Swapping In A Junkyard 8.8" Rear Axle In Our Cheap Jeep Cherokee - Trucks! S10, E9

today we're getting our project cheap cherokee ready for the road and ready for the trails first it needs better legs to stand on so we're adding the lift kit and swapping in our new junkyard 8.8 inch rear axle then up front we'll upgrade our differential and get our xj ryden on much bigger wheels and tires i am talking about i don't understand it's all today here on trucks hey welcome to trucks well as you can see we are neck deep in a long list of things that we still have to do to our low buck cheap cherokee project before this former pile could carry us to the trail and back and with the price of fuel today we wanted to leave the gas guzzling tow rig at home and just drive our project when we go four-wheeling besides there's something kind of fun and a little bit challenging about heading out for a weekend's worth of wheeling without the luxury of a truck and trailer ready to rescue your sorry broke rig in case something happens on the trail so today we're going to show you a little bit about how to get your daily driver ready for some weekend wheeling now like kevin said allergy needs to serve more than one purpose so it's a fairly mild project now we could build this thing to roll on some nasty 37-inch tires throw on some bulletproof drivetrain parts add a full exo cage and go full tilt with this thing but it takes somebody that's rather uh dedicated to drive something like that to work every day now speaking of roll cages while we don't plan on getting inverted on some trail we never know what it might happen anyway and if you've ever seen a rollover unibody rig or not well it's brutal and you know that some kind of protection is necessary so we're not going to install a full cage just a simple hoop but it's going to get the job done now since the last time you guys saw this jeep we've added a few must-have items mostly to the interior like this high lift jack now to make it accessible and to keep it from knocking one of us out it was just laying loose and bouncing around in the back we went ahead and welded the mounting brackets to the interior body panels same with the mount for our 33-inch mud terrain now using a section of the old spare tire rack that was on the back of the jeep we cut off the portion we needed and through the rest of the metal recycling bin then we just made it work in the space vacated by the old back seat now we like to keep a winch with us when we're wheeling the problem is these guys get kind of expensive well quadratec had these eight thousand pound mile marker winches for sale for less than 400 bucks so we just couldn't pass it up and while we were shopping we got this receiver hitch mount so now we can use the winch front and rear in our custom hitches now to keep this thing locked down to secure ryan used a piece of leftover square tubing welded it to the floor drill and tap for a t-handle keep it in place now up front we ditched the funky shag-like carpet and stock seats in favor of these value-priced buckets they're made of a tough material that cleans up easy but they don't recline and they're not a bolt in for our xj so we made them work using the factory sliders a welder a little bit of creativity and now they fit our jeep and our budget and it gives a nice two-tone look to that 20 20-year-old interior now to show you what else this jeep has been through over the last couple of decades let's take a look back what we started with our cheap cherokee came to us run down beat up and barely alive but it's hard to kill these xj's and since we got it for free we decided to keep that thing going and do a low buck build the frame damage was the first of many ills to be corrected followed by a bolt-on facelift in the form of aftermarket fenders and header from a newer 97 cherokee nice while kevin was stretching the frame tommy and i went down to the salvage yard and dragged home a ford 8.8 inch rear axle and the larger u-joint axle shafts for the front it's now sporting homemade bumpers cut out flares and an el cheapo paint job now i'm welding in the foot plates or mounting points for our roll bar to the floor it can be a challenge now in the past kevin has given you and me some tips on welding sheet metal when doing body work but this is a little different so here's a tip when trying to attach heavier metal like 3 16 plate to thin sheet metal start the bead on the thicker material and then somewhat briefly drop down into the thinner material that way the heat is absorbed more by the plate and greatly reduces the chance of burning through now this technique works whether you're running a beat or just a series of attacks for attacks you want to take your mig wire and aim it just above the base of the heavier metal as the lighter gauge metal heats up it pulls the weld pool together eliminates the possibility of adding a bunch of drain holes into the project [Music] there you go 3 16 plate welded to 20 gauge sheet metal with no holes all right with our plates welded in our braces cut and notched and our main hoop bent and trim to fit we can get this thing fully welded in using the same 110 volt lincoln mig we used on the floor i like it because the smaller handle of the 110 machine gives me better access in tighter areas and makes it easier to get complete 360 degree welds it's all the way around good shape now obviously we want to lift the jeep up to make room for the bigger wheels and tires we also want to get the engine power levels up to stock maybe a little bit better so you combine the heavier rolling stock along with a little more gear that we're going to throw at it and it's not a wonder we want to upgrade the rear axle to this ford 8.8 we pulled out of the junkyard now this axle and our cherokee axle both come with a leaf spring setup but it's far from a direct bolt in so first before we start installing it we're going to address some of the problems of the 8.8 what i'm doing here is preheating the cast center section prep it to weld the center section is cast from steel which makes it weldable with a mig running a bead around the axle tube eliminates the possibility of them twisting in the housing and letting us down on the trail just like our old yj axel did up next we're making a ford axle fit under a jeep and putting our front diff under lock and key and later baby needs a brand new pair of shoes stick around hey welcome back to the shop we're making progress on our cheap cherokee here getting it ready for the trail and making sure we get home at the end of the day now up top we put in a simple roll bar some recovery gear and brand new seats and right here ryan's created some protection for our rocker panels a couple of cross braces some 90 degree bends on the model 3 manual bender and viola instant rocker guards as we told you earlier we definitely need to go with a taller suspension so for our lift we went through the quadratec catalog and picked out one of the skyjacker three inch kits with the extra room provided by our cutout fender flares we're hoping that's enough but in case it's not we've got this daystar coil spring spacer and shackle kit on standby it'll give us a little extra lift and the price is tough to beat now skyjacker relies on coil springs up front to get the altitude but out back we had a couple of choices and you've seen us use lift blocks on the back of das bronco to get her lift now blocks work and they're cheap but you've got definite advantages going with a spring pack over top of leafs or blocks so in the case of our cherokee we've opted to spend a little bit more money because we think it's worth it in this case with the cheaper blocks you increase the amount of leverage drivetrain torque puts on the spring therefore increasing the tendency for the axle to wrap or twist when that happens that could get your truck hopping and then when that happens axle shafts and u-joints start popping the rear spring packs fall right into the stock location there's a nut on there yep when swapping an axle rarely do you get to just throw it in there's almost always something you have to buy or modify to make it work like we told you before this one's no bolting but the strength and peace of mind gained far outweigh any installation hassles plus the list of parts needed to make this explorer axle work in our cherokee pretty short and just about everything you need for this axle swap well you're looking at it right here spring perches from mr gasket driveshaft adapter flange and new u-bolts from your local o'reilly and spring plates and shock tabs courtesy of the torch mate the purchase gets set into place then the axle gets centered all right what do you got right i'm looking at three and nine sixteenths i've got three and three eighths so come here i got three and a half now yeah perfect and then the u-bolts hold everything together using the homemade spring plates up top this allows you to accurately adjust axle placement and pinion angle before you weld everything solid ryan's using a homemade tig wire gauge to match the angle of the output shaft to the pinion that's right that's about it right there and finally the shock mounts get tacked into place [Music] all right with both our shocks installed we're going to show you how to make your factory e-brake cables work with the new parking brake assembly by using just a cut-off wheel these small cable clamps the cable end gets cut off using your weapon of choice then gets wrapped around the axle's bracket and marked a simple cable clamp available from any hardware store creates a loop and gives you a quick and inexpensive tie to the vehicle's e-brake system now the factory anti-roll bar is staying it's not going to interfere with flex that much and it's going to give us the stability that we want on the highway since this is a dual purpose rig you've got a couple of options for mounting you can either flare the holes and go right to the u-bolts or you can trim it down and weld right to the spring plate and the brake lines for the 8.8 well they tie right into the jeep's hard lines now the only other difference worth noting is the 8.8 is actually a bit narrower than the stock rear axle by a little over an inch so to remedy that we're going to be installing some wheel spacers and spider tracks makes some of the best available so that's what we're using to maintain as much stability as possible by keeping the track width at least as wide as stock these are an inch and a quarter wide double anodized and hub-centric we'll get them installed once we get our rusty rotors cleaned up now up front we wanted a selectable locker to complement our mild factory installed limited slip out back plus doing it this way but we only had to buy one diff and one ring and pinion set for the front axle the gears we've already set up changing to a one-piece axle shaft changes the seal location as well a couple of quick measurements and a trip to the parts store will get you fixed up now the diff we're using comes from auburn their ectead limited slip e-locker is about a hundred bucks cheaper than our other options so it was definitely the right choice for this build drilling and tapping the cover gives your wiring a safe route out of the axle and into the cab [Music] now to give you guys an idea of why we're going through the trouble of changing out these axle shafts what's for the u-joints and check out the difference in comparison to the u-joints that came in our original shafts the caps are much larger and the cross is a bit heavier too while they're not bomb proof it's definitely a worthwhile upgrade when we come back we're off to have our rotors turned the right way by some real pros hey welcome back to trucks where we're elevating our cheap cherokee and with our new axle upgrade in place now we can take care of the rest of the lift up front and we've gone over this jeep pretty thoroughly but we're not going to ignore the brakes we're not going to just replace parts we're going to visit our friends at midas see if they can help us out now you guys remember a while back our local midas shop helped out muscle car well we're back here again because they also want to give us a hand getting our cheap cherokee up and running again and more importantly stopping machining rotors for do-it-yourself customers is not a service midas normally offers but that's okay because with their secure stop brake service they work on your entire braking system going through a 55-point checklist and using their very own brake pads that are made to the highest standards in the braking industry now that's easy enough you just drop your truck off here and these guys will take care of everything for you but we wanted to give you thanks an inside perspective on what it takes to properly resurface brake rotors now the rotors that came off the front of our cherokee as well as our junkyard axle well they obviously need to be resurfaced now the fronts they're pretty standard but the rear the parking brake drum is actually part of the rotor hat itself and this surface needs to be machined as well [Music] machining at a faster speed makes a rougher cut but it removes any heat hardened metal this stage is just for truing now with that done they'll do a second cut and make sure the surface of the rotor is true and flat the second cut is not always necessary there's just good insurance in getting a perfectly flat surface all right with our fast cuts done the rotor's straight and true but it's left the surface a little bit rough so brian's going to slow the machine down go back to the final pass put a nice smooth finish on the surface of our rotor slowing the speed down creates a much finer cut with less pad wear and no pedal chatter now like we showed you before the rear rotors because of the parking brake require a little bit different setup parking brake surfaces are machined to the same tolerances as the rotor surface but maintenance is usually less frequent thank you well these look great we're headed back to the shop after the break our cherokee's looking not so cheap anymore stay tuned [Applause] hey welcome back to the shop well over the break we had a chance to throw on our resurfaced rotors as well as finish up our suspension lift installation and that included longer coils replacement shocks new lower control arms with a single flex joint at the axle end and the track bar relocation bracket and with our back rotors on and our new wheel spacers we can get the wheels and tires on this thing get it down on the lift see what it looks like speaking of our wheels we thought we could do a little better than the silver paint that came on them so we used the dupli-color textured metallic paint that matches our powder-coated bumpers perfectly now this is a cool transformation and i think it looks great what do you think i'm with you i think we got plenty of room for that 33-inch mud terrain out back looks like we're a little tight up front i think we need to go up a little more now we're out of time today but we're still not quite done yet yeah we're going to get this thing running better with this excel tune-up kit go with the low buck cat-back exhaust system in the form of a cherry bomb glass pack and drop in this air raid replacement filter in lieu of that oil soaked paper mess and i guess we'll have to flip a coin to see who the lucky one is that gets to go back and install these daystar coil spacers to level out the jeep you know i see tommy's name on both sides of this cargo yup tommy now we all know that fuel prices are sky high so here's a simple plug-in that's going to give you some help this is hypertech's new max energy econ economy power programmer and it plugs right into your truck's obd2 port to reprogram your engine computer in less than 15 minutes now what's unique about the econ is that it's designed to extract every bit of energy from every molecule of fuel which is going to give you more miles per gallon at part throttle where most people drive as well as more power at wide open throttle the max energy econ is 50 state legal and will cost you right around 320 bucks thanks for watching trucks see you guys next week

Channel: POWERNATION

Views: 95,108

Rating: 4.9124398 out of 5

Keywords: Car, PowerNation, howto, how-to, diy, automotive, cars, trucks, automobile, do it yourself, automobiles, auto, truck, cheap jeep, jeep, jeep cherokee, junkyard, rear axle

Id: xBvoDFeIQW8

Length: 18min 3sec (1083 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 01 2020