So there I was just turned 17 with a fresh license and looking to buy my first car in 2012 when my grandfather spotted this guy for $3500. A 1999 Jeep XJ Sport 4.0 completely stock with 63,XXX miles on it. Practically unheard of for this kind of Jeep! After taking her for a spin I swiftly handed the man all the money I had saved from the previous years summer job and drove it home. As a typical boy I found the uses of my jeep to be in the form of to be finding open spots in the woods for bonfires with my friends and tucked away trails for my girlfriend and I. Fast forward about 6 years and some 30,000 miles, 3 deployments with the U.S. Air Force and here we stand today wrapping up my 4th deployment and a fire burning inside to turn my good old boy into a formidable overlanding rig! The first part of this thread will be a lot of prep work and purchasing of parts before I actually get home and can start working. I hope you guys enjoy this thread and hopefully I will get to see a couple of you on the trail!:wings:
1999 Jeep XJ "Prodigal Son" Build
- Thread starter monty99xj
- Start date
First thing is first here is what she looks like as of right now, completely stock. Before leaving for this deployment I had replaced the rear leaf springs, and shocks all around, a new alternator and some other minor maintenance in order to get her ready for the beach during the summer. 
A couple years ago in my youthful ignorance I had sunk her in a little mud pit near my house and had to replace all the filters, all the fluids, and give her one heck of a cleaning! I had water up to the gear shifter. Needless to say ever since then I have been very heisitant to take her out and do anything serious since then.
Attachments
I've decided to build my rig and set-up in a series of four phases; prep phase, gasket and filter phase, lift phase, gear phase. For the prep phase as soon as I make it home I plan on degreasing the enging, hitting everything with an inane amount of pb blaster and fixing a couple odds and ends. Then for the gasket and filter phase I want to drop pretty much all the fluids and redo the oil pan gasket, the engine head gaskets and replace all the filters before getting her state inspection done (it ran out while I was deployed so there wasn't too much I could do about that).
My overall starting budget for this rig and set-up will be about $5,000. I already have a vast majority of the camping equipment I will need thanks to over a decade of cub scouts and boy scouts. Although I do have my eye on a couple things I've always wanted...:bike_rider:
The first purchases I made are:
-Rough Country 3" Lift with N2.0 Shocks and Rear Add-A-Leaf (I just installed new leaf springs from quadratec less than a year ago)
-Rough Country Dual Steering Stabilizers
-Smittybuilt XRC Front Bumper
-Smittybuilt XRC Front Bumper Bull Bar
-Smittybuilt XRC 9,500 lbs winch
-Hi-Lift Cast Steel Jack, 48"
-ARB 50 qt Portable Fridge Freezer
And there goes half of my budget! If anyone has any experience/helpful tips for installing or dealing with these products it would be much appreciated!
The first purchases I made are:
-Rough Country 3" Lift with N2.0 Shocks and Rear Add-A-Leaf (I just installed new leaf springs from quadratec less than a year ago)
-Rough Country Dual Steering Stabilizers
-Smittybuilt XRC Front Bumper
-Smittybuilt XRC Front Bumper Bull Bar
-Smittybuilt XRC 9,500 lbs winch
-Hi-Lift Cast Steel Jack, 48"
-ARB 50 qt Portable Fridge Freezer
And there goes half of my budget! If anyone has any experience/helpful tips for installing or dealing with these products it would be much appreciated!