Overland XJ Project:

[Sir Sam]

I've been looking at having some vehicles as short term rentals. Turo lets you rent out vehicles just as a vehicle rental, and there are some other sites that let you rent out campers and such. 

Some of these things are pretty big money, but in purchase and in rental fees a day. I've decided I want to test the waters of this business with a low upfront cost vehicle setup. 

For this I'm going to build an XJ with a Roof Top Tent and misc camping gear. The goal is to provide all the gear someone needs for an overlanding vacation in Colorado, just pick up the vehicle, stop at the grocery store, and head for the hills. 

So I picked up this super clean XJ that needs a motor. Its been really really well taken care of, not a spot of rust on it, its hard to believe it has 270k on it. It has a 3-4 inch RE lift on it, a 231 with SYE, and some new stock rear springs(needs rear lift!). 

I need to finish up my cousins Jeep before I tear into it:

It's making a terrible racket, I was hoping it was top end in the head, but nothing seems off in the head, so I'm thinking its a rod knock even though it sounds much higher, maybe its a problem in a piston/wrist pin? Who knock but ill figure it out when I tear down the engine and rebuild it. 

[Sir Sam]

So besides the XJ side of the project there is the overlanding side of the project. I'm going in a little different direction than what I would do personally, because I'm trying to think like the masses that go overlanding/glamping (Cobound?). So I picked up this lightly used, reportedly 6 times, Thule Tepui Roof Top Tent. It also came with a couple of extras. Sum together this would be about $2700 new, I bought it for $1500. Not cheap, but I'm pleased with the price, I think its depreciated enough I could always break even on reselling the tent if I needed to. 

Currently it is installed on my dads Jeep for testing before moving to the XJ permanently.

Very spacious inside:

[scaleless]

The problem with renting out vehicles for overlanding is the kind of people who will rent them; most people who are interested and experienced in overlanding will have a rig of their own that will work, and the potential customers left over are the kind who have too much confidence and not enough skill.  It's a similar problem as with rental exotics.  But I wish you luck!

[neohic]

Interesting idea. Staying tuned.