Bargain Beater

Hey, welcome to trucks. You know, there are two questions that I get a lot. Number one,

what is the best vehicle to buy if I'm just getting into off roading and don't want to spend a fortune?

And number two, what is the best bargain in a used four by four? Well, now obviously these two questions go hand in hand and the answer can come in one vehicle but it's not a Wrangler, not a bronco,

not a scout, not a blazer. Now, these are all awesome rigs but

they're not the best bargain. No, man, I am talking about a full size Jeep,

the SJ, the old wagoners, Grand Wagoneers, the Cherokees and the J series trucks. Now, why are these such a good deal?

That's what we're gonna show you and we're gonna show you how easy it is to turn these into a nice trail rig.

You can still drive every day.

What we've got here is a 79 Jeep Cherokee chief that we got for 1500 bucks and we drove it home. Now that in itself is a bargain,

but the real value starts

when you take a closer look, you've got a 360 V8 packed under the hood. So you got plenty of power potential here. You have air condition,

power steering, power brakes, guys.

These are the type of things that you will spend a lot of money putting on your rig and most of these full size Jeeps,

they came from the factory with it. Another nice surprise is most of these trucks came with Dana 44 axles front and rear,

which means

you don't have to go out and buy some high dollar off road axles and you have some tough suckers in there already

and they're easy to upgrade. So they'll handle whatever kind of off road and you wanna do.

Now,

the bodies are not only cool as heck

but this body style ran from about 1963 to 91. Yeah, almost 30 years.

And they didn't change it, you know, other than the grills and the headlights and bumpers and little stuff like that,

which means all these major body parts from all those years

will pretty much interchange and they're easy to find.

Now, another big benefit is the longer wheel base. That can be a real plus when you're out four wheeling

and then of course you have the enclosed cargo area, carry your junk, your friends, your dogs, whatever,

you are gonna be hard pressed to find a vehicle like this. It gives you this much good

for the price that you pay for them.

Well, there's the rig.

Now we're gonna show you how to make it even better.

So, the first thing we did

is make a call to B J's off road because they specialize in full size Jeeps

and we got one of their six inch lift kits. Now, the kit consists of new leaf springs, front and rear. We

got new U bolts and hardware.

You've got sway bar in links with the disconnect so you can get that front axle flexing when you want it to.

Of course, new shocks, drop pitman arm, longer brake hoses and that's it.

That is another plus for these vehicles, they're really easy to modify.

I'm gonna show you what I'm talking about.

The first step is to get the truck up in the air and get a jack under the axle to support it,

then pull off the shocks,

the old break hoses,

the sway bar and links

and disconnect the drag link from the pitman arm.

Finally remove the actual U

bolts,

get those old springs out of there.

Uh

Now the best tools that you can have here are some good penetrating lube

and a lot of persuasion.

Now we are ready for the new springs. So if your bolts are rusty or worn now is the time to replace them.

Next, we'll bolt the axle to the springs.

Follow that with a drop pit, an arm

sharks,

new brake hoses,

sway bar disconnect

and that's it for the front.

Now, as you can see the hard part of this project is not putting on the left.

It's dealing with all the rusty crusty hardware that's up underneath here.

Yeah.

So be prepared to spend some time here. Now, when we come back,

the rear end goes up and the big tires go on.

Hey, welcome back to trucks

and our bargain full size Jeep project.

Now, the whole idea here is to show you how to take a used four by four truck

that gives you the best bang for your buck like a full size Jeep

and modify it and make it better. Now, I'm talking about fairly simple things here, you know, stuff that just about anybody can do

and is affordable. So you don't spend a fortune doing it.

So when you're all done, you've got a vehicle, you can drive every day on the street,

but you can also take and go four wheeling anytime you want.

It's a nice combination.

Now, what I've got here is a 79 Jeep Cherokee

already have six inches of left on the front

and I'm working on the rear, which really means

I'm pretty much just pulling off a lot of old junk like I did on the front.

But disassembling the front and disassembling the rear

are not exactly the same thing.

Let me show you what I mean.

When you go to remove this driver's side, rear leaf spring,

you're gonna find a little surprise, this mounting bolt has got a nut on the other side inside the frame rail, which you cannot get to unless you take off this skid plate and move some things around. So be prepared to spend a little time here

it

and that

is all there is

to lifting a full size Jeep. Now, look at what we got here.

We have a fairly simple project, not a lot of money

and a lot of bang for the buck. You know, full size Jeep is starting to sound like a better deal all the time, isn't it? Yeah.

Now, one thing I wanna talk to you about while I'm under here that you need to be prepared for. If you're working on an older four by four, I don't care what it is,

is what I call hacker patrol. Yeah,

that's where you need to spend an afternoon. Go under the vehicle and fix all the hacking and all the neglect that's happened to the truck over the years. For example,

take a look at this drive train and engine.

This is saturated with oil that's coming from leaky seals and gaskets.

You got some butchery going on here with this hose that's leaking

and the wiring is all hacked up. Now, the reason it's important to fix this stuff is you let that wiring short out which it will

catch all this nice oil on fire

and guys, you might as well just break out the weenies and roast them because you will never get the fire out.

I have seen vehicles burn on the trail over and over and over again and it's always junk like this that causes it.

So fix it. Now, wheels and tires

for wheels, we went to Mickey Thompson and got these classic lock rims. Now, these are really slick because they look good, polished aluminum, classic styling, simulated bead lock, they're strong

and they're affordable, which is exactly the direction that we are going on this project. Now, the size is 15 by 10

and then we wrapped them

with 35 1250 Baha

Claw radios.

Now, most people know the Baha

Claw is a great off road tire. Then you can look at the tread and tell that,

but the radio is gonna make this much better on the highway. So they're not gonna beat you to death when you're driving down the road

and this combination is going to be wicked on that old Cherokee.

We're gonna show you that after the break.

Hey, welcome back to trucks and our full size Jeep project. Well, we are showing you how to get the best bang for your buck out of a used four by four.

Now, I've already put six inches of lift on this old Cherokee 35 inch tall tires

and look at this. This thing is cool. This is something just about

anybody would want to drive every day and it's also a capable off Roader,

but you expected that. Now I'm gonna show you why it is so much fun to dink around with these old sjs. Look at this, obviously,

this old grill is history and stylistically.

Well, let's just say this was not Jeep's finest hour here with all the plastic and the square headlights and all that junk,

but you can change this because they did put some good looking grills in these things

and there are a lot of used parts out there in salvage yards or on ebay

like this sixties style gladiator grill and headlights that we picked up. You're gonna be surprised how easy this goes

in that truck.

Now, I know your first thought is, wait a minute, this is a long horizontal grill and you just showed me a little tiny vertical grill.

How is all that gonna work? Well, you're gonna start to understand a little better once I get this old grill out of here?

Ok. What you're looking at here is the original style sheet metal that came out in 1963

and remained virtually unchanged through the whole production run of these trucks. Yeah,

basically what Jeep did is slap on it

grill every few years to make it look different and to keep the cost down.

So to fit an early style grill in a late model truck, all you have to do is take some of this stuff off and return it to the original design.

This is how to do it.

First, we'll pull off this upper shroud

and the hood latch.

Now, this is also a good time to get rid of any old hacker wiring that somebody might have done.

Then we need to get rid of all of these

grill supports and these are spot welded on. So

I'm gonna use a spot weld cutter to cut them out. Now, if you don't have a cutter like this,

you can get these off with a drill and a chisel.

But remember this is now your exterior sheet metal. So any damage you do to it,

you're gonna have to go back and fix it.

Now, the last thing you need to do

is take your original style Gladiator grill

and just bolted into place. I mean, you have the original mounting tabs and everything still on here.

Now, look at that man. Is that cool or what? There is no question. Now, this is a Jeep except for those dang square headlights.

We're gonna take care of those after the break.

Hey, welcome back to trucks and our full size Jeep project, which is now six inches higher and sitting on 35.

Now, what I'm working on at this point is showing you how to put an early style Gladiator front end

onto a late model Cherokee or Wagoneer. Now, as you can see the grill is in and it's, it's awesome.

Now, we're gonna deal with these headlights. Now, you, you gotta give a MC credit here. They figured out how to put a square headlight into a round hole.

Yeah, welcome to the 19 seventies.

We're gonna show you how to change that back.

Now. Believe it or not, the headlight buckets and trim rings that you're gonna need for this conversion

are off. None other than the Jeep CJ five and CJ seven. And you can get this whole assembly brand new from quadri,

which is exactly what we did

look at this headlight bucket,

the bulb,

the retaining ring

and the exterior trim ring and that is all you're gonna need. Now, these parts. Now these are originals. We got these from B J's off road

and they are to cover that auxiliary hole right beside the headlight. Now, you're probably thinking great man, just bolt these in right. Uh

Headlights are a little more involved than that. Here's how to put them in.

First. You need to straighten any dance or wrinkles that may be in the mounting flange.

All right, even though the styling never changed these headlight openings did

they're bigger.

So the first thing that you need to do

is

center the bucket in the opening.

So you can figure out where you need to fabricate some tabs

for this bucket to mount to.

Yeah,

it's up to you to make this flip.

Then all you have to do is cut some tabs,

weld them in place

and then drill and tap your mounting holes

and there you have it round headlights

that mount like they came from the factory that way

for the aluminum cover plates. That's just a matter of drilling holes and mounting them.

Ok. This is what we started out with

and this is what we've got now,

which would you rather have and you know, the cool thing is it doesn't even matter

because with a full size Jeep,

you've got the choice. Now, you saw

how easy it was to put this grill in. Matter of fact, everything that I did on this truck today

only brings a difficulty meter up about halfway, which means this is a nice intermediate project

that just about anybody can do. And that makes an old SJ

an even better deal,

you know, as the uses and the needs of four wheel drive trucks continues to evolve. So does tire technology to keep up with it.

That is why Firestone has just come out with his destination MT tire.

Now it features aggressive lugs give you nice traction on rain and snow and rocks and mud.

But it's also designed to give you a decent ride on the highway and good treadwear.

If you were construction or you are a hunter or a fisherman

or you just do some recreational wheeling on the weekend.

Firestone had you in mind when they built this tire.