New Member - 2000 WJ Grand Gherokee

[JakeMate]

I found this website and really fell in love with it. I've always enjoyed the concept of expeditions and didn't know there was an online community to go along with it. Most of the off-road forums that I came across were geared more towards rock crawling. Excellent stuff here.

Anyway, I just bought a 2000 Grand Cherokee about two weeks ago and have already planned out many of the mods. Here are some that are planned to go in this weekend:
• 4.5” Clayton Long arm suspension (going in this weekend)
• 33” Dunlop MT’s with Cragar soft 8 steel wheels.
• Tom Woods front driveshaft to replace the OEM CV style.
• Dana 44a strengthening truss.

Stage 2 will be:
• Skid plates
• Roof basket. I’m hoping my buddy and I can fab my own. I’ve attached a quick 15 minute concept I did at lunch after seeing some other ones on here.
• Front and rear bumpers
• Winch

I live in the Charlotte, NC area. Been here for 5 years. Born and raised in Buffalo, and spent 10 years in Southern Caliornia before settling here. I have a Nissan Titan Pro-4X right now (that I’ll be selling shortly). I was getting tired of worrying about scratching it while hunting. There are some pretty tight roads where I hunt. I’ve had various 4x4’s throughout the years and thought, why not build an expedition style SUV that I can use for hunting and take my family on some adventures too?

Two quick questions:
1. I’ve never needed more lights than my regular headlights and fogs while driving off road at night. I’d like to avoid mounting them on the roof rack if possible. Your thoughts? I’ll have some mounted on the front bumper.
2. I’m looking for some suggestions as to good starter weekend trips in the Charlotte area. Preferably with some dirt roads or beaches off the beaten path.

Thanks so much!

 

[idaxj97]

welcome to expo. looks like you got things planned out, as to your first question i mounted my lightforce 170's on my stock front bumper but will be upgrading to ARB sometime soon (i hope).

heres in a pic.

 

[Jeff H]

Welcome! Nice to see another WJ here. :sombrero: I'm interested to see how your roof rack turns out. I've been contemplating building my own and bolting it to where the factory side rails mount.

As for lighting, Ive seen quite a few people mount extra lighting on the front bumper with a backing plate to keep the lights from bouncing around. I was thinking about doing it myself until I can fab up or purchase a winch bumper.

 

[JakeMate]

Making more progress on the roof basket. Also designed some rock sliders.

The Clayton long arm lift is going in this weekend (hopefully problem free).

 

[The Swiss]

.... Also designed some rock sliders.

Good. From my 5 years of experience with A WJ I was just about say that if you don't build it for show but want to use it, your priorities IMHO should be:
1st priority: Rocksliders
2nd priority: Skidplates
3rd priority: Front and rear recovery points
Then the rest.

BTW, welcome to the forum.

 

[JakeMate]

Good. From my 5 years of experience with A WJ I was just about say that if you don't build it for show but want to use it, your priorities IMHO should be:
1st priority: Rocksliders
2nd priority: Skidplates
3rd priority: Front and rear recovery points
Then the rest.

BTW, welcome to the forum.

I agree, although I though the skidplates would be more important than the rocksliders. I'd like to do the roof basket out just for the convenience of the storage space. I could always avoid rough terrain without the sliders and skids but the storage space will allow me to get going on some camping trips at least.

 

[SWbySWesty]

Lights on the bumper are a good choice! They exponentially increase vision at night and have helped me avoid a few accidents I think I otherwise would have encountered. As a 2000 WJ, are the headlights HID? You could always step up your generic headlights to HID first rather than drilling holes in your bumper.

 

[JChatary]

Welcome to ExPo! Look forward to seeing your WJ buildup!

Cheers! :beer:

 

[Jeff H]

Lights on the bumper are a good choice! They exponentially increase vision at night and have helped me avoid a few accidents I think I otherwise would have encountered. As a 2000 WJ, are the headlights HID? You could always step up your generic headlights to HID first rather than drilling holes in your bumper.

The stock headlights in WJ's are halogens but there have been a lot of people using HIDs successfully in the eBay projector housings or retrofitting projectors in the stock housing. I plan on using the eBay projectors with the DDM Tuning 35w HID kit I have coming.

 

[Root Moose]

A dark coloured WJ with those "angle eyes" projector head lights looks awesome. Can't comment on the quality of the projector lights themselves but it looks great.

 

[JakeMate]

The stock headlights in WJ's are halogens but there have been a lot of people using HIDs successfully in the eBay projector housings or retrofitting projectors in the stock housing. I plan on using the eBay projectors with the DDM Tuning 35w HID kit I have coming.

I plan on doing the same thing.

I will replace the front bumper very soon. I want to add a winch on the front. So the fog lights on the front should be pretty easy then.