I agree - that makes the back of the rig look gnarly. And I love seeing the 14 bolt under there. I’m knocking on the door of that club myself.

And congratulations on the new addition. I’m into the grandkid stage now, and it’s pretty cool.

 

I agree - that makes the back of the rig look gnarly. And I love seeing the 14 bolt under there. I'm knocking on the door of that club myself.

And congratulations on the new addition. I'm into the grandkid stage now, and it's pretty cool.

Thanks!

And I'm a fan of the 14b's, they are huge, but so easy to work with and so hard to break!

 

I can not believe how nice those corners turned out great work on the build !

 

Appreciate it! Thanks for digging back into the archives to get them knocked out for me! Definitely gets the look closer to complete.

 

Baby is coming on Monday so I decided to use my Friday off to tackle a project. I was debating painting or even vinyl wrapping the whole Jeep, but decided it was too cold and wet to paint.

Instead I tackled my skid plate. I've had a 3x4 sheet of .250 aluminum sitting in the garage for months, destined to be a skid, just hadn't tackled designing it. Originally it was going to be a super simple plate on the bottom, just to cover the essentials. But since my buddy works at Artec and mans the press brakes he was willing to do some bending for me during his off hours. So I designed something cooler.

Couple hours under the Jeep with a straight edge, tape measure, angle finder and a piece of flat plate and I had a design I was happy with. Little bit of math to calculate proper coverage and I went for it today.

Several relief holes for the bends and then lots of plasma cutting. If you don't know, as I didn't, thick aluminum kinda sucks to cut. It does cut, but it likes to splash up and gum the tip of its not held perfectly. This ended up meaning I freehanded all the cuts because it was easier to keep the top level. Overall it was pretty good.

Then tonight I took it over to Artec to use their big boy toys.

Took about an hour and a half of setting and moving dies, but it took shape.

And the final product.

Survey says: it fits like a freaking glove! All the anticipated mounting locations line up, it covers everything, and it looks pretty darn good!

Hard to tell in the dark, but it doesn't say down, or sacrifice any clearance beyond the .250 plate thickness. It covers the entire belly and folds around the oil pan.

I had originally designed one that would bend around the trans body, since that is the lowest point, but in the end it was over complicated and would have been hard to do right. The solution now is to add a ever so slightly bent plate over that hole and my buddy will help me Tig weld it on, as wel as Tig weld some of the recess cuts. Then I will be recessing Allen head bolts to mount it so it's got a totally smooth bottom and weld a few tabs on and it will be perfect. Pretty excited about this little step.

 

Really a nice piece of work. Definitely one of a kind, and looks like something you would buy from one of the more sophisticated off road joints.

Very cool.

 

It sure is nice to have access to a tool like that. It turned out great. I built mine out of 2 layers of 1/8" steel so I was able to do all the bends I wanted.

 

Ok, first things first, I have a new little wheeling buddy. My son Nixon was born Jan 25th and everyone is healthy. Exciting, exhausting times!

I took a couple weeks off and between diaper changes and helping momma out I was able to sneak in a project that was mostly done in the house.

For years the wiring in the Jeep has been an eyesore that has been steadily declining. As I remove things and make everything more basic there has become a rats nest of useless wires, junky tie ins, things that don't work.. etc, etc.

The original plan was to just clean things up and refresh the dash, but as these things go it snowballed quickly, so rather than bore you with every detail I'll do the cliff notes version:

Started by designing a dash that mounted to the cage, 1" tube, 16ga sheet.

Ordered tons of stuff for wiring/gauges buttons etc.

Removed all of the rats nest from the firewall back.

I made a whole new fuse/relay panel to run all the lights and accessories I'm adding

Welded and painted things, then worked inside to wire the panel and the dash.

Ran lots of wires for a full array of lights for night wheeling, used zillions of little zip ties to bundle each wire and create cohesive wire bundles. I then cut all the zip ties out and wrapped with fabric look wrap to make nice, chunky bundles that you can't see.

Also installed a kill switch that isolates the ground circuit. This has both winches and all the chassis grounds going to an HD distribution block that is on the kill switch. A little extra safety.

 

To much for one post so the continuation. Eventually I was able to final mount the dash, some of the key features were the following: winches wired to dash, battery kill switch, push button start, an array of off-road lights, and gauges that actually work! Voltage, oil pressure and coolant temp. Very basic.

In the effort for basic I had also desecrated the stock steering column, mostly so I could ditch all the wiring for a simpler setup, its cleaner, has a different quick release wheel and is easy to service if needed. It's got the original shaft bearing at the firewall and a heim style bearing at the dash. It has a little play, but not more than the stock column did. I can also adjust it if want it closer or further away from the seating position.

Oh, and I have brake lights now! Turn signals need some tweaking though. I have them on an independent repeater to a dash switch, but it's triggering both lights for some reason, bugs to work out.

Anyways, the final product:

It's not perfect, but it's worlds better than what it was both in looks, functionality and serviceability. I'm quite excited to get out and use it!

Oh, and I have lighting now!

I've always hated night wheeling because I can never see, hopefully this is a game changer!

Still need to finish the skid and then onto the next project on this thing.

 

Tanner - you really need to stop doing things half-way...

That's really cool. I bet that really stiffens up the cage as well. Clean, functional and totally trick. Beautiful work.

Although you may have misrouted the hot wire going through the heim joint. [emoji6]

And congratulations on the new little one. Future wheeler in the making.

 

Appreciate it, it's nice to be at a stage on this build where I can worry about looks and style, rather than just getting it on its wheels. Much more will come in time I'm sure.

 

Awesome build!

 

I appreciate that!

 

You will love night wheeling when you can see!

 

It will be a game changer!

 

I'm glad Nixon and Momma are doing well.

The dash turned out good. I assume you are going to label those switches at some point?

 

Appreciate that!

Actually I probably won't label them. I originally did put labels on, but it looked so tacky that I took them off. The layout is actually really easy to remember though. If I find labels that look good then I may add them, but for now I can remember them.

 

One little upgrade that I'm really stoked on, even if my wife doesn't understand it. My buddy who is doing a super fancy buggy build asked me if I was interested in buying his steering wheel. Mine works fine, but it is falling apart, has a very old rubber grip and is filthy and rusty. And I've been eyeballing his for a minute. He offered it to me at a price I couldn't refuse and now it's a done deal!

It's a grant in a custom color scheme with custom stitching, one of a kind, but it doesn't match his color scheme. I must say, it adds that extra bit off class to the interior that it really needs!

 

Quick little re-configuration I tackled today. When I did the front bump stops last year, for some reason I cannot recall I made them super tall. In all my real world testing I was leaving about 2" of uptravel on the table. Since the next goal is to re-valve the front coilovers I need to have that uptravel to prevent constantly bottoming out.

So out with the plasma and I blasted off the massive chunks I built on there before. As you can see, it was quite a bit.

I then made some plates out of 3/16 angle iron, drilled mounting holes, welded nuts on the backside and hole sawed the frame to accommodate the captured nuts, welded it all together, little spray paint and viola, I have uptravel now!

It's not big thing, but the little things kinda make or break a rig. Hopefully this gives me the space I need to drastically soften up my compression. I tested it with the suck down and aside from needing to very slightly rotate my hydro assist, it all clears fine. I think before I was just being excessively safe.

 

Ever look at using pneumatic bumps, Tanner?

 

Absolutely, it's in the future plans, but what I found is that I can't fit them outside of the frame rails like I wanted to, due to clearance issues with the coilovers. I'll likely French the mounts into the inside of the frame rails, but it will require re-working several things and may require pulling the motor to do it right, just haven't felt ambitious enough to tackle it yet. Once I'm happy with my coilover tuning I'll probably circle back to them.

 

I really like your steering wheel

 

Hey man did you have some issues on “The Maze”? I’m pretty sure I saw your Jeep on Matt’s Off-road Recovery. What happened to the hub assembly?


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Yeah.... That Jeep is all over the YouTubes. I saw it on Ohio Off Road's video too, It was being drug out with a car hood for a front tire.

 

Yeah I saw it on Ohio Offroad as well. I am sure there is a wild story behind the whole situation.

 

Tanner posted it on Facebook. He apparently has forgotten about the forum.

Ahem... Tanner... are you there?

 

Haha, I’m here, I’m here, just not as much lately! Been busy with new baby and new house and stuff. Haven’t been out wheeling as much as I’d like, but I’ve gotten out a couple times.

So the short of it is (FYI it’s not short so if you don’t like reading bail out now!) we went down Labor Day and had just terrible luck at every turn. First I tore a frame side link bracket off, limped it, welded it, back on the trail, then burst a hydraulic line to my ram. Capped it, went and repaired it, back on the trails, then the big issues started.

We hit a couple night runs, nothing too hard, molts mile, middle monkey and double Sammy. At the end of double Sammy there’s an optional line, a tight v-notch that widens to about an 8’ hole at the end. It was just me and one buddy and it was dark, but I felt fine about it. He was focused on taking a video more than spotting and I thought I was on the line, but my judgement was off and I cut up a hair too early. This caused the front end to tip into the hole and the back tire to slip off and tip me into the notch.

The windshield was toast from that, but I thought that was all, buddy pulled line real quick, tipped me up and I backed out no issue, all seemed fine so I gave it another go and hit the line correctly, but couldn’t drive out of it because I’d snapped a stub shaft. Looking back at the video, when I tipped in, the pass tire got stuffed in the notch and held fast and at the same time my foot hit the throttle in the hit and blipped the throttle causing things to go south.

The drawback to the dodge axle is that it’s hubless, meaning the stub shaft holds the unit bearing and wheel assembly together, we were trying to just get it to the top of the trail to limp it out, but within a short distance the bearing failed and the assembly fell apart. Destroyed the unit bearing, knuckle, caliper and brake pads in one fell swoop.

Since there was nothing for it at midnight we left it there and got back at it at the crack of dawn. Nobody had a stub shaft so our first hope was to put a new unit bearing on and try to very carefully drive it out. Spent the better part of the morning replacing that in what ended up being 106deg sun on rock with no shade. Got it all back together and made it like 50 feet before the $200 bearing fell apart completely. (I was pretty pissed by now and may have thrown a few rocks at my already busted windshield)

With that failure and the heat we were pretty over it. We still pressed on and tried our best to drag it out with his winch and my 3wheel drive in reverse, but without some kind of skid it was useless.

Now, had I been more level headed I should have reached out to some of the local clubs and I know I could have gotten a group to get us out, but it was burning, I was pissed and my buddy and I were over it. I thought calling in a pro recovery would be hitting the easy button.. it really wasn’t though.

After talking to a couple companies that didn’t have the resources to get us there we called Matt’s offroad and they said they would be out once they finished a couple other jobs.

Fast forward 3 hours and they finally got there and we got crackin. We ran into the group from Ohio and had a good chat with them, they helped stack rocks to make the drag up a couple things more doable, cool folks.

In the end it took almost 5 hours to drag it down being pulled backwards with a hood chained under the knuckle. Very long day. The recovery guys were cool though, in retrospect I’m pretty embarrassed to have called them since I’m very much of the mindset that I can figure anything out, but it was hot, and we were done.

For now it’s still on the trailer and I’ve torn down the damage. Windshield is gone and likely won’t be replaced, no other body damage. Needs a new stub shaft, I-joint, knuckle. Caliper and unit bearing, but other than that it seems fine. Hoping to pull at least a knuckle from the junkyard and have it back together in a couple weeks.

It was a speedy exhausting adventure, but I’m not mad about it, this stuff happens and it’s all part of the game. Guess that wasn’t so short, but that’s the full story.

Besides the damage there have been a few things added since I last posted, mainly the race lines and new nittos. Performance wise it did fantastic other than the failures, really just walks up everything with ease. It wasn’t the most successful trip, but it’s a good story to tell!

 

So that's why no one wants Dodge axles? You certainly had an adventure.

 

Wow - That’s quite a story Tanner. Were the Matt’s Offroad guys filming your recovery? Did you get a t-shirt?

 

Wow - That's quite a story Tanner. Were the Matt's Offroad guys filming your recovery? Did you get a t-shirt?

I did see them touch on the recovery just a little in this one... It started at 8:23

 

Wow what a day for you! Definitely a pretty gnarly break. Im sure being in the heat all day didn’t help at all.

Like you said may not have been the most successful but definitely an unforgettable experience!!


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Next time you go out, bring a large and long bolt with washers and nut that you can use in place of your broken stub shaft. Or a broken stub shaft welded back together kind of thing.

 

That's the plan, I'll upgrade these to chromo stubs, but keep a working stock spare or 2. I thought about the bolt idea as well, but all too late. I really wish I was thinking straight because I could have thrown the new bearing on with a bolt and washer and driven out of there. Oh well though.