Jeep XJ build part 2, continued from previous post.
I’ve always gone with dual solar panel dual deep cycle battery set ups in my vehicle builds but the XJ just doesn’t have the weight capacity or space for it, so I was stoked that in the real world my single battery single panel setup running a CPAP and charging tons of things barely drained the battery! We used an ice chest but I’m convinced I could run a 12 V cooler on the set up as well.
A winch is heavy and mostly useless for a solo desert traveler, so instead I put 4 ARB traction boards on the roof. Maxtrax are a bit easier to use, but the ARBs are TALL, making them great for leveling the vehicle in camp.
We also carry a shovel, a fire extinguisher, a Viair (not cheap) compressor/tire inflator, tire plug kit, and a 5 gallon Jerry can.
For shade we mounted a rickety-but-cheap and effective smittybilt 8’ awning on the passenger side so we could still pull out the shade if we ever broke down on the side of the road.
The ARB roof rack is stupidly heavy, but it came with the vehicle. I’d rather have a rhino rack or even some simple Thule bars to save weight. I don’t love the spare tire on the roof but it’s fine for a 29” and swing out tire carriers are just too heavy.
With all that in place it was time to load up food, water (18 gallons), and all our camping gear and drive to the truck scales. Even being as ruthless as possible with weight we were still kissing GWVR on each axle which is acceptable but far from ideal. If I had time to switch out the aftermarket bumpers and the roof rack I could’ve knocked an extra 200 pounds off, getting it closer to recommended payload, which is really where you want to be in a small unibody vehicle.
Any way you slice it, 2 people self-supported in the desert with seven days of water and two days of reserve is a pretty heavy load for an XJ. We drove it pretty carefully the first few days after resupply until it got a bit lighter.
The overall build including the vehicle cost, repairs, and upgrades was around $6500 and took about 10 days total.
To be continued next post….
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