Jeep Grand Cherokee ZJ 4L (1996)

[CHR15E]

Oh dear, this can only go well.

Give us a shout when it's in the pipeline and I'll come and help for a weekend.

[Richard Moss]

Front and rear polybushes fitted to the ARBs:



Heavy duty front and rear shocks:



2" lift (on top of the 1" lift done by Jeep when it was built)


How it was:


So I took it out into the desert to try it out - and have to say that I'm very pleased with it.

[MG Mal]

Massive improvement on the original Richard.

Just need some bigger wheels and tyres.

[CHR15E]

What's next on the list then Rich?

[Richard Moss]

New tyres (but on standard wheels) will be fitted shortly. I plan to go up from 235/75 x 15 to 255/75 x 15. That will raise the diameter of the wheel/tyre combo from just under 29" to just over 30". If I go much bigger there is a chance of them rubbing on the wings although up to 31" ought to be OK.

I'm part way through making my own light bar for the roof - 4 spotlights mounted on a roof rack cross bar. I hope to have that done by sunday/monday.

I'm also going to replace the engine and transmission mounts. The transmission one feels soft and bangs around a bit so I'll do all 3 at once (they're under £40 for all 3).

Then I might slow down for a bit!

[CHR15E]

Makes sense. What's the damage on the tyres?

[Richard Moss]

I've been quoted just under £300 for a set of 4 Cooper Cobra tyres, supposedly good ones. I haven't really looked too hard yet.

[Richard Moss]

A couple of hours of dune bashing after work this evening - very pleasant.

[CHR15E]

Nice lights on it, have you just got them fitted to the roof bar? Do they vibrate much?

[Richard Moss]

It's a spare roof bar with holes drilled for the light brackets.

The wiring is run from the foglights at the moment (because they are no longer fitted) but will be sorted properly using a separate switch and relay. There is a waterproof ( ! ) connector on the wiring so that it can be unclipped at roof level and I took the front end pieces off the roof rails so that I can slide the whole light bar off in no time at all. Removal takes seconds. It makes surprisingly little noise, to be honest, and I'm not too worried about the effect it will have on fuel consumption.

I've no idea if it wobbles badly because the surface on which we're driving is also wobbly! The light pattern from these cheap lights is awful, practically useless to be honest, but decent spot lights seem to be very expensive over here. I plan to buy some better ones when back in the UK (we fly back tomorrow for 3 weeks) so I'll let you know then. However, the concept works OK so it's just a case of getting some better lights.

Even if the current lights are no good, the kids reckon that they're "cool"!

On the dune bashing front, I can definitely feel that I'm starting to get the hang of the techniques - the two biggest things being judging/maintaining momentum and also knowning when to quit, back-off and try again. If you do that then you should avoid getting stuck and "self-recovery" is preferable to needing a tow out! Driving along the sides of the dunes, with the Jeep leaning down hill and sliding on soft sand at the same time does take a bit of getting used to, but my confidence is improving although the Jeep is still more capable than I am! Coming over the top of a big one, with the nose 45 degrees UP (all you can see is sky), knowing that there is a 45 degree drop to come (when all you can see is sand) can be a bit alarming at first, especially if you hit the crest too fast and get airborne - Dukes of Hazard style! Great fun!!!! I had a fully airborne session last week but you get a reasonably soft landing in most cases.

I'm told by my "teachers" that I'm picking it up quickly and that's good to know because I don't want to be a pain in the backside and keep getting stuck.

This is the best investment I've made since coming here, to be honest. We've got a club-organised camping trip coming up the second weekend in January with an off-road drive out on the friday, pitch tents, dune/wadi driving session in the afternoon and the a bigger offroad drive out on saturday. Should be good fun but I could do with better tyres so that will be a priority when I get back.

[CHR15E]

I know exactly what you mean with going up and then down a hill/dune. Well not so much the dune. I haven't done much with mine at all but found that very odd.

My first thought was a camera under the car.

[Richard Moss]

I got sick of the inside filling up with sand, so whilst doing a couple of other jobs, I set to and made a DIY cabin filter. The material used is a synthetic wadding/padding used in clothes making and was a handily sized offcut that Mrs M had handy. I have seen people do this using the filter from a cooker hood but I reckon that it would block up with the sand we have here. The photos aren't great - the job was pdone after sunset, using electric light and taking pics with a mobile phone.

First I removed the wiper arms and scuttle panel. For all 800 owners, it's worth noting that the scuttle panel is rot-proof plastic, not badly painted steel! You can then see the pathetic grille used by Jeep - it wouldn't stop anything smaller than a marble.



With the grille removed, you can see the sand inside the plenum. It was about 2mm thick and was easily picked up by the blower. I had to remove all this, of course.



The wadding was roughly trimmed and fixed in place on the grille with cable ties before refitting the grille to the bulkhead. Scuttle and wipers back on and we're good to go.


I'm off dune bashing tomorrow evening and on a cross-country camping trip this weekend so we'll see if it works!

Other jobs done recently are fitting upgraded injectors (supposedly better power and economy), doing a better wiring job on the roof lights and fitting a better stereo than the rubbish JVC unit that was in there. I've still got to finish off fitting those suspension bushes........

[CHR15E]

Probably not a mod I'll have to worry about?

Though I guess that depends on the place I find to start going for a play on.

[Richard Moss]

A mud filter might be a better bet! Or going by crome's posts, something like this:


http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/220/ccbb21op3.jpg/

[CHR15E]

Certainly plenty of mud about, I have a plan regarding water as well.

But you'll have to wait till the weekend for that.