Rhino Conversion: '79 Cherokee

[mathman]

Was planning on putting a rhino grill on my J-20 so had been collecting the bits and pieces needed. Then after getting the Cherokee and more thought on the J-20 I decided that the color I plan on using on the J-20 would go better with the Razor and the Cherokee was the one in need of the rhino grill. I'm not a fan of the square headlights the '79 Cherokee had so they had to go - so either rhino or razor was going on it. I picked up a complete front core support, fascia panel, headlights, and grill earlier this year. In the process of cleaning up the engine compartment, I started pulling off the front and comparing the '79 setup with the rhino setup.

First up is the RH side of the radiator core support. I had delusions of using the rhino core support. Yep, pretty much delusional in that. Looks like there were changes made to accommodate a change in the inner fender for the battery. The depression behind the headlight is different and some of the bolts are in different locations. The bolt holes circled in green seem to be in the same location, the ones in yellow were moved. And the two in red on the rhino version aren't on the '79 version. The '79 version isn't as wide either. Looks like I'll be using the '79 version, at least the panels. I'm still looking at possibly using the rhino top panel - it looks like I can cut the spot welds and graft the rhino version onto the '79 panel.





I'll add more pictures as I get further along - going to take a while though...

[mathman]

The LH panel of the core supports are a bit closer to being the same with the exception that the '79 version is narrower. The bolt hole circled in yellow seems to be the only difference.





Next group of pictures will be of the center section...

[mathman]

A view from the leading edge of the top center section, the '79 version is on top, the Rhino is on bottom. Definitely a different profile with the '79 being much flatter.




The view from the top of the center sections, again with the '79 on top. Were the indentations on the leading edge of the '79 there because of the grill? (Gave away the grill so I can't check it out anymore. ) I'm leaning towards using the top piece off of the Rhino but I'll leave that decision for later.




Might be a while before I add to this, not sure when I'll get back to work on the Cherokee.