How-To Build a Rock Crawler ZJ for $5,000 Total

[Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] hello let's see if i can get this right it's the pull apart cheap jeep challenge bleeping jeep versus busted knuckle brought to you by tecton tools yes i got it in this competition the rules are made up and the points don't matter or maybe the points don't matter and the rules are made up either way let's keep it simple busted knuckle and i both have a 5 000 budget we're gonna buy a zj and a cherokee compete with them stock then go back to the drawing board build them up and compete with them again after they've been built it's going to be an awesome 4 series from each of us let's get started last night i was browsing through facebook marketplace like one does like an idiot but i think i found something that fits the bill for exactly what this red zj needs i found a dana 30 front and an 8.8 rear chromoly shafts 456 gears and lockers and to top it all off it's already set up for a tj which is would be a direct bolt-in to the zj so it's a little more than i want to spend but all that packaged together i don't have to source it individually and it'd still be way cheaper than buying it individually so i think it might be just what i need let's go check it out i made it he's out here moving dirt gonna build him a shop see what you got here now tell me about these they're uh it's a dana 30 front end 8.8 rear end it's got a barnes 4x4 truss on it with a yukon locker 456 gear and that can't the rear came out of a ford explorer yeah but it was set was it set up already for a tj no i set it up for a tj i bought the truss kit and welded it on there for a tj but it's never been installed yet never been put under anything okay and then the dana 30 it's it's a dana 30 you know as you tell it's got aluminum deal for ctm joints they're actually the yukon style with uh the same detroit locker or yukon locker it's like a detroit uh it's got chrome ollie axles in it and this came out of a tj yeah okay that's short shaft for a dj yeah yeah you got all kinds of goodies over here you're getting out of jeeps yep you got yeah you got a really nice one over there i did this one for about nine years i've had that one over there for about four years i'm that's the one i'm going to sell next is that silver one he had to step out for a second but what do you guys think he's asking two grand for those as a set lockers and all 400 for that got a drive shaft with it i don't know what those are for but i think those would fit in a zj [Music] i found some damage i didn't know i had the rocker panel this side the other side uh there's still eggs oh and this is disgusting there's still eggs on top of it from when we did the first challenge that's great and i'm really wishing i didn't take this thing out to windrock that day after the challenge because just one day of fun and now it's an entire day of cleaning this mud out of this thing oh it's a mess and then inside is a mess as well check out what i got you guys are gonna like this i got really lucky and almost scored everything that i need in one go i'm missing a few things still but let's go over what i did get i got an 8.8 axle with a truss already set up for a tj which will be the same for a zj it's got the barnes truss on it the only thing it's missing is the gear set which is over there he gave me the gear set 456 gears it does have a locker in it but i'll have to swap out the gears i got a dana 30 that's set up with ctn chromoly joints those if you don't know what those are the u-joints are very expensive high dollar big beefy u-joints chromoly shafts 456 gears already set up in that dana 30. it's got no truss or anything but he did give me the brakes which are over there and both of the axles have nitro gear and axle diff covers which is a huge bonus some spare short side shafts over here those are not chromoly just regular shafts i got a drive shaft which i don't need but i think i'll need this piece off of it for the 8.8 i got a short shaft for a tj and i think maybe i'll cut this down splice it with that one and we'll be able to make our own drive shaft i got a sye kit which needs to be installed into that 231 hopefully i'll be able to figure out the input side and made it to the zj transmission i got a winch plate which i don't know if i'll need it or not but i can sell it if i need to i got a bumper which i might be able to put on or sell and i have a master install kit and i've got a whole bag of parts inside this bag is johnny joints all kinds of joints and ball joints uh axle joints pretty much just a cool little bag there's a yolk in here oh one more thing i got some wheel spacers so if i need to space the wheels out he gave me a set that's half inch and another set that's i think two inch with those i'll be able to match the 8.8 with the 30 because the distance on the two are not quite the same measurements on the width how much did i pay for all this stuff 2200. i was able to make the deal of a lifetime he was just getting out of jeeps and trying to get rid of a lot of this stuff and i was able to take most of it off of his hands for 2 200 bucks but if you notice there's one thing that i'm missing what am i missing a lift i have to fit 35 inch tires under this thing and i've spent a lot of my budget and i still don't have any sort of lift so we're gonna have to figure that out as we go how are we going to do it i have no idea something i should mention is that we're not allowed to use who we are to get parts for cheap or for free and if we do we have to put that back into the budget what's funny here is the guy had no idea who i was i tried to tell him who i was and what he said was i'm not into jeeps anymore meaning he didn't care because he's not into jeeps now he's into motorcycles so anyway i thought that was a funny little story let's get to putting this stuff together first i need to put this sye into that transfer case i think that axle needs a little paint as well [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so this is a 242 you can tell by the sticker right there 231 this is the one i want i'd rather have the 231 than the 242 only problem is you can see right here the input shafts don't match so i need to see if i can take these apart and make some sort of monstrosity and get this input shaft into this one and i also have that sye so i'm going to drain these first then i'll clean them up and then we'll split them apart and see what we can do all right there's what i was after the input shaft now why did i take both of these apart well you can see the input shafts are different on each one and i can't use this 231 sye kit that came with my bulk purchase on the 242 but if i can take this input shaft and put it in there i'll be able to make a monstrosity now there's so many different variations on different years you pretty much have to take these apart to see if it'll work if it does not work my only option will be to stick with the 242 in that case i will build the 231 that i got with my bulk purchase with the axles and everything i can sell that and they do make an sye for a 242 which i'll be able to use the money from this to pay for the sye for this 242. but let's hope that it sticks in there here you can see the difference between the two gears one is about a quarter inch taller than the other one i've been looking at this if i'm going to make it work i need to shave this down a quarter of an inch on the bottom here and then i need to swap the bearings you can see the bearings don't fit either now i can make that happen the problem is then i'll have two bastard transfer cases uh i think though i'll be able to sell it and i probably ought not to do that i probably ought to put the 231 in the 231 and then buy a 242 but i just hate waiting around for parts so uh just let's let's just do this this is super sketch don't try this at home but here's my plant i got a vice and i'm just gonna let that ride in there while i take an angle grinder ah always happens anyway i'm going to take a flap disc to it and take that down i'm assuming it's going to spin and i'll let that be my guide and make it nice and smooth i'm also going to take some grease high temp grease and put it in here and let that keep things cool is this going to work i have no idea we did it on ring and pinion before so i guess we're about to find out you like my little tape cover let's see what happens there it goes [Music] nothing got too much resistance to spin but at least i'll be able to turn it by hand and hit each side it's going to take a while [Music] all right there's the final product it's pretty much spot on i think this is going to work save me some money and get this done a lot quicker how cool is that you can see now the place where the retaining ring goes is spot on i'll just have to use the smaller bearing and that'll fit right up in here all right i've got the sye and the 231 i've changed the input bearing to match the transmission on the red zj over there and i have enough pieces to make another transfer case that somebody else might like to buy now what is an sye well it's got three things that make it much better for one it's shorter which makes it stronger it's also thicker which makes it stronger and three it gets rid of your silly single carton slip yoke style drive shaft and replaces it with a double carton driveshaft which means that you can now move your pinion up to gain more clearance on the rocks so when when when ah [Music] kaboom kapow oh wow look at that i just wanted to check and make sure and he's absolutely right there is a grizzly locker in here but stock 355 gears so i need to replace that gear set luckily he provided those whenever i bought all this stuff i just have to take everything apart and re-gear it which is going to be fun every time i do a gear video i'm always struggling to get the carrier out and people always tell me this trick and i always forget about it but this time i remembered so let's see if we can do it you put a rag in there and try to wedge it in the gears and get it stuck and then well they say it pops it right out of there but no such luck for me looks like i'm gonna have to get some crowbars here is a good tip though you already have your wheel off your axle shaft out and whenever you need to torque this sucker it can be really hard to figure out where to what to do with it unless you have a really big vise it's kind of difficult so you just put your axle shaft in your wheel on your tire and then you put this on top now you have the perfect platform to torque this sucker to spec that comes from mr jeremy rose bleep rose on instagram pretty cool tip [Applause] [Music] oh that's what i'm talking about that's ten thousandths at the top of the spectrum but is within spec so we're good to go all right this is happening in real time good news i have somebody on the way i've listed these tires on facebook marketplace for 300 bucks got a call within 30 minutes actually so if i sell these for 300 bucks i think i have enough money to put a winch on here which means i can put this winch plate that i got with axles and everything on here so i think i'll put that right about there i'll have to make some sort of structure to support it and i also need to i think i need to get rid of a lot of this stuff i don't think we need that do you think we need that i don't think so [Music] so what i did is i made some little horns there and welded those onto the frame and those are perfect to set my winch mount on this one already has a lot of holes so i just punched some holes with the plasma torch in there now the only thing is i don't like the way this is so i went out into the woods and i found this i'll add this into the budget a little bit but it's basically just an old piece of aluminum what i'll do is it's got this cut in it right here but i think it'll be just long enough without that and i'm going to put it right under here won't add a lot of protection but it will let me know when i'm getting too close to the radiator because the weird thing about the zj is the radiator kind of sits way down underneath the bumper and the frame down here and this will just give me a warning saying hey you're getting too close you'll be able to hear it grinding and hitting on rocks or whatever and i think i'll bend the edges a little bit that will make it a little stronger [Music] my thought was that i would use this tj bumper and it would work with some modifications but it doesn't really look that great and to be honest i could use the extra budget that i could get from selling this thing so i'm going to sell that and put this back on instead as for the receiver hitch i really hate to lose the receiver but for a true off-road rig that gets in the way and you don't really need to be towing anything so what i'm going to do this is the perfect platform for a gas tank skid plate it's already got the three sides that i need all i need to do is weld to that the bottom and a couple of sides and it'll make for a quick easy cheap gas tank skid i also got to looking around and found some scrap steel two by six it's really rusty and that piece isn't quite long enough but i'm gonna make it work somehow and those are gonna go on the rocker rails how cool is that super cool i think we'll make it work let me show you how we're going to make rock rails pretty much the same on a grand cherokee or a cherokee the first thing you want to do is take a piece of tape and make a straight line right across where this fold is right here kind of where it turns down then you're going to take an angle grinder with a cut-off disc and just cut this whole section out next you're going to take a dye grinder with a flap disc and just clean off the paint you want nice uh surface to weld to and on the bottom here you're going to clean off the paint on the back side and you're going to cut you some triangles right there next what we're going to do is balance a 2 by 6 or a 2 by 8 piece depending on how much you want it to stick out we're going to balance that on a jack and then we're going to lift it up into place so it'll sit right in here once it's right there we're going to take a hammer and fold these pieces under and then we're going to weld all the way across the top of course you're going to do that in stitches you don't want to do it starting here and going across you just do a little here a little here a little here and then come back and then we're going to do the same thing on the bottom on the bottom you'll weld underneath this to this and then you'll weld those little triangles up and the reason you make the triangles is it just makes it easier to hammer and bend these pieces and that's it we'll have rock rails after that now once you get this whole thing welded up not only can you go bounce off the rocks and not have to worry about it you can also lift your entire jeep off of your rocker rail and it gives you much more ground clearance than you had before win win win so on the zj the gas tank hangs way down here and it's plastic that's not good for off-roading so what i've done to save some money is to take this receiver hitch i've cut it up and then i've flopped the side so what that does is get the bolts on the outside then i went to the store and got some eighth inch steel plate i probably should have gone quarter inch but i'm on a budget here so next i take some cardboard i make a little template now i'm going to use that template cut that out of 8th inch steel once we get that done then i'll cut the bottoms we'll weld it up and we'll have a gas tank skid plate that is somewhat reused from the hitch somewhat new steel but much cheaper than a bot one [Music] look at that i guess kid this needs a little finish welding and we'll be there very soon if i can't pick it up so for our front axle we're going to get rid of that and then i've got this truss that i got from barnes four-wheel drive and for being on a budget it's actually relatively inexpensive 120 for this so you get both sides this side and this side and then you get the bushing to replace this sucker just welds right here and then there's some keys that go in here and that's going to make this axle very strong and hold up to the abuse of these larger tires that we're putting on i am not sure about the ball joints i'm really not sure if these ball joints are good or not until i get the tires and wheels on there are ball joints in this bag that i got with the axle from that guy but i don't know if those are used or if they're good or bad or what so they don't seem to even be the right ones i'm not sure exactly what these are for now i'll probably open it up and inspect the insides but if you need a quick check what gear ratio you have this guy said it was a 456. so we're gonna i'm gonna put my hand here and i'm gonna rotate this starting from the top here we're gonna go around one two three four and we're going to go back to where we started here four and a half so now i'm back to where i started here that means this is a 456 gear because i turn this 4.56 times to get it to go around once 456 to 1. suckers on there good [Applause] looks like it's been set up not that long ago so just double checking the backlash on this dana 30 and i'm glad i did because it was at 24 000 and it needs to be between six and ten and i went ahead and changed it i got it down to six now so i'm glad i checked that since these axle shafts don't have a mud slinger i'm going all out custom instead of paying the 50 or 80 bucks for a seal i got these for two dollars and fifty cents a piece can you guess what they are hockey pucks cut a little hole in there put that on there and check that out oh yeah i think that's gonna work great and these are practice hockey pucks so they're two dollars and fifty cents a piece perfect for our budget conscious zj at this point you're probably wondering what i'm going to do for suspension and truthfully so am i i don't have a lot of budget left but i was able to find some factory takeoff suspension parts from jks then i went to the metal shop and i bought some tube that will fit over the top of these what i can do now is cut these and just lengthen them a little bit let's say it was 16 inches to start with we're adding a lift so we want our arms to be longer so i can just add an inch or however much i need to get the appropriate amount of lift and of course you want to get the pinion angle correct we're not going to have adjustable arms but we'll be able to adjust them before we weld them i also found some these are supposed to be seven inch lift coils for a zj for the front a lot of this factory takeoff stuff you can get real cheap at your local 4x4 shop they don't need this stuff after they take it off for jks and there's not a lot of resale value in that stuff i was able to find some used shocks and i also am going to have to reuse the rear uppers because i couldn't find anything with bushings front and rear that would fit an upper on the front i found this one and again i'll just cut that and shorten it to the length that i need now for the rear i did have to buy coil springs they are not in yet of course with this corona virus crap going on everything is hard to get but rear springs two springs are not actually that expensive they're about 77 and free shipping for the rear springs on those i got four and a half front xj springs for the rear of a zj which should be just about right to match these [Music] so get a load of this i thought buying this axle was going to be a huge time saver but whoever welded this up either did it for a custom application or they welded these brackets on backwards not only the lower control arm brackets but the upper brackets as well so i thought it was going to be a quick bolt in but i still have a lot of work yet to do to get this to oh man fun fun [Music] you

Channel: BleepinJeep

Views: 369,809

Keywords: bleepinjeep, jeep, cherokee, 4x4, offroad, jeep cherokee, jeep wrangler, wrangler, wrangler jeep, jeep grand cherokee, grand cherokee, how to, diy, install, installation, pull a part, salvage yard, junk yard, busted knuckle, ian johnson, big tire garage, tekton tools, chrisfix, cheap jeep, cheap jeep challenge, challenge, jeep ZJ, Jeep XJ, jeep cherokee 2020, jeep grand cherokee trailhawk, salvage yard tips, cheap jeep mods, how-to, rock crawler, zj, total, build, budget

Id: x8cN2tDvlDc

Length: 32min 23sec (1943 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 02 2020