The Big Chief

This is my 1979 Jeep Cherokee. I bought this thing right before my 30th birthday party because my 95 ZJ crapped out on me and my lovely wife said, hey why don’t you just buy another jeep? This was because we had this big party planned at North Idaho Mud and Crawl(NIMAC), and it was very much dependent on me having something to wheel. That might not be exactly what she said, but it’s how I interpreted it so nonetheless, I became the proud owner of this old chunk of iron. When I got it, it had the stock AMC 360, th400, Borg-warner quadratic, stock dana 44s, a 4″ rancho lift kit, and some 30×9.50 BFG all terrains. I immediately took it to a tire shop and got the left over 33×12.50 Maxxis Bighorns from the ol’ ZJ thrown on, and headed out to NIMAC the next day. I barely knew anything about this jeep, but the best way to learn about a rig is to wheel the piss out of it. The jeep was amazing, and the more I wheeled it, the better it got. I pulled the sway bars off, fixed up the vacuum lines for the 4×4, and did some mild tuning at the event. Since then, a lot has changed on the Big Chief. Its got an Eaton HO72 rear end, a full width 8 lug dana 44 front, each stuffed with 4.56:1 gears. Its got a custom shackle flip in the rear with 63″ chevy springs and stretched 4″, SOA conversion in the front with 3″ rancho lift springs from a K5 blazer and stretched 1.5″. Light bar, winch, grand Cherokee seats, roll bar, and manual shift linkage for the Borg-warner. Oh yeah, and its on 37″ tires. I’m in the middle of freshening up the AMC 360, and then will be moving on to the th400 and ditching that quadratrac for an np203/205 doubler. Should be one mean machine! Check out the Big Chief playlist on youtube! #daysofpainandvictory #fullsizejeep #jeepcherokee #wagoneer #amc360 https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLw6wC_DocXDe3NHE1msU9d9qY_em75ISA