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The Laredo. A bolt on WJ

CMT2.0

CMT2.0

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 1, 2021
Member Number
3735
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81
1999 Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo 4.0
Bought this jeep WJ to get me by while I built my Toyota. It was cheap had a 3' lift, brand new bfgs and leather/AC. Got it home and found out the cylinder head was cracked and the radiator was bad. Rebuild the top end and cooling system swapped wheels and cut up the bumper. Went to Johnson valley for Thanksgiving. "Wheeled" all the scenic routes.
November 2019
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I didnt like how low the transfer case hung down so I build a skid plate. Yes I jig-sawed all the plates out.
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Shortly after it developed death wobble. So I replaced the track bar with a trailforged one and pieces together some new steering using gm tie rod ends.

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Took it to our local rock pile and with open diffs and bumping it I broke my first axle shaft

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This is when I found out that the WJ dana30 is wider than the xj/zj dana30. I didn't do any research before buying this jeep. So it really sucked to find out that only two companies made chromoly axles shafts and both were over $1k:mad3:. Now way I putting that kind of money into a Dana 30 so I went to my local junkyard and got a replacement plus spare front and rear axle shafts.


Went to koh and bombed ever wash like the razer fags. Drove over a rock and posed with my buddies j-truck.
January 2020
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I'll update more later. Guys are getting the gist. Zero tech just pictures.
 
CMT2.0 said:
1999 Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo 4.0
Bought this jeep WJ to get me by while I built my Toyota. It was cheap had a 3' lift, brand new bfgs and leather/AC. Got it home and found out the cylinder head was cracked and the radiator was bad. Rebuild the top end and cooling system swapped wheels and cut up the bumper. Went to Johnson valley for Thanksgiving. "Wheeled" all the scenic routes.
November 2019
Screenshot_20221205-195553-449.png

Screenshot_20221205-194448-339.png



I didnt like how low the transfer case hung down so I build a skid plate. Yes I jig-sawed all the plates out.
Screenshot_20221205-200218~2.png
Screenshot_20221205-200236~2.png
Screenshot_20221205-200158~2.png


Shortly after it developed death wobble. So I replaced the track bar with a trailforged one and pieces together some new steering using gm tie rod ends.

FB_IMG_1670299888337.jpg



Took it to our local rock pile and with open diffs and bumping it I broke my first axle shaft

Screenshot_20221205-200325~2.png
Screenshot_20221205-200329~2.png


This is when I found out that the WJ dana30 is wider than the xj/zj dana30. I didn't do any research before buying this jeep. So it really sucked to find out that only two companies made chromoly axles shafts and both were over $1k:mad3:. Now way I putting that kind of money into a Dana 30 so I went to my local junkyard and got a replacement plus spare front and rear axle shafts.


Went to koh and bombed ever wash like the razer fags. Drove over a rock and posed with my buddies j-truck.
January 2020
Screenshot_20221205-200257~2.png
Screenshot_20221205-200302~2.png


I'll update more later. Guys are getting the gist. Zero tech just pictures.
Click to expand...
You talk too much. Moar pictures. :flipoff2:
 
Love these builds. I the the zj/wj is probably the best budget crawler platform there is.

I had a $150 V8 zj for a hot second and broke an axle shaft in a lame rock pile just liked that, with stock bald p235s or whatever also. That and the stock cv driveshaft is the lamest part of these rigs. I think Honda civics have stronger cv axles. :laughing: hopefully you can figure out a solution besides swapping them out constantly.

Do any wj's come with regular u joint axles at least?
 
YotaAtieToo said:
Love these builds. I the the zj/wj is probably the best budget crawler platform there is.

I had a $150 V8 zj for a hot second and broke an axle shaft in a lame rock pile just liked that, with stock bald p235s or whatever also. That and the stock cv driveshaft is the lamest part of these rigs. I think Honda civics have stronger cv axles. :laughing: hopefully you can figure out a solution besides swapping them out constantly.

Do any wj's come with regular u joint axles at least?
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Not that I know of. I've thought about having custom inner shafts made and use a stub shaft from a xj Dana 30. Would also have to have the abs rings opened up to fit on the stub shaft.
 
So a year went by and like clockwork was back out a Johnson valley for Thanksgiving. Bashed up the rocker panels pretty good on tack hammer and broke another shaft. After the trip I got to work on building rock sliders out of 2x6. Welding to the unibody sucked
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I bought my cheap WJ D30 with RCVs… that’s always an option :flipoff2:
 
I really started to like this thing cause this was my first non dedicated rock crawler. Felt like a real jeep landoverer. So I took it to every ohv Park with in a 2 hour radius of my house.
Bass Lake 2021
First time snow wheeling
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Pozo ohv Park. Found these bong rips stuck with no idea what they were doing. Guys burnt the clutch up and camped out all night :lmao:. Gave them some water and left once some other rigs with winches drove up.
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Williams Hill.
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Yeah, all 99 to early 01 heads will eventually crack on the 4.0. These were brought in to be made in-house by Chrysler and they failed horribly. Once they started outsourcing them again, the issues went away.
 
Went to bald Mountain witch was a ton of fun. Hit this obstacle called v-notch a few times. I did bend a rear axle shaft at the flange but was totally worth it. Had these jk owners jaws on the ground when I cleaned it 3 times in a row :lmao:
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wvjeepguy81 said:
Yeah, all 99 to early 01 heads will eventually crack on the 4.0. These were brought in to be made in-house by Chrysler and they failed horribly. Once they started outsourcing them again, the issues went away.
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Yeah I learned that the hard way but I got a.new head from clearwater heads and haven't had an issue since. Would have been nice if they cleaned the blasting media out of it before there shipped it but oh well.
 
So by the end of 2021 my daughter was born and I started focusing on my Toyota (Rudy, have another build in the Toyota section). It really just sat besides sometimes driving it to work. Tried selling it but no dice.

Picture from work
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Next update will be better. We're only to January of 2022:dustin:
 
RunningProblem said:
One tons are for mall crawlers and Facebook groups. Trust me. I know.
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Mildly off-topic, but fuck it: saw a JLUR on 35s (with 18" wheels...) rocking FF tons the other day... Fucking why?
 
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Rockwood said:
Mildly off-topic, but fuck it: saw a JLUR on 35s (with 18" wheels...) rocking FF tons the other day... Fucking why?
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Driving around on 40s or 42s probably fucking sucks when you’re not geared. Also, I have tons and 35s on 18s under my shitbox Cherokee. Why? Because ‘fuck em’ that’s why. Also, because they were $400 and allowed me to do a 1 ton swap and take it out of hovercraft mode.
 
With a child I knew I would need a family rig to keep playing in the dirt. Soo I got a rough country long arm kit on sale and started the next stage. Got a dana 44a/hd (aluminum center section) out of a V8. Trussed the axles and sleeved the front. Put 4:88s and an Aussie locker in the rear. At this point I wish I swapped jk axles but wanted bolt on axles :shaking:.
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Bolted on the rough country long arm kit with some Rusty's 4.5 springs and bilstein 5100 shocks. Got a set of 35s and started cutting. To make them some what fit I stretched the wheelbase to 114ish.
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Curious how the 44a treats you. When I had the ZJ, I did some research and couldn't really find ton's of failures like you would think. In fact, I couldn't find any, just a handful of people saying that they don't like to hold gear patterns under an offroad rig. I'm betting that truss and a beefy cover will make a big difference.

I kinda want to narrow one to run in my little samurai :laughing:
 
YotaAtieToo said:
Curious how the 44a treats you. When I had the ZJ, I did some research and couldn't really find ton's of failures like you would think. In fact, I couldn't find any, just a handful of people saying that they don't like to hold gear patterns under an offroad rig. I'm betting that truss and a beefy cover will make a big difference.

I kinda want to narrow one to run in my little samurai :laughing:
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So far so good. The pinion is that same as a dana60 so that promising. I was afraid of having the center section flex like your saying so that what prompted the truss. Ill update as I go and report any failures. In a samurai would be pretty slick and beefy.
 
CMT2.0 said:
So far so good. The pinion is that same as a dana60 so that promising. I was afraid of having the center section flex like your saying so that what prompted the truss. Ill update as I go and report any failures. In a samurai would be pretty slick and beefy.
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Is it the same gear set as a jk44? Or it's own deal?

If they can hold up to a 5-6k lb V8 suv on 33s, it would be indestructible under a 2200lb samurai on 35s :laughing: it's just a matter of if it's worth putting the work and money into narrowing and custom axles.
 
YotaAtieToo said:
Is it the same gear set as a jk44? Or it's own deal?

If they can hold up to a 5-6k lb V8 suv on 33s, it would be indestructible under a 2200lb samurai on 35s :laughing: it's just a matter of if it's worth putting the work and money into narrowing and custom axles.
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8.9" ring gear, as far as I remember it's the same as JK. The center section sucks (truss fixes that to some extent), locker selection is limited (ARB or lunchbox), bearing caps are aluminum and not very strong. There are billet caps for around $100 per side.

The center section flexed enough on mine to make the ARB leak when I tried backing out of a steep ravine. It hasn't leaked since the truss and HD cover install.

It's worth checking if the XJ D44 uses the same wheel bearing (SET31), as that would make it easier to narrow since both D44a and D44 are 30 spline

OP, nice to see you here too, I've been looking at your posts on the facebook groups since I also wanted to keep the D30 alive with 33's :)

For the low hanging case you could swap in a NP231 and either clock it, or raise it a bit. After the NP231 swap and custom crossmember I gained almost 2" under the T-case and the crossmember.
 
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D30 and even 35s and a lunchbox will last so long as you weld the caps and treat it like it’s a D30 on 35s. I’ve been through almost every trail SoCal, Shaver and Rubicon has to offer (only screwed around on Cougar Buttes at JV, no other trials). Will it rock bounce or run everything in Sand Hollow? Not for long. Is it gonna eventually shit the bed? Probably. Just be careful of getting bound up and be reasonable on the skinny pedal. Shit’ll be fiiiiiiiine

Until it isn’t. :flipoff2:
 
I had a WJ for a long time and probably broke 10 front shafts. During my travels I looked heavily at cutting down JK shafts slightly to fit in a WJ housing. I never actually got around to doing it but a JK30 housing is closer to the WJ than the TJ/XJ/ZJ housing.

Edit: looking back at my old build thread on jeep forum it appears I mentioned that the JK shafts are about 1/2” longer on each side.
 
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Rockwood said:
D30 and even 35s and a lunchbox will last so long as you weld the caps and treat it like it’s a D30 on 35s. I’ve been through almost every trail SoCal, Shaver and Rubicon has to offer (only screwed around on Cougar Buttes at JV, no other trials). Will it rock bounce or run everything in Sand Hollow? Not for long. Is it gonna eventually shit the bed? Probably. Just be careful of getting bound up and be reasonable on the skinny pedal. Shit’ll be fiiiiiiiine

Until it isn’t. :flipoff2:
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The problem is the tiny cv/birfield type joints, no caps to tack.
 
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