After 5 years of driving and loving her 1995 XJ, my daughter has decided to move on. The plan was always to get her something newer when she graduated college, but we got such a lousy trade-in offer on our 2014 Buick Encore that we decided to give it to her a semester early. She lost a lot of cool factor, but got ABS, power, leather, heated seats, etc. plus 3 more years of bumper-to-bumper warranty, perfect for the poor college graduate.
That means that there is an XJ in my driveway with 130,000 miles that runs well, has many, many new parts, has almost no rust and is 4WD. What to do, what to do? She's part of the family so selling her is out. Having a rugged 4WD for fun off-road trips would be good right? I'm not talking Moab here, more like dirt roads to camp sites. Invest in some off-road tires on the stock suspension and enjoy? Cheap 2" lift and even bigger wheels/tires? Swap parts from some other version with more off-road ability?
What's the budget way to improve the XJ?
(I haver been reading other XJ threads here and trolling local yards and CL for cheap parts)
Keith Tanner will be along shortly to get you sorted out. Or that guy in Arkansas. Big daddy lee maybe?
Small (2-3 inches) lift and 31x10.5 tires will get you just about anywhere you want to go, for not a ton of money. Anything bigger than that and you're looking at pinion angles, gears, and other upgrades. It's a slippery slope. I miss my XJ. They're great vehicles.
I am not an XJ expert, I am a guy who has experience with one XJ :)
But almost every XJ is built this way. They are the budget 4x4. So you'll have no trouble finding ideas or swaps. The tricky part will be stopping before you ruin the truck as a street vehicle. And "dirt roads to campsites" is something an XJ can do in pure factory form. So I'd be tempted to just start using it as-is and see if it can't do what you want it to do already.
JeremyJ said:
Small (2-3 inches) lift and 31x10.5 tires will get you just about anywhere you want to go, for not a ton of money. Anything bigger than that and you're looking at pinion angles, gears, and other upgrades. It's a slippery slope. I miss my XJ. They're great vehicles.
This.
IMO, put it on 31s and leave as much alone as you can, or jump straight to 1 tons and 40s.
I did a budget lift on my XJ. It came with pucks for an extra 1.75" in the front, but nothing had been done with the rear. I have an aversion to just using spacers, so I wanted to raise the back with springs. A friend gave me an old set of stock wrangler rear leaf springs. I shuffled them. There are 5 springs in a pack. Top, middle, and bottom (1, 3, and 5) were XJ springs. The other two (2 and 4) were the thicker Wrangler springs. That gave me an extra 2" in the back (about even when loaded with camping gear). I did need shims to set the pinion angle back to spec, though.
I am going to assume you have the auto, since so many are, but if you have a manual there are some JY upgrades there, as well.
By the way, there are plenty of XJ's doing just fine in Moab. It is a popular trail rig.
Totally gratuitous XJ in Moab shots for inspiration! 30" tires, a 2" lift (I think), Fox shocks. Very competent little rig.
Most XJs that live in/near Moab are barely streetable and appear to be on the edge of collapse. Such is the nature of that area.
Not Moab, don't care.
11GTCS
HalfDork
3/12/21 4:25 p.m.
I agree, a stock 4x4 XJ with a good set of AT tires is highly capable.
jgrewe
Reader
3/12/21 6:43 p.m.
I'm on XJ #3 in my life. 4.0L, auto,3" lift, tires are something metric close to 31's. The only thing I can think of that they NEED when you get to where this one is a good trans cooler. One nice thing with a lift is to do the hack-n-tap slip yoke elimination and put a front driveshaft on the back. Any kind of lift will shorten your u joint life and risk vibes, S-Y elim helps those issues.
I'd do very little to it. According to Matt's Off-road Recovery on YouTube, "...a stock XJ won't wheel any better than much anything else. Add 2 inches of lift and a lunchbox locker and suddenly you have something that will out wheel almost Everything else..."
Small lift, 31" tires, some kind of lockers (maybe E-Locker in front?), roof basket, put an awning on the roof bar, off-road lights. Double check your driveshaft- I've heard some of them get wonky if they're higher mileage and then get used with a lift, but I may be conflating that with lifting more than 4".
Find better front seats. I'm sure there's info online, but the seats in my friend's started getting uncomfortable after 40 minutes or so. Note: Cloth Jeep Liberty seats are just as bad.
You've gotten plenty of decent advice already. I hope you enjoy it. I tend to avoid XJ threads anymore, I seem to be in the minority around here, and found the idea of the XJ to be much better than the reality of the XJ.
I don't fit, it's way smaller inside than it looks from the outside, it's not comfortable, and I bought a high mileage, rusty example, that was just a nickle and dime perpetual project. I'm a Jeep guy, but should have just got a 4runner or Yukon, hind sight and what not.
I ran out of room at our house, so our XJ was moved out to our property about a year ago, it's no longer insured or registered, and is serving as dry storage for boxes of random stuff.
You can't fit much of a tire without a large lift, or a lot of fender trimming. If you've got a Dana 35 rear you don't want much tire anyway. I put a 3.5" Rubicon Express lift on ours, and fit 265/75-16 tires, that's almost 32" and the front tires rub a little at full lock.
Spend some time with it, and decide if it's really something you want to spend time and money on, they're cheap, and have a tremendous aftermarket, but they're cheap for a reason.
I may be broken, since I also don't think the Miata is always "the answer," I get why folks like it, it's just not for me. YMMV.
