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DirtKars build thread

8K views 119 replies 24 participants last post by  NHfireLJ 
#1 ·
1993 Wrangler 4.0L w/5speed AX15

I've been trying to motivate myself to get a build thread together for a while so I rescued all of my photos from my PB account and will be adding them here as time allows. This could take a bit of time to get from the beginning which was 6-7 years ago to present day but I'll work my way through it.
All of my build info/direction has been gleaned from here on Jeepforum so a big thanks is due to all of you that post your experiences both good and bad! :thumbsup:

Lots of ground to cover getting here from there. :laugh:
 

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#9 ·
Are you working on a flat wiper mod now Larry?
 
#8 ·
Thanks all for the kind words. I'll get going on this shortly.
 
#12 ·
Thanks, Chris. As close as I am to thinking I'm done, I'm confident that she will never be done. :laugh: This is kind of a catch up thread more than a going forward thread although any additions and changes will be in here as well.
 
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#14 ·
So, where do I start?
I rode competition moto for a lot of years, hillclimbs and cross country with District 36. Good times but took a bunch of spills too. In a desperate move of self preservation I decided that it might be time to sell off the bikes and look for another way to get myself and my family into the forest. I started looking into Jeeps and the sickness began. I still miss moto but the truth is I've met more great people Jeeping than I ever did with the bikes. Looking back at the early photos of my Jeep makes me think I must have hit my head harder than I thought. :laugh:
Anyway, here we go.

Here she is when I brought her home. Bucktoothed, some kind of bedliner on the front clip, janky auto store side steps. My wife thought I was crazy but what she didn't understand is that I was looking beyond the surface and at the core of the vehicle. This Jeep had 90k miles on her and purred like a kitten. Ugly as the day is long, yes but structurally sound. No leaks, no noises, just butt ugly. I can fix butt ugly. It's one of my favorite things to do, buy something no one thinks can be turned around and make it unrecognizable. :thumbsup:
 

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#15 ·
I had been lurking on JF for a while before actually joining and was getting the feel for how things should go. It was Anticanman that made me really want to be a part of this Jeep thing we enjoy so much. The post in my sig line is what endeared me to him and made me want to be a part of this community. I reached out to him after reading it and we ended up becoming close friends. Much of what I would do to with the Jeep going forward was hashed out with Nick beforehand. Grease, grease, grease... his favorite thing. Just roll around underneath, you'll find things to do he says... he was right. :laugh:

Like my friend, Luuca, each vehicle I buy gets all of the fluids changed and a thorough inspection- brakes, electrical, all things underneath, before it goes anywhere. I'll skip all of that in this thread. If its preventative maintenance, it's done.

The front bumper had to go because it's ugly, it's little and would not suit my needs as I knew I'd want to flat tow the Jeep from time to time. Enter the Nates 4x4 front bumper. This bumper is beefy and has the requisite D-rings needed for my tow bar. I wired in a trailer pigtail to the brake wiring under the dash utilizing diodes to prevent any backfeeding of power.
 

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#16 ·
I skipped over a now funny fact... the day after I bought the Jeep, I'm talkin' less than 24 hours after... I'm out in the field with my son, he's driving my new toy. 'Go up that hill' I say, after all, it's a Jeep- hills are no problem. Oops. We get about 3/4's of the way up and he breaks traction and panic revs it. BANG!!! There goes the driveline. :surprise: He's freaked out and scared to try to back down the hill, I don't blame him, it was pretty nasty. He's holding the brake while I try to get across the seat to take control... good times. That one unintentional act unleashed much learning about driveline angles, sye's, double cardon shafts, etc. :laugh: The Jeep came with a spare shaft but unfortunately I didn't realize that yet because I hadn't dug through the box of crap the previous owner had in the back. I had mine repaired and set out on a plan to upgrade, the spare was given to a member here.

The Jeep already had a lift, not sure what brand the springs were but the driver rear got wrapped/bent when the boy had her bucking on the hillside. The fix? Order a full set of 3 1/2" BDS springs of course. Wait you can't replace springs and not do shocks? Ok, Bilstiens... see? I've been reading. I bought a set of 5/8" boomerang shackles from Beserk (sp) here on the forums to get my heights right and eliminate the giant beaver teeth she came with. The shackles arrive in raw steel so I cleaned and powder coated them.

I had also read that there could be issues with flat towing so I bought a true neutral plate and put that in while doing the change to an Advanced Adapters Slip Yoke Eliminator kit. A junkyard XJ driveshaft became the donor for the new SYE to mate to the already professionally installed (PO had it done and was a selling point for me) 8.8.



For those keeping track- Full service, springs, shocks, shackles, bumper, SYE, driveshaft... all straight away. Ya, this is gonna get ugly.
 

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#17 ·
As it turns out the rest isn't ugly at all. Well, ugly is subjective I suppose. :laugh:
What I mean is no catastrophic damage or issues followed the initial broken driveshaft. I hope typing that aloud doesn't prove to be a jinx... All future projects are to be done at my leisure, not because I had to rather because I wanted to which is the way it should be if you ask me.

In no particular order-

Upgrading the 'latch' on the rear bumper. It was a pin and made all kinds of noise. This would be my first welding project and proved to be a nice little project to cut my teeth on.
I built a stop out of box tube and some plate then put a latch on it, I don't remember where I got it but I believe they are from McMaster/Carr. It's a very stout latch and has proved strong over the years.
I trimmed the rubber bumper on the tailgate to get the tire rack to be stable against the gate as well.
 

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#18 ·
Looking back through my photos it seems that I replaced that horrific front clip with one that had not been bed lined before I did the suspension. The set that I took off sold quick, who knew Jeep parts would be so easy to sell...
 

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#19 ·
The TJ flare mod followed the front clip replacement. Soon after that is when the suspension was changed out. Yikes! Look at that belly skid hanging down... that's gotta go. And it did when the SYE went in. KC lites, hi-lift on the hood... what a newb!
 

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#22 ·
Not parking lites but turn signals. I'm going to utilize the holes in the MetalCloak fender wells that are designed for just that. They actually sell a pair of leds that I should have gotten when I picked up the fenders but I had stars in my eyes that day and completely forgot about them.
 
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#26 ·
:laugh: Yep, that's her right now in the first pic. I'm planning on painting the hard doors this week then get my hardtop back on very soon.
 
#27 ·
A set of home brew sliders was in there somewhere. I started with flat stock and made an L shaped slider. I mounted that up and ran it for a while until I had the time to add the tubes. Fun with angles and learning to notch. Turns out it was easier than I anticipated, I just used a proper sized hole saw and planned out where the notch was going to land lengthwise. I have a Hobart 187 welder and this Jeep offers plenty of opportunities to learn what it's capable of. Having said that, I am by no means a 'welder' - more of a 'grinder'. :laugh:
 

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#28 ·
Next up, cage upgrade. I went with the Trail Gear add on kit. I don't care much for the down tubes as they are in the way of the parking brake and block usage of a window crank. I use the cage in the months that I'm using a soft top or the bikini top and switch to the normal family roll bar when it's time for the full doors and hardtop. The parking brake is accessible just not easy.
 

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#29 ·
Here's a couple of small sheet metal projects.
First up is a pair of heat shields originally designed by a member here, sentinal02. I love these things and believe they should be in a Jeep from the factory. They allow you to decide where the air goes, either up to clear the windshield of toward the cab. Wonderful.
Here's the original write-up.
http://www.jeepforum.com/forum/f12/better-heat-yj-122052/

Next is a simple problem solver. I needed a way to mount my front plate and didn't want to drill it onto my new bumper. This is an easy one, just some sheet metal and a set of Mag Light holders. Plate is cut to the size of a license plate and riveted to the mag light holders. That snaps onto the winch fair lead rollers.
 

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