Xantasm's 05 Rubi Unlimited Sahara "Limited Edition"

[xantasm]

Ok I deleted my old thread and started a new one after realising that I titled mine in a way that other folks might see it as a thread on all the 05 Rubi Unlimited Sahara's and this one is about mine and what I've done to it and would like to do it. Brief history on my experience with jeeps. I owned an 89 YJ which I bought back in 2004 when I was in FL. I turned out to be the third owner and it was a 2.5L 4 banger which had been 3/4 restored by the previous owner who needed to sell it to avoid his wife getting it in the divorce. After getting out of the Army in 2005 I headed to AZ and when my 2.5L decided to crap out on me I decided to tackle a 2.5 to 4.0 swap. That turned out to be quite an adventure mainly because in the middle of it I discovered I had Meniere's Disease. So I spent two years fighting with converting my jeep in between bouts of severe vertigo. It was fun to say the least. In the middle of that my Dad picked up a 98 XJ with a 4" SOA which he thought was super cool but being sixty years old makes him working on it much kinda not a good idea. So I took on that one too in the middle of converting mine and since the previous owner of it had put on a dirt cheap lift on his, there were numerous things we wound up fixing on it.

Well he traded his XJ off for an 03 Ram in Dec of 07 and I sold my 89 YJ last October for 9 grand which I thought wasnt too bad considering I bought it for 3500, drove it for four years and used it as a reason to stay sane over the last few years dealing with medical problems. My mother picked up an 06 Wrangler X model in Impact Orange in Dec of 06 and being as I am my folks on call mechanic I got to borrow it alot whenever mine was being a PITA. After that I knew I had to have a TJ but ever since I saw the first LJ in the magazines previewing them for 2004 I wanted one but being a buck Sgt. at the time knew there was no way I could afford one. Anyways, after all that here is my thread telling anyone who cares to read about it about my 05 Rubi Sahara LJ. I bought it in January here in Portland and when I saw it in the online ad's I didn't have any idea that it would turn out to be number 2 of 1000. To start off with here is a bit from the unofficial owners registry run by Nefarious with some background pics of my red jeep, the cherokee, and the promo pic of the limited editions:

http://www.rubiconsahara.com/?page_id=4
In 2005, Paramount released the movie Sahara which featured a Jeep Wrangler. As a way to build off the success of the movie, Jeep released a limited production Sahara Edition Rubicon. Only 1000 were produced and each one is numbered. All of them are visually identical, but some were offered in a manual and others an automatic. They are all Light Khaki Unlimiteds. Trim differences over the standard Rubicon include chrome grill, color matched flares, dual tops, Graphite Moab wheels, a Sahara spare tire cover, upgraded seats, Sahara decals, tail light guards, and a numbered dash badge.

[xantasm]

Ok here is a bit about mine, of the 1000 made, it's a 6 speed which is for me deffinately the way to go cause I prefer manual. When I got mine it was missing the rear carpet all except for a small piece cut off on the rear floorboard by the previous owner who had the bright idea to make the rear bed area metal and leave the leg room areas carpeted. I'm an either or kinda person not both so I ordered more carpet. It also came with a chrome grille applique but it was oxidizing a bit so I took it off and polished it a bit but liked the look of it without better so the chrome went to my mother's 06 Impact Orange X. Mine came with a soft top, but being here in the NW I wish I had scored a hard top too. I am really happy though with it cause it runs nice with only 46k on the odomoter and I got it for 13,999. Also for some reason mine came with the dash badge but no fender decals or spare tire cover with the star and wreath sahara logo. Why I will never know, but with some ebay shopping and ordering a new set of decals from the stealership that problem was fixed.

[xantasm]

Since I got my Rubi Sahara LJ Ive done a few things to it:

63mm TB from extremefi on ebay - 120
1" BL from teraflex
2" BB lift from Teraflex
Bestop high rock front bumper with approach roller and chrome tube
Added a warn XD8000i I had leftover from when my dad sold his 98 XJ
A rocdogfab fairlead light bracket to mount my OE driving lights
A rocdogfab fairlead liscense plate bracket since OR requires F/R plates
Teraflex adjustable trackbar's Front and Rear
Teraflex steering stabilizer
RB1 Radio and Mopar Ipod Adapter with a 80Gb Ipod Classic for all my tunes
Electric Life power door locks and windows and a Prestige Alarm from Cartoys to control the locks
A new hi lift to replace my old one and rear roll bar brackets to mount it
A new remote for my warn winch and a bag to carry my recovery gear in as my old one was dead.
Custom hood decal with the star and wreath Sahara Edition logo
Some ebay sqaure lights for my winch gaurd that had the Jeep logo on em

[xantasm]

I havent really gone offraoding in it yet because Im a bit reluctant to tear it up being as its a limited edition and I've never owned anything that wasnt just like every other one you see out there. I also have Meniere's Disease so my bad days limit my desire to wander out adventuring too far wich is a bummer for me cause when I was in the Army I was in the Cavalry and for my first two years I was OPFORS where I got to play bad guy against some of the Army's finest wheeling in a HMMWV modified to look a BRDM (sort of) and was one of the the best in my Company at getting my BRDM behind enemy lines and wreaking havoc all while wheeling the **** out of my HMMWV against tanks, bradley's, 113's, 5-tons, and anything else that was on the field. So I love wheeling through mud, crawling spider trails, and pioneering through places others wont go but I havent gotten back to the point yet where I feel confident about getting back into that. I know, I know whining never accomplishes anything. Anyways, thats the why for's of my ride and I'm either gonna find me a project jeep later this year or finally get bold enough to take this one out and get it dirty. I do all my own work though, so I'm at least out in the garage every chance I get. I plan on lifting it more as I can afford it, getting a swingaway setup for the rear bumper, and getting hard top when I can. I also work on my mother's 06 Impact Orange X Wrangler too since she suffered from a Broken neck back in 2003 and then fought through Breast Cancer last year. So my garage projects are going well, just need to improve on my mud projects. Anyways, here is a pic of my HMMWV when I was in Hohenfels sorry for the quality it was a scan of an old pic, and a pic of my LJ sitting next to my Mothers X which just got some Moabs and MTRs I scored from a guy locally for 600.

[xantasm]

I did a locker mod on my Jeep a few days ago after getting a Jeep Wrangler Builder's Guide on Amazon for 16 bucks about a week ago.

http://www.amazon.com/High-Performance-Wrangler-Builders-1997-2006-Cartech/dp/193249426X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1246479974&sr=8-1

On page 64 there is a great diagram on how to splice the wires for various configurations. The write up recommends using a toggle so you can switch the feature you want on or off. I just went went with some wire tie ins and a peice of wire I had in my garage pile. So now I have locker control front and rear under 10Mph in any transfer gear. Dont know when I would actually need it yet, but I was curious and since I own it I figured why not. There are some great diagrams and write ups in that thing. I'd recommend it to anyone looking to brush up on TJ's and LJ's. I've got quite a lot of mechanical experience but that just goes to show you there's always someone out there who knows little tricks and tips you never thought of.

[alexanderrw]

xantasm,

If you don't mine me asking how much did you pay for your custom hood decal with the star and wreath Sahara Edition logo at decaldriveway.com?

Regards,

[alexanderrw]

xantasm,

Also, Do you or anyone else know where I can find an extra Sahara Dash Badge for my Sahara #0547 of 1000? I have a part number here and description:

-05175335AA Sahara Serialized Nameplate

Regards,

[xantasm]

The hood decal I ordered from decaldriveway.com and it was a custom order so I had to email the address they list on their website for custom requests. It cost me about 50 bucks. As far as the dash badge, the dealership would be the only one that could help you on that and Chrysler did not track them so as far as anyone here knows there is no way to order another badge that we know of yet.

[1990JEEPXJ]

you have #2, well heres #1

AutoTrader.com

[2006_Sport]

lookin forward to a nice build...nice jeep

[xantasm]

Originally Posted by 1990JEEPXJ

you have #2, well heres #1

AutoTrader.com

Nice try, Glockster already called them to find out and thats not #1, its one of 1000 made. Im not going to list my VIN here but I did compare them and there were 4600 VIN numbers placed on production models after mine until that one so even if they lied when Glockster called and its really somehow #1 it would have been given that number after quite a while after mine and probably several others. We already found out that the badges, spare tire covers, light gaurds, and decals were shipped in boxes with the vehicles to the dealers. Since there were only 12596 LJ's ever made covering 2004-2006 that makes it even less of a chance being numbered over 4600 after mine.

[xantasm]

Originally Posted by 2006sport

lookin forward to a nice build...nice jeep

Thanks

[xantasm]

Well I ran into an intersting dilemma with my Jeep lately. If any of you guys reading have been following the Rubi Sahara unlimited FAQ I made you know that another limited edition owner has been doing some work getting people hooked up with their limited edition numbers for the jeeps. My happiness was a bit short lived though for the search for a spare dash badge for mine. I contacted the company (Imperial Marketing) thats been tracking these limited edition badges and was caught off gaurd by what I found. I had a suspicion about this before I contacted them but thought maybe it was just a suspicion. Now I have a moral dilemma about my dash plaque number. My vehicle clearly has badge number 2, which is in the pics I've posted here. Problem is my VIN number according to the company (imperial marketing) that has been holding the spare badges and has a master list by VIN of each vehicles correct limited edition number -----------------------mine was supposed to be #48 but from the dealership it got #2.

So when I got ahold of the company that tracks these things they said at first I could order #48. So I emailed them back with pictures of my dash and my VIN showing #2, and about a week or so went by, they called me and said it was my choice. I could order #2 since mine is currently #2 according to the badge, or I could order #48 which is what my VIN is listed as in their system. I decided that since I had the original badge #2 and I want to keep that number unless whoever has my number gets ahold of me I'd stay with #2 rather than order #48 and have a #2 badge floating around in my stuff in the hopes that I one day run across someone looking for it. I asked what that would mean for wheoever else but they said they couldnt comment on that at this point so I dont know what the future of that will be. After talking with another limited edition owner on here who was upset at the possibility of getting a number other than the one they have listed for my VIN, I see that no matter what choice I make it's likely going to affect someone as there are others here who I'm certain have the wrong numbers while those who have found they have the correct numbers will be offended that I bent the system so to speak. The devil is in the details. Anyways I emailed Steve (the guy at Imperial Marketing) who is the contact to talk to about the badges, and asked that since I ordered the spare #2 badge would my VIN be updated in the system, or the person who's VIN lists them as #2 find there was no spare badge cause I took it?

If the later is the case, I asked him to cancel my order for #2 and I would take the #48 badge and one day whoever if anyone already has #48 they would find theyve been running around with the badge for my Jeep. I figured rather than get any more messages about it I'd ask for the correct number and see where that leads me, Se la Vie. I'll post an update when I am certain what the outcome is going to be for anyone interested.

[xantasm]

Well I put on my currie JJ Short Arm kit today, still waiting for the brown truck to deliver my RE 3.5 springs, mono shocks, and extended braided brake lines from morris4x4. I have to say putting control arms on while having a vertigo day sucks royally and if I werent as stubborn as I am these would have had to wait for a day or so. Popped a meclazyne this evening so hopefully tomorrow the rest of my parts will be here and I can continue on with my lift. I'll post pics of the Jeep when it's all installed. It's going in for an alignment right after and I will also show pics of my new headlights with LED turn signals when I get the lift pics up.

[LAXnyj18]

Jeep looks really nice man, but next time use paragraphs my head hurts from reading that. lol