Creepy Crawlers is they're available in two different tread compounds. You can get a super sticky compound if you're gonna do a lot of hardcore rock crawling or the regular street compound that we've chosen here that work great on and off road. And one of the unique features of the Creepy crawler is the amount of side bitter on this four ply sidewalk.

There is actually more tread on the side of this tire than there is on the total contact patch. And that makes them great for when you're wheeling, when you get the tire wedged into a tight place and you got to crawl up on the side of the tire. Now, we've wrapped them around a set of Allied Monster Rock Aon bead locks and these are an all aluminum 17 inch bead lock with an integrated bead lock ring cast into the wheel. It has a 32 bolt steel flange all the way around the

inside. They are incredibly strong and the valve stem is recessed way back near the flinch to keep them protected when you're out wheeling. Now, before you guys get all freaked out about the fact that we're going to install a set of 40 inch tall tires on stock TJ axles. If you paid attention, these are an eight lug rim. Now that's because we're gonna swap the axles out on our jeep later on to some one tos that doesn't mean that we can't put these up against our Jeep and see how they look.

So with the tires in place, you can really see that with a little bit of lift and some body clear,

you can fit some serious rubber onto your truck. Even once these springs set a little bit with all suspension systems, do, we'll still have room for these forties on here. What do you think, Chris? How's it look? I think it looks really good.

Next time axles

get rid of that bumper

and the body protection on the other side. But we'll do that later.