Jeep Scrambler Part I

From the original World War two willies to the modern for torch A K. The Jeep has gone through many transformations

today. We'll create our own CJ eight scrambler plus. See how Paris California proved to be a backbreaking debut for we rocks Tracy Jordan

that

and more right now on Xtreme 4x4,

we spend a lot of time making sure that what we do here at extreme. Makes sense to you guys at home. We read all the emails that you guys send in. We have surveys on our website that people fill out and we read and find out what you guys are building.

And then we also spend a lot of time surfing message boards to make sure that what we put together here on the show makes sense to you guys at home.

Now, all the information that we find out helps us decide what we're gonna build here at Xtreme 4x4.

Now, what you guys tell us is somewhat contradictory. Half of you guys, you wanna see more budget builds like our bio

zoo

or our four wheel steer bottom, draw our buggy.

Now, some of you other guys wanna see more over the top builds like our core truck and our s 10. Now, believe it or not, all those projects have something in common.

The bio

zoo.

It was great for less than six grand. We had a wild trail truck that you could wheel pretty much every weekend,

bottom door buggy

grand, four wheel steer, 46 inch tall tires and rock wells can climb any hill and hit any obstacle. You pointed at the core truck.

Uh Obviously the only word for that is extreme,

but all those projects put together required one thing and that is a lot of tools to build.

Now, having all those tools is great, but that's a lot of money out of your pocket. And that leads us to a question or complaint that we get asked more often than anything else.

Why don't you build a project in a simple two car garage? No fancy shop, no fancy tools. So, what we did is we completely renovated the shop here at extreme

and underneath the mezzanine, we put together what we consider to be a pretty typical two car garage just over 20 ft by 20 ft

and we simply took this whole place, filled it with a pretty sparse selection of common tools.

It all started with a simple workbench, couple of grinders saws, all cordless drill. And I throw on a set of torches tool box full of some hand tools, engine crane, jack, and some stands and a small 110 volt welder

and with these tools, we'll build a truly one of a kind trail truck. One that looks good enough to be on the cover of a magazine, but could also lay down some serious Smackdown on the trails. Plus, be full of some truly innovative. One of a kind parts,

probably the biggest trend you see on the trail these days are a lot of one of a kind trail trucks,

wild buggies with crazy lines and out of the box drive trains.

Now, for this project, a two buggy just simply would not do.

We don't have a bender or a notch,

no plasma cutter. And if we bought a chassis,

chances are the truck truly wouldn't be one of a kind.

We need something with a lot of aftermarket support. Since our tooling is limited,

we'll need to be able to buy a lot of parts either new or used.

And what we've chosen to build is a Jeep but not just any Jeep one that's pretty rare. We're gonna put together a fully custom CJ eight scrambler. Now, there weren't very many scramblers made.

Only about 28,000 of them rolled out of the factory between 1981 and 1986. Now, they've become really popular lately, partly because of their size and also partly because they have 100 and three inch wheelbase stock, which makes them great for wheeling.

But we want ours to be truly one of a kind So here's the plant,

a normal scrambler has to stretch on the back side of the body from the firewall forward. It's like any other Jeep, it came from the factory with a small hard top that just covered the driver and passenger. Now, you can get a full soft top to go all the way to the back. But we're gonna

install AC JSE

hard top that's a little bit shorter. And that's gonna give us a very unique style on this Jeep. It'll have a little trunk in the back to put our gear and it'll just look bitching

a little door there.

Yeah.

Now, the first thing we're gonna deal with today is all the drive train for our project. That's because we're working in a pretty small space. We wanna take care of all of this stuff when there's not a vehicle in here in the way. Now for a power plant for our Jeep, we went ahead. We got something a little old school. This is a first generation Chevy small block. It's obviously used. It's had aluminum heads put on it, a Stroker kit and it's pushing out

383 cubic inches. Now, the nice thing about these first generation small blocks is you can pick them up pretty cheap. Nowadays, the LS Series, the all aluminum ones that are the Corvettes and the Camaros are flooding the junk yards. So the older engines like this have dropped in price a lot. We picked up this whole package for less than 1500 bucks, but because it's used before we plan to put it in, we want to make sure it's good.

A simple compression test will let us know if we need to plan a rebuild for this motor

and with each cylinder coming in between 100 and 85 and 200 pounds, this engine should be good to go.

Now, since our scrambler is kind of an old school type of truck, we decided to go with an old school type of induction, a

wine stealth aluminum intake manifold and on top of it, a Holly 770 CFM truck Avenger off road carburetor. Now, you don't see a lot of carburetors out on the trail nowadays. And so this will add to our one of a kind kind of feel for this truck. Now, Holly has some serious field testing into this carburetor and they say it can handle some serious angles when it's out on the trail. We're gonna find out

coming up. The guys provide a sneak peek at what our scrambler will look like. But up next, see why rock crawling elite are switching to the Pro stock class when Xtreme 4x4 continues.

Welcome back to Xtreme 4x4. Our event of the week takes us to sunny southern Cal for world extreme rock crawling

long considered the premier class, the dream it and build it unlimited have dominated pro rock crawling

those days. Are now numbered. I see the super mod class going away

once overshadowed and overlooked at the season opener. The pro mods drew a record 24 cars. The pro modified classes doubled in size easily despite restrictions, 37 inch tires, uh, two seats, front engine

and you have to have a body which really kind of gives the class some character. It doesn't stop them from running the same courses as the unlimited.

It's truly a driver's class. The vehicles are very similar. There's limits to keep them similar. So really the best, the best team wins here while every pro loves a challenge.

It's not the only reason why this class has exploded. It's a little bit more of a traditional vehicle. So it doesn't just sit in the garage, you can get it out and have fun with it

year round. My sponsors love me in this class because of the signage we can put on the vehicle. It does looks

resemble a Jeep

and they can sell cards for

a, a builder and multi time champion. Shannon Campbell's name is synonymous with the unlimited.

I like the Moon bogey

also realizes the future is in the pro mods. Everybody switched to that class and

I've been wanting to do it for a while. So I think I'm gonna take my car apart and see if I can't get it done before my next next event while Shannon made plans, Tracy Jordan arrived at Paris California ready to rock. We're really pumped,

respected as the sports first rock star superstar. He's definitely one of the greats

and now he moves into the pro modified class.

That's, it's,

there's nothing you could say, but great things about it. I just wanted to be where the competition was. I like to win. I want that one to mean something when I'm home looking at a trophy, I want, I want it to have meant something that I beat the best in that class. He done it and won it. Reputation made expectations high. Of course, there's pressure because

we've already done everything in the sport and then drop into a lower class.

All eyes are in, you are on you and you're kind of the target. Tracy's ability to work as one with his super mod is the stuff of legend.

The

driver, I've been watching it for a long time.

The new class would force him out of his comfort zone

and a front engine car. I've always competed with rear steer

and you don't have that a

out here. So kind of a learning experience. It's all driving though. We'll see how we do a

slow

start. Gave way to some vintage Tracy Jordan driving. It's just picking a line and that's what I love doing. That's how we've been so successful in the sport was picking the right line.

I don't care if I'm in a tricycle, I'm gonna pick the right line up through that stuff. Finding himself in a three way battle for second.

The class newcomer

defending series champ Brad Lovell build up a 35 point lead. Honestly, I didn't know these guys in this class were,

were that good.

So I kind of let my guard down. We were in the first couple of obstacles the first day and we fell behind pretty quick and let our guard down and now we're trying to play catch up early on day two.

The eight time champ took a big hit on AFO

didn't have air bumps coming off that. And man, I wish I did.

That's a ha, that's a hard hit. Knock the wind right out of me

and I

knocked the window out where I can't even figure out how to get my neck brace off. The hit did more than knock the wind out of him. You could see

this is what it's supposed to look like and that's the strongest way you can mount a shock and it still found a way

to come out and bend three sixteens,

Pro Molly. I mean,

and that's pretty much what my back just took

and it did it on the driver's lower as well. So

now I can

now I understand why my back's in a little bit of pain,

suffering a compressed vertebrae. Jordan pushed on.

It's kind of rough every rock I've hit since it's just, it's a little stinger

takes your concentration off of what you need to be doing. So you're

having a tough day

in a weekend full of adversity. Tracy Jordan still finished second overall.

Did I want second? No, we wanted to come in and win

and uh a lot of people are gonna say, oh, you lost in the pro mod. But

there's a lot of great drivers here and it's hard to win them all

time. Now for an Xtreme 4x4 tech tip.

Now, here's a problem that anyone with a four by four can relate to. This is what your inner fender wells look like. After a good day of wheeling caked up with mud. When this stuff dries, it can be a real pain to get off.

Now, all you guys probably have a can of WD 40 laying around your shop. Go ahead and grab it and give your inner fender wells a good spray

and the WD 40 creates a film on the plastic. When the mud tries to stick, it can't, it just falls right back off onto the ground.

We're back on Xtreme 4x4 and a part of the shop that we've put together to look like a small two car garage where we're building a project to show you guys that you don't need the big shop or all the fancy tools to put together a one off vehicle to hit the trails with

and we're getting our drive train all put together right now, but we're gonna do the transmission and transfer case with a little bit of a twist

since we told you guys earlier,

how important your feedback is to us right now, we're gonna put our money where our mouth is. There are four different combinations of transmission or transfer cases we could use in this project. And you guys are gonna get to pick which one we put in.

Now for the transmission, we've got a couple of different choices weighing in at just over 100 and 75 pounds. The SM 465 is a very lightweight but relatively strong four speed standard shift transmission.

It has a 6.55 to 1 1st gear ra

and if you like standards, this is a great option. Uh If an automatic is more your cup of tea, you really can't go wrong with a good old GM Turbo 403 forward speeds weighs about 100 and 90 pounds and has a 2.48 to 1 1st gear ratio.

Now, with the transfer case, you have two choices as well. The classic Dana 300 transfer case that you find between the frame rails of most jeeps, lots of aftermarket support like upgraded output shafts as well as a 4 to 1 gear set available to put inside.

Now, your other choice is the good old fashioned new process 205 transfer case, incredibly heavy but also incredibly.

Now we can upgrade the gear set in this but only to a 3 to 1.

So there are your options. You basically have four combinations to choose from because any transfer case will work with either transmission. So here's what you do after the show head over to the website, our Block tv.com,

there'll be a poll pick which one you want to do and then what you choose, we'll put between the frame rails of our jeep, the axles. That's our choice

to help set this jeep. Apart from the crowd, we're going to build a front axle that has never even existed.

Starting with a corporate full floating 14 bolt.

We're going to cut it up and build a front steering 14 bolt axle.

Now, obviously, if we're gonna turn a 14 bolt into a steering axle, we're gonna need some parts. Now, recently, an iconic name came back to the off-road aftermarket crane, high clearance has been known for building some seriously stout axle components for years. And after a brief hiatus, they're back in the game.

We know that we're going to be running a passenger side drop transfer case.

So the passenger side axle tube will need to be shortened.

A simple chop saw does the work.

The new crane chrome Molly Knuckle kit includes heavy duty inner seas that we're going to tack onto our shorten housing.

Once the short side, inner sea is in place, we assemble the outer knuckle and spindle measure to check the wind

and cut up the long tube.

Now, obviously, we can't weld these inner seas onto the axle tube with a small 110 volt welder. It's just not strong enough. The plan here is to do all the mock up on both of our axles and then carry them out to a welding shop and pay to have the finish welding done, saves us from having to buy the big expensive machine. Now, we have this one set up at exactly 64 inches wheel mount to wheel mount. So what we're going to do now is cut up a rear axle to match.

And with our drive train taken care of, we could finally start moving the Jeep part of this project into our little garage. Now, we'd honestly thought about buying an entire Jeep scrambler used, but when we started to look at all the fabrication, we'd have to do. We thought it'd be best just to take advantage of the companies that offer all the aftermarket parts like this complete frame that we got from. Throttle down Customs.

The frame consists of two by 43, 16 inch frame rails and even though it has the body mounts for the CJ eight scrambler throttle down customs prep this frame for TJ unlimited suspension that we got from Rusty's off road.

Rusty suspension uses a radius arm set up in the front with coal springs and shocks

and the high clearance arms are bent to clear obstacles when they're on the trail.

The rear is a triangulated four L

set up with a panhard bar

and having the frame prep for the suspension gives a whole new meaning to the term bolt on kit.

Now, the cool thing about a Jeep is you could buy pretty much everything you need for it in one place and we grab more than just a cool suspension kit from Rusty's Off road. We grabbed as many parts of this Jeep as we could, everything from bolt on bumpers, body panels, even an old school Jerry can.

But the most important thing we got was this complete TJ axle swap kit. It has these premade brackets that you just have to weld onto your own axle housing to adapt to the TJ suspension

with our newly built 14 bolt axles underneath the frame.

We'll set our opinion angles, front and rear

and then t

the brackets onto the tube.

So there you go guys, it's not the size of your garage. It's how you use it in this small two car space. We've put together a custom frame with custom suspension sitting on one off custom axles with no heavy equipment, no magic tools, just our own basic hand tools and a little bit of ingenuity. And I know you guys don't want to end the day today with just a bare frame and some axles. Well, hold on to your seats. We got the whole package right now.

It's a little bit CJ, a little bit TJ and a whole lot of custom. I think we're gonna call this one up. What the

Jay.