Budget Jeep

Today. How to turn your daily driver into a dedicated off Roader. Part, one of our cheap Jeep build up on a budget. Plus the legend of Bigfoot Gearhead style on its 30th anniversary Xtreme 4x4 starts now.

Welcome to Xtreme 4x4 in our real world. Build up cheap Jeep. We know what it's like. You choose to have a dedicated trail rig so you park your daily driver and pick up another truck.

The only problem is cash is low. So you gotta build your project really slow and waiting three or four years to get it done

isn't our idea of fun. So today we're gonna take that CJ seven and show you how you can build a comparable crawler with almost no cash.

We've had this Jeep around the shop for a while,

put up

what

we've even taken it out and had some fun with it, but we've made the decision

the plates are coming off

and the CJ from here on out is trail only. If you search some internet auction sites for the classified ads, you can find one of these Jeeps for around 2500 to $3500 less the cost of the Jeep. We plan to spend no more than five grand today. We plan on addressing suspension, wheels and tires lockers and body protection

and then we're gonna test it,

but before we test it, we gotta have something to test it with.

And that's why we're gonna build an RT I Ramp.

RT I stands for Ramp Travel Index. And if you've been to organized off road events, more than likely you've seen RT I ramp set up on day one of the competition

like this one here at last year's top truck challenge.

What you saw on that tape when those trucks were being measured is they're actually being scored. And what that means is they take the distance, vehicle travels up the ramp divide that by the wheel base multiply it by 1000 and that's gonna equal the RT I

with the mass amounts of super flexible suspensions available. It's more common for people to score a perfect 1000.

So to make it more difficult, they're increasing the angle of the ramp.

We are going to use a pretty standard 20 degree ramp in this shop. After it's built, we will score the CJ to get a baseline.

The first thing we did was map out our ramp design on the floor.

Then we cut the steel to fit the design

and began tacking it together.

Now, the next thing we have to do is solve for the height of our ramp. We know that we're going to build it at a 20 degree angle and that the base is 15 ft long. So using some simple trigonometry, I found out it's 5.45 ft tall. Now, don't let the word trigonometry worry you. If math wasn't your best subject in high school, you can go on the internet and find right angle, triangle calculators. That'll do all the math for you

to save some time. We pre cut the rest of the metal. So this should go together pretty smoothly

with a ramp coming together. Ian will measure for the plate surface while I finish up.

Yeah.

Freeze. Hold it right there.

All right. Confession time. You guys know we don't build these trucks or make these shows in just one day. This little piece of tape is the last we're gonna see of Jessi for this week.

Poor Jessey lasted as long as she could

until our producer rushed her to the emergency room with severe stomach pain.

Now, a few hours later she had her appendix removed. Now, don't worry, she's doing fine. She's gonna be in the hospital for a couple of days and I know we're all gonna miss her. But for us, the reality is show's gotta go on.

So

with the ramp built, we can test our Jeep to get a baseline. Our P A Hutch is gonna guide me up.

Hold it. You're off,

I guess. Uh

So it's about as high as it's gonna get, we don't have to worry about scoring a perfect 1000 with this truck, but don't worry during the break, we'll calculate what we got. And by the end of the show you're gonna see a dramatic improvement

this market on there. What do we get?

That's not bad

up. Next Bigfoot turns 30 this year, we'll meet the creator and dip into the archives of this monster truck legend. When Xtreme 4x4 continues,

the Xtreme 4x4 event of the week is brought to you by Warren. Number one in Winches.

I've got to say a 468 isn't that great a score on the ramp, but it's a good start. And once we throw some lockers and some flexible suspension at that Jeep, you'll see that number change greatly. But first, we're going to the four wheel Jamboree in Indianapolis where the most popular attraction has always been and always will be monster trucks,

trucks, trucks and more trucks are what the traveling four wheel jamborees are about.

But when the monster trucks hit the track,

the rabid four wheel Jamboree fans go insane.

Hard to explain. It's just an adrenaline rush out of this world. I mean, we're out there running these 10,000 pound trucks flying over cars banging gears. I mean, it's awesome. You can hear the crowd ain't nothing like it and no truck whips them into a frenzy like Bigfoot.

You may look like your average middle aged gearhead. But 30 years ago Bob Chandler had an idea that would change the truck world forever.

You

want

when the mild mannered Missourian created the first monster truck. Little. Did he know world domination was only a few car crushes away.

It was an advertising tool for my four wheel drive shop. You know, and I put all kinds of products on it. Big tires, robar lights and all that thing. So

you want to show off what you have and that's what it started out as a tool. I'd race it every weekend. Come back with a broke and my

manager called me Bigfoot because I couldn't a foot out of the throttle.

We stuck the name on the truck and it fit the truck as Bigfoot's popularity grew. So did the truck, I kept breaking things. So you put bigger axles in it,

ok. Then you're doing ok for a while. So then you put bigger tires on it so you can go more places, then you don't enough power. So then you put a bigger engine in it. And so just a cycle car crushing gave way to racing in the late eighties

and like mad scientists, Chandler and crew set out to design the most advanced monster truck the world had ever seen.

This truck is a stage three, it's two chassis, nitrogen gas shocks and we went from, from four inches of suspension travel. Now we're running as much as 30 inches of suspension

and they bypass shocks and it's just much, much easier on a driver, much easier on a truck.

Dan Runte has been a Bigfoot driver for 15 years. I've seen a lot of changes

these trucks with the safety and the suspension and everything that Bob has put into them.

It's just, it's, it's a lot more comfortable to drive, you know, and it's not as hard on a driver in 1999 Runte proved to the world that these machines are more of a technical marvel than a Frankenstein gimmick. It's in the world's Guinness Book of Records, you know, at 202 ft, we jumped a grounded Boeing 727

10,000 pounds and not supposed to fly.

We had it down where we knew what size ramp, we knew the length of the ramp and we knew what speed he had to go.

And he says, when I saw that plane in front of me, he says, I didn't care about the speed. I just put my foot to the floor. So instead of 60 like we figured he went 70

he was 13 ft over the top of the plane as far as

the highlight of working a Bigfoot. That's probably something I'm pretty proud of from World records to world titles.

Hollywood movies, to best selling toys, Bigfoot is more than a truck. It's an American institution.

I didn't have the intention of building a monster truck when I started. It just happened

and I really think that if I didn't do it, somebody else would have. It was time. Maybe I'm modest. But that's the way I feel

today. There are almost 100 monster trucks competing around the world, but none are as loved as Bob Chandler's Ford. My cousins lived up by past Bigfoot shop drive by there when I was a kid. It was like that, you know, it just enticed me, you know, it just

was something cool. I don't know. Now we're doing it. The truck was, was popular with kids. I knew that from the very beginning and, and they keep, everybody asked me why, I don't know why, you know, it's, it's their, their brother or their dad's truck only on steroids or something, you know. But kids like big things

with almost 1000 appearances each year. Bigfoot's popularity shows no sign of letting up.

As for Bob Chandler, his place in Motorsports history is secure. I see a crowd there and I think, well, maybe that's something to do with bringing him here and that I do feel good about that. And somewhere the other day instead of the father and master called me the grandfather and says, I guess that's, that's the way it happened.

Bob Chandler and his crew have seven Bigfoots travel around North America and they've even got one in the UK.

If you want to see one in person, check out a four wheel Jamboree, we'll put that information on the website after the show.

Yeah, that's awesome.

For more information on anything you've seen today. Check us out online Xtreme 4x4, tv.com.

Welcome back to Xtreme 4x4 in our cheap Jeep build up. If you remember we're taking this 82 Jeep C JSE

and turn it into a true off road machine. So Hutch is pulling the license plate because we're not going to need it for the road anymore. When we rolled this thing up that articulation ramp, when this left rear tire left the ground, we stopped moving. And that's because this thing has an open diff in the rear. So to solve that, we're going to put in some lockers.

Now, when you're on a budget and you're thinking of lockers, you don't need to dump a grand into your axle just to lock it up. You can go ahead and get these genuine gear quick locks. This assembly is simply going to replace all the internal gears inside that differential.

The outer

piece is gonna spl onto the axle and then when the wheel starts to spin, you're actually gonna engage these teeth

that's gonna lock that whole rear axle together. But the best thing for us at 300 bucks is the cost per axle and easy to install.

Once the axles are free, we can remove the inspection cover

and then pull out the carrier.

Let's see

with the internal gears out of the carrier.

You prep the quick locks by installing the pins into the elongated holes with some grease.

Then the clutch spacers

and clutches are placed in the carrier,

the springs and pins are aligned and installed,

then the carrier is reassembled

and you bolt it back into the axle

twerking, the cap bolts

and reassembling the brake system,

then do the same thing up front

and that about does it lockers front and rear. And if you have a look inside that diff, you can see how this thing works

as you can see. Now these two axles are locked together when I turn this side.

But when you turn the wheel, your wheels have to travel at different speeds. So I'll get hutch to grab that far side.

You got it, got it.

Now, when I turn the wheel, now you're gonna hear a click.

That's that quick lock slipping.

You're gonna hear that whenever you turn the wheel and the steering is gonna feel a little bit stiffer. But the reality is it's a small price to pay for a locked front diff.

And now it's time to tackle the suspension. We're going to perform a pretty typical change to this and that's called a spring over axle. We're gonna take this leaf spring pad and mount it to the top side of this axle tube.

The jeep comes from the factory with the axle on top of the spring and we're going to move that axle to the underside that's gonna give us more clearance under the body and it's also going to give us a little bit of lift. Best thing is it only costs like 50 bucks through the whole truck

after unbolting the leaf spring,

lower the differential and move the spring to the top side

weld on the new spring purchases

and put it all back together. It's that simple.

Welcome back to extreme. As you can see, this cheap Jeep build up is uh a lot of work, especially without Jessey around.

She had to be rushed to the hospital in the middle of this project. Doctors pulled her appendix out, but don't worry, she's still feisty and doing fine. We sent her some reading material to make sure she wouldn't get bored

and uh she'll hopefully be back with us next week, maybe just on light duty though. Get

well

soon, Jessi,

just a few more pieces on this Jeep and it's ready to go back on that RT I ramp.

Now the spring over lift is going to give us height for tires. But this Terra

Flex revolver shackle is gonna help us with articulation. When we unload that tire, it's gonna stretch that spring back out to keep it on the ground.

And then when you put pressure back on the wheel, it's gonna close back up to get back to ride height.

The best thing about this is, it replaces the stock piece and it's only 200 bucks to get that much articulation in an axle is a steel,

they simply bolt in place of the stock shackles on the Jeep.

So John from

Pups, he wants to know

why you always work on brand new trucks.

Well, because it's easier,

they don't smell like waffles.

Yeah.

All right.

The shackles on

it's time to deal with the wheels and tires. Now everybody loves bead locks. They're a great idea.

Not everyone can afford bead locks. But the nice thing is if you have a steel wheel

like this one that we picked up from pro Comp

and one of these bead lock kits that we got from rock stompers, you can turn any steel wheel into a bead lock. The inside ring simply welds to the rim

and then the outside ring bolts on.

Now

it's 32 bolts per tire.

Four tires.

It's 100 and 28 bolts.

Yeah, I miss Jessi.

You simply grind off the paint,

install the new inner lock ring and weld away

be locks will allow you to air down the tire for increased traction. Plus changing a tire on the trail becomes a lot easier.

Thank

you.

Uh,

for trail only tires. A lot of it boils down to personal preference. We've always had good luck with the super swamp or Boers for muddy, loose gravel and wet rocks kind of terrain.

How's that tire

there?

Oh, I'd say so.

All right. Let's check this out.

If you remember last time we only went 44 inches with this truck.

Let's see what we get now,

you got tape in.

Thanks.

Good.

92 inches.

The Jeeps RT I before today was 468. So take our new distance traveled 92 inches

divided by the wheel base of 94 inches

multiply that by 1000. And we come up with a new RT I score of 979.

And although that's an impressive number, the real icing on this cake is that front axle articulation.

And that's thanks to these shackles, you can see this one's still compressed fully.

But when the wheel travels up the ramp, this one opens up to let that axle twist.

Now, we really did stick to our budget on this one.

We drop $600 on the lockers,

$50 on the spring over lift $400 on shackles,

1000 on tires and wheels and 320 on the bead locks for a grand total of 2370 bucks.

Now, that's well underneath the five grand that we told you we spent.

And you know, the reality is, although it was a lot of work and we were on the floor and it was dirty and smelly

when you can take an old rig like this and turn into a hardcore off road truck.

That's what it's all about.