Hello Portal!
I have been on this website for a little while now, primarily just digging through pages and pages of information/inspiration. Truth be told, I was told that I need to be on this "overland" action by a very good friend a few years ago. He was right. I am creeping up on the big "40", and find myself slowing down a bit to "smell the roses" - if you will. The days of sliding my vehicles around corners at break neck speeds are winding down, and my desire to explore and appreciate the great outdoors is filling that void. I have come to appreciate the adventure of traveling, seeing new places and meeting new people. My wife and I have been giving some strategic thought to the dispersment of our expendable income(little as it may be), and have decided that we would generate a vehicle that could suit a few purposes. Its funny when you grow up a little, you have to justify your expenditures, unlike the days when Top Ramen was the only thing on the menu for a few months due to a new turbo that was needed for one of our Rally cars, but I digress. We have decided that between our geographical location (California, earth quake capitol of the world), and those in charge of maintaining a sound currency or peace in this once great nation, we had better prepare ourselves to be able to travel on a moments notice and be gone for several days. This is why we have dubbed our project "SHTFV", or "Stuff Hits the Fan Vehicle". Now, before you start developing opinions and helping the wife and myself into the "preppers" boat, we want you to know we are a fairly normal couple without a lot of money just doing what we can to make sure our family is capable of escaping peril should it find us. That would be purpose number one (or so I tell the wife while I am busy trying to make her paranoid so I can extract excess funds for purpose number two). Purpose number two is to give us an oppertunity to escape together. It seems as though if we do not have plans to leave town, then one of us will always have something to do, making just spending time together at home almost impossible. I would be the most guilty of the previous statement, as sitting around just burns my ***, I need to be on the move, accomplishing, living. So, we will continue to build this vehicle, little at a time, until it is the way we like it!
The base rig is a 1998 Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited V8
We managed to secure the vehicle at the very fair price of $2500. Granted, it is an older Jeep with a ton of electronic goodies, half of which don't work. This is not bothersome to us, as we are aware of its intended use, and would rather fix what we need and not sweat the small stuff. Just after we purchased the rig we hit the road, completely unprepared and unscripted, you can read about that adventure here...
http://www.expeditionportal.com/for...No-problem-One-will-present-itself?highlight=
Here is the way the Jeep looked the day we got it....
LOL
I had a Jeep Grand Cherokee some years ago, but was more into rock crawling back then. The new ZJ will be modified with some of the same features, but far more geared toward Overland travel. Here is a shot of my old Jeep
I will try to update this thread as I build up the Jeep, as well as get you caught up to where the Jeep is today. Thanks for Reading!!
I have been on this website for a little while now, primarily just digging through pages and pages of information/inspiration. Truth be told, I was told that I need to be on this "overland" action by a very good friend a few years ago. He was right. I am creeping up on the big "40", and find myself slowing down a bit to "smell the roses" - if you will. The days of sliding my vehicles around corners at break neck speeds are winding down, and my desire to explore and appreciate the great outdoors is filling that void. I have come to appreciate the adventure of traveling, seeing new places and meeting new people. My wife and I have been giving some strategic thought to the dispersment of our expendable income(little as it may be), and have decided that we would generate a vehicle that could suit a few purposes. Its funny when you grow up a little, you have to justify your expenditures, unlike the days when Top Ramen was the only thing on the menu for a few months due to a new turbo that was needed for one of our Rally cars, but I digress. We have decided that between our geographical location (California, earth quake capitol of the world), and those in charge of maintaining a sound currency or peace in this once great nation, we had better prepare ourselves to be able to travel on a moments notice and be gone for several days. This is why we have dubbed our project "SHTFV", or "Stuff Hits the Fan Vehicle". Now, before you start developing opinions and helping the wife and myself into the "preppers" boat, we want you to know we are a fairly normal couple without a lot of money just doing what we can to make sure our family is capable of escaping peril should it find us. That would be purpose number one (or so I tell the wife while I am busy trying to make her paranoid so I can extract excess funds for purpose number two). Purpose number two is to give us an oppertunity to escape together. It seems as though if we do not have plans to leave town, then one of us will always have something to do, making just spending time together at home almost impossible. I would be the most guilty of the previous statement, as sitting around just burns my ***, I need to be on the move, accomplishing, living. So, we will continue to build this vehicle, little at a time, until it is the way we like it!
The base rig is a 1998 Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited V8
We managed to secure the vehicle at the very fair price of $2500. Granted, it is an older Jeep with a ton of electronic goodies, half of which don't work. This is not bothersome to us, as we are aware of its intended use, and would rather fix what we need and not sweat the small stuff. Just after we purchased the rig we hit the road, completely unprepared and unscripted, you can read about that adventure here...
http://www.expeditionportal.com/for...No-problem-One-will-present-itself?highlight=
Here is the way the Jeep looked the day we got it....
LOL
I had a Jeep Grand Cherokee some years ago, but was more into rock crawling back then. The new ZJ will be modified with some of the same features, but far more geared toward Overland travel. Here is a shot of my old Jeep
I will try to update this thread as I build up the Jeep, as well as get you caught up to where the Jeep is today. Thanks for Reading!!
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