By request, I’ll talk a little bit about the Jeep build before I get back to boat building.
I’ll start by making the bold claim that the ‘98-99 Jeep Cherokee is by far the most four-wheel-drive capability you can get per dollar spent of any vehicle currently in existence. Simple, lightweight, and reasonably powerful with only a few weak spots that can be easily addressed, if you build smart and pack light, a these little beasts make superb micro-overlanders.
I bought a ‘99 in good shape with low miles, a cheap 2 inch lift, and a ton of aftermarket body armor most of which I stripped off to keep the weight down.
Next thing I did was loaded it a bit past GWVR and drove it at 55 mph in third gear from sea level straight up to 8000 feet to see not IF, but how fast it would overheat and to also to TRY to break any weak or wearing parts. Next I took it to a professional mechanic and a separate professional transmission shop to identify anything damaged or moderately worn and then Liz, Tom, and myself replaced those things including the entire cooling system. I added a tranny cooler and tranny temp gauge while Liz researched the things most likely to break and I bought those parts along with downloading the entire service manual and assembling a simple tool kit to bring on the trip. The point here is that if you break down alone 70 miles down a four-wheel-drive road in Southeast Utah, you, are, seriously, f-ed.
With clever cutting a single 5 x 5 sheet of half-inch birch ply and a 10’ long 1×8 forms a 2 piece platform to protect the carpeting, with two storage boxes beneath it supporting the front edge. After removing the rear seat, spare parts, tools and emergency food fill the space under the front edge of the platform.
I replaced the normal battery with an AGM Odyssey extreme and connected it to 100 W dual tilt roof mounted solar panel via a 100/20 victron Bluetooth enabled MPPT controller. Dash cigarette lighter was replaced with a dual USB with voltage readout and existing 20A outlet was left in place. I plugged a BAFX OBD reader into the OBD port so I could monitor the vitals from my phone.
…..continued next post
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