What to do

[ValiumMm]

Hey guys, Ive had my jeep for about 2 months now, and been on about 4 camping trips and another few just day 4wd trips, and getting abit serious now. Anyways been saving up abit and i have about $4.5K to play with. At the moment i have stock 97 XJ. no bullbar either.

what do you guys recommend. I do alot of Sand duning at stockton and alot of trips to colo river and watagans.

So not sure whats the best way to go for either
Lift kit with bigger wheels
ARB air locker, diff locks
Bullbar, SPotties.

Im definately geting a snorkle, so deduct 700 from that.

But would like to know what you guys think,

Peace, ALex

[ValiumMm]

oh and my rocksliders too

[casey]

I would probably get some rock sliders first to protect the body before you start upgrading other parts that will let you get your jeep into harder to reach areas.

As for the rest, it depends on whats important to you.. and the kind of driving you do really. Here's what we did with our JK.. it might help you work out what you want.

We got a bullbar only because we wanted a winch - the JK front bumper (butt ugly as it is) is pretty resilient to bumps, not sure what the XJ one is like.

We only have All Terrain tyres, but our lockers (that came with the jeep) have gotten us through some places that even bigger and better mud tyre jeeps couldn't get through.

Spotties would be nice to have, because the JK lights are pretty weak and have a bizzare light spread (why did they think I would want to be looking in the trees whilst driving at night with high beam on?), but its rare that we drive offroad at night so its not high on our list.

Next on our list for mods is lift kit and bigger mud tyres :)

[Steve F]

I'd go lift, tyres and sliders first. If you can keep all the wheels on the ground and have decent clearance and tyres you'll do fine and learn a lot about how to drive the Jeep. My XJ has no lockers and has been places fully locked vehicles with less flex cant go. When you lock it you'll probably want to do the gearing as well and that will all depend on the size tyres you're running.

Cheers
Steve

[casey]

Get some front sway bar quick disconnects too.

[Wolfe]

recovery recovery recovery ???

[sir_camel]

recovery recovery recovery ???

Do you mean recovery points wolfey? ;)