1999 Jeep Grand Cherokee WJ Deset explorer/offroader

[elpoffroad]

Well, here I am with another one of my vehicles. This one comes after my previous Grand Cherokee 1996 ZJ got wrecked into and totalled. Well the natural instinct was to buy another ZJ but the moment my wife saw the WJ she fell inlove. We looked around for a good deal with the package I wanted. I knew I wanted the 4.0 inline 6 because of their reliability and I also knew I wanted it to be a selec trac version so I could eventually lock the front and rear and have no driving issues. So I set off with this in mind and wham...found one in my price range...not only in but way under $1800 bucks.

It did have a few issues besides it being higher mileage but it ran great. One of the things I knew I had to fix was the front cv shafts..the boots were torn. Besides that it ran great. The moment we got it we knew we wanted to start modifying it.
Right off the batt we contacted Iron Rock Offroad and we got their 3 in lift kit with the upgraded Doestech shocks. We installed it as soon as possible and man made it look good but now we had a small tire issue.

A few weeks passed by and I knew I had to do something about this and it just so happened that one of my friends had some Falken rocky mountain all terrains off his wj in the size I wanted 265/75/16 or 32x11.5x16. Installed them and now we are getting somewhere.

I wanted to trim trim the front bumper since it dragged on everything so right away I got to cutting. Then I realized that the offset of the rims did not please me and I found a set of spidertrax wheel spacers on and wow did they change the stance.

During this process I did keep wheeling the jeep lightly with the problems of the axle shafts. It did fine but finally I take the dive for new axle shafts. At the same time I am going to be doing the rotors and brake pads. Also including the crank position sensor and the cam position sensor since it started to stall out randomly. Something that I also noticed is that the fuel pressure was slightly low so I ordered the fuel pump too. I been working on a front bumper for it too with recovery points and somewhere to mount my hellas. A roof rack will be in the works soon as well as ordering a rear hitch.
I am also contemplating putting in a detroit trutrac in the front and later adding a detroit locker in the rear. For now maintenance is key and getting it ready for long distance. Hope you all enjoy and keep exploring and enjoying nature.:safari-rig:

 

[Cascade Wanderer]

Cool. Those are good little rigs. Enjoy.

 

[elpoffroad]

Yeah they are very capable, keeps up with most stock jk's but the aftermarket is very limited.

 

[elpoffroad]

Well all the maintenance pieces came in today. New fuel pump, crank ps, camshaft synchronizer and sensor, and both axle shafts. Looking forward to installing everything and getting jeep tiptop.

 

[GCWJ]

Keep posting, I have a 99 4.7 and feel the need to drool.

 

[elpoffroad]

Im in the process of finishing a bumper that will be able to mount my black magic hella lights. Once im done with it I will post some pictures. Also I need to order a hitch for it since it came stock without a hitch.

 

[bfj_88]

Whose axle shafts did you buy and what material are they

 

[elpoffroad]

I ordered the axle shafts from 1a auto...they were cheap and carry a lifetime warrantee so it was a no brainier for me.

 

[elpoffroad]

Well long time since I update the Grand Cherokee. First comes first, she is running tip top. The culprit to the turning off randomly was the crank position sensor. After that I did take a dive and bought something that I had wanted to try out for a while...the rough country winch plate. It was not to hard to install but it did take a little longer than expected. After 3 hrs it was on and ready for a winch.

I have on the way a smittybuilt 9500lb winch to top it off and also had a chance to install a rough country steering stabilizer on her and man she runs good. It is good to have her back on the trail exploring and looking for new places to wander too.
Next on the list are either new control arms or rear locker...still deciding.

 

[dierkz]

Well long time since I update the Grand Cherokee. First comes first, she is running tip top. The culprit to the turning off randomly was the crank position sensor. After that I did take a dive and bought something that I had wanted to try out for a while...the rough country winch plate. It was not to hard to install but it did take a little longer than expected. After 3 hrs it was on and ready for a winch.
View attachment 430116
I have on the way a smittybuilt 9500lb winch to top it off and also had a chance to install a rough country steering stabilizer on her and man she runs good. It is good to have her back on the trail exploring and looking for new places to wander too.
Next on the list are either new control arms or rear locker...still deciding.

That GC looks great. We will be working on a 2001 Grand Cherokee soon right after we finished installing the new shocks, roof rack and other jeep aftermarket parts and light accessories we ordered from 4WheelOnline for the current Wrangler project. Great to hear the RC steering stabilizer doing great.

 

[GCWJ]

My wife has a 01 4.0 selec trac just like this now. I think for her I'll eventually just go with new calipers and keep it in shape. It's got no rust.

Mine, OTOH... 4.7 and...sad...lots of rust. I didn't see it until I got under it, and next thing I know I have blooms in the wheel wells. I'll look to replace mine as soon as I can afford to.

 

[CCPAJeeper]

Nice WJ, just started building one myself. My the wife's former daily. 04, 6 cyl, had it for years, only 80K on it. No rust and runs like a champ. Had this for 10 years, got it with 20K on it. Other than an aggressive routine maintenance schedule, have done nothing to the vehicle. Has been very reliable for us.

My presently planned mods: Doing an IRO 4 inch long arm kit, double cardan front drive shaft, 265 / 70 - 16 duratracs on Ion 8 x 16 wheels. Spartan lockers front and rear. JCR rock sliders and HK Off-road winch mount. This will be a moderate trail rig, for family fun and exploration.

As a suggestion for your build, join Jeep Forum. There are a lot of very knowledgeable ppl on that forum, just like here, I sought tech advise on the suspension kit decision and the input was very helpful. Check out IRO, they have a ton of support for all Jeeps, including the WJs.

Good luck with your build. Keep the pics coming.

I will post some pics up once get some work completed on mine. Right now my son has it at college, will not have it back til March. So I am just a keyboard warrior, ordering and gathering parts til I get it back, lol. Which is fine.

 

[elpoffroad]

Thanks Guys , yeah I had wanted the IRO 4in long arm but it was way out of my budget at the time.One of my goals is to get the driveshaft from IRO and maybe either the chromoly shafts from IRO or the RCV shafts with the lifetime warranted. I have been contemplating getting on the jeepfoum.
I have used the rough country steering stabilizers on a few of my jeep and man they tend to do great.
Winch gets in tomorrow Woot Woot.
I talked to my wife and we have decided to also install an ARB awning on the jeep which means I either finish a roof rack or buy buy one lol we will see.

 

[elpoffroad]

So some time has passed by and a few new additions have been done. First I installed the rough country winch plate kit and a smittybuilt 9000 pound winch. While at it I chose to weld some tabs on the winch plate so I also installed and wired the Hella black magic lights. It works great all together. Next thing is I did buy the JKS bar pin eliminator for the front. My shocks kept loosening up with bar pins so I decided to upgrade.

Next my wife and I decided we needed a hitch to pull out popup camper around so we ordered a Curtis hitch up and did the wiring. While doing the wiring we realized the taillights had melted in the places where they connect so certain lights were not working. We got quickly online and realized this was a common problem so I ordered some that had regular light bulb sockets not built into taillight(apperantly common problem).Last bit not least we decided to buy new tires and we looked into the threadwrights wardens same size 265/75/16.

As you can see the new tires were a tad bigger than expected so some trimming will be required . No biggie. On the list I do have to finish the roof rack and order up an Arb awning. After that we shall see if a rear Detroit truetrac is in the books with a regearing to 4.10s.

 

[elpoffroad]

Well some more time has passed by and man this jeep keep amazing me and making me further fall in love with it. I had a chance to finish the roof rack and finally install it .

That picture was taken when we used the grand Cherokee for a winch point at a local Offroad event that is called the dam pit. Our team took 2nd in the first event and 1st in the second event. Regardless we decided to redo the breaks on the jeep and do a lot of last minute maintenance in order to head to the lake.


Also had a chance to purchase some maxtraxs knockoffs that were on amazon . With everything loaded and ready we headed to the lake.

We got a great spot Near the lake with a few good friends.


That was the view out of our popup jayco camper (don’t mind our friend backing up his boat into the lake) we enjoyed swimming and having a good time amongst friends for 4 night but it was time to head back home. We packed up and headed home.

The jeep did amazing on this trip and though it did feel the need to have to regear maybe to a 4.10 it’s next on the mod list and to include a arb awning... many more mods to come.