[jjvw]

It's been nearly three years since I bought my first Jeep. I should document some of what i've done.

I will be starting at the beginning and slowly adding pictures until I am caught up to the present day. Brace yourself for a fair amount of nit-picky fixating on the arguably inconsequential accompanied by some thoughtful recklessness.

 

[jjvw]

June 2013
The day I bought it.

2003 Rubicon
57,000 miles
100% stock except for a filthy K&N air filter, nerf bars and nearly worn out 265/75r16 BFG KO. A factory Goodyear MTR was still mounted as the spare. Within the week I learned about K&N filters and immediately bought a paper filter. Thanks Jerry!

Here is the original window sticker.

I believe this was originally a lawyer's Jeep with all the available options at the time. I am also fairly certain that the Jeep had rarely left pavement before it's time with me. Which one exception, the body and underside were pristine.

This was kind of an impulse buy after another car I was looking at fell through. Growing up in the 80's/90's, my dad had built up a 1976 CJ-5 and was involved in the Minnesota Go 4 Wheelers. I always found the building, the exploring and the driving to be more fun than the club events. That was something that stuck with me long after time passed and other interests came and went. After moving to Colorado many years ago, I had occasionally driven some of easier backroads roads and always really enjoyed finding other ways to get from here to there that don't involve pavement. I wanted to be able to do that more.

My new Jeep was about to be my daily driver that would allow me to see what was at the end of that road.

http://www.jeepforum.com/forum/f9/build-your-jeep-daily-driving-first-1584097/

 

[jjvw]

A month later I found myself above 10,000 feet at the very end of Lincoln Creek Road south of Aspen.

This was terrifying at the time.

Weeks later, I drove Schofield Pass.

Also terrifying at the time.

But I got to see some great things.

 

[jjvw]

First mod was a hand throttle.

I believe this to be the nicest hand throttle out there. Late-80's Shimano DuraAce lever on a Paul Thumbie.

Since this is a daily driver, I also added a pair of USB charging ports.

Then came the locker switch bypass mod. This allows me to activate the lockers in any transfer case position.
http://www.wanderingtrail.com/Mods/TJLJmods/Locker_Defeat.htm

 

[jjvw]

I found a used Warn XD9000 winch on Craigslist. Based on the SN, I believe is was originally OEM to an early-90's Land Rover. This led me to buy a Nates 4x4 Model 1 front bumper.

I like this bumper because it looks like something your grandfather might have come up with after a trip to the hardware store. One of the aesthetic goals for the Jeep is to keep it simple, understated and practical. I don't want decorations. If I put it on, it needs to be well placed and functional.

I also began trying to figure out the side mirrors. It seemed odd to me that taking the doors off also takes away my mirrors. I wanted the mirrors to be on the body like an old Jeep. The previous owner had a pair of temporary mirrors for when running doorless. I decided to commit and took off the factory mirrors. I hated the temporary mirrors and bought the Rugged Ridge CJ style mirrors, which were better, but not good. More on that later.

 

[jjvw]

One of many daily driver mods I made is this phone and GPS mount.

I forget the brands, but this was made from a few different kits with a couple DIY pieces. The phone mount is universal and the GPS mount is a standard Garmin ball. The whole assembly is mounted through the plastic cover to the steering column onto a plate that attaches to the multi function switch.

So far this has survived nearly 50k miles of use and hundreds of miles off road. It is still rock solid.

Ultimately, I use the phone mount with a spare phone that runs Torque. This allows me to monitor the OBDII system. Power to the phone is now supplied by another USB port I put inside the glove box so I could hide the power cord.

 

[jjvw]

80's/90's Cadillac horns.
http://www.jeepforum.com/forum/f9/tj-horn-upgrade-pointless-but-cool-write-up-1227660/
There are four to grab from the junk yard. Bring a cordless drill battery and some wire to make sure they work. I made two new mounts that hold two horns each. all four are powered by the factory wiring.

 

[jjvw]

October 2013

JKS 1.25 body lift and a no name 1" motor mount lift.

The nerf bars went away in the process.

A leather shift boot was added to correct the loss of 2nd and 4th gear.

 

[jjvw]

Somewhere in these first three months, after already having been thoroughly convinced that K&N is garbage and that most CAIs don't pull in cold air, I put in a real cold air intake that uses a paper filter. I built myself a Windstar cowl intake. This lowers intake temps from a pretty constant 190*F to between 5-60* above ambient air temperature, depending on ground speed and wind direction.

The hole into the cowl.

The horn of the air box inside the cowl.

Later on I wrapped the canister and tube in header tape. This reduced intake temps by 5*F.

Three years later, I will confidently tell you that there are little to no performance gains here. I have seen intake temps as low as 0*F and I still can't make the long steep highway climb up to the Eisenhower Tunnels any faster than stock. Eventually, I will make good use out of the extra room that removing the factory air box provides.

While we are on the topic, I also put in Bosch 4 port injectors. The only change I noticed was the smoother idle that many others have reported. Mrblaine once suggested that the smoother idle is really the result of having replaced worn o-rings which fixed a vacuum leak on one or more cylinders.

 

[jjvw]

In December 2013 at 68,000 miles, I bought and installed a used Old Man Emu lift.

OME 932 Front
OME 942 Rear
N67 Front
N66 Rear
Rear track bar bracket

At the time, this gave me about 1.75" of lift. Those coils are gone, but I still have the shocks. This was a good purchase, as it taught me a lot about spring rates, shock lengths, and bump stops.

One thing I learned doing my first full bump test was that without the body lift, even a 32" tire worn down to 30" will scrape the front fenders.

Subtract the 1.25" body lift and this will explain how the front fender lips became bent during my Jeep's previous life.

Here it is with just under 3" of total lift on worn out tires that measure a hair over 30" in diameter.

 

[jjvw]

February 2014

There technically isn't enough room, but here came a set of five 285/75/r16 Goodyear Duratracs.

Here they are in the Discount Tire parking lot at 35psi.

 

[bobthetj03]

Drop those air pressures down to about 28 psi and she'll ride nice. Nice progress. Enjoy your straight forward, functional methods.

 

[jjvw]

Thanks. I dropped the pressure about two years ago before I drove away. I like it around 26-27psi.

More catching up soon...

 

[Tylers88]

Very simple but effective overall, I like it

 

[jjvw]

At some point between the first lift and the Duratracs, i made a set of disconnects.
http://www.jeepforum.com/forum/f9/diy-quick-disconnect-pins-bolted-1415746/

These are in my opinion the best design for DIY disconnects. I ran them for about 15k miles before the factory sway bar links broke apart somewhere around 70k miles. The pins at the axle always stayed tight and they cost less than $15, including the small rubber mallet I carried to smack the links off and back on again.

An interesting thing I only recently figured out is that in order to tuck the disconnected sway bar links on top of the spring mount like I did is to have a body lift installed. The links spent a lot of time up there and they never came loose.

 

[Thewiltz]

I love the area around Aspen. Have hunted around castle creek rd many times. When I bought my XJ, I always keep the idea of one day getting to go explore aspen with it.

Nice build.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[jjvw]

I love the area around Aspen. Have hunted around castle creek rd many times. When I bought my XJ, I always keep the idea of one day getting to go explore aspen with it.

Nice build.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Both Taylor Pass and Pearl Pass are off of Castle Creek. Several times, I have been able to finish work at a client's house and head straight south over the mountain to Crested Butte. That's why I bought a Jeep!

 

[jjvw]

It is spring 2014 and I am nearing my first full year of ownership. My dad wants to do a summer road trip. It will be in the Jeep and we will spend a week making a loop around the south west quarter of Colorado, trying to stay off pavement as much as possible and camping wherever we happen to be that night. I need to focus a bit on building the Jeep for an expedition.

 

[jjvw]

With the larger spare tire weighing in at 85lbs, I was not liking how difficult the tailgate became to shut. I could see the door twisting while hanging open. Also, with the upcoming off-road trip, I figured I should have a way of carrying extra gas. My dad recently sent me his old HiLift from his Jeeping days. I don't have a shed, so I have to put it somewhere...

Nate's 4x4 makes a matching rear bumper with swing out carrier that also hold two jerry cans.

By itself, the new bumper/carrier weighs 150lbs. Loaded up with cans and tire and jack, that is adding over 300lbs to the back of the Jeep. I am going to need new coils because my rear uptravel has diminished to about 2". Remember, factory is 4".

I will discuss Nate's rear bumper in more depth later on. At this point I will say it is a good carrier for the price. But it has issues. I immediately discovered that with a HiLift mounted on it that the rear hardtop glass cannot be opened.

 

[jjvw]

Another daily driver mod is the Knuckelhead AC Bypass Switch.
http://www.jeepforum.com/forum/f9/c-guys-1058168/

Some may have noticed that there is a small rpm surge as the AC compressor cycles on and off. I find this very annoying when crawling through rush hour and all I really want is full control over which vents are blowing air without triggering the AC that I don't need right now.

The answer is to add an interrupter switch to the lime green wire on the vent selector knob.