yellow submarine build

I drove the Jeep around for about a year or so before I really modified it. Took me a while to save up for parts. Also around that time My dad and I had brought home this beauty from our farm house in West Virginia.

The father and son project. I got more interested in the jeep than the 52 plymouth and sold my half to my dad which got me enough for the lift kit.
I regret selling it to him all the time especially now that its finished .

Now with all my money in order I called up Rough Country and ordered their 4.5" full pack lift. This was the most complete kit I found and was a very reasonable price. I Also got a set of Cragar d-windows and rapped a set of 31" Dunlop Mud Rovers (DO NOT buy these! they are cheap and suck!) I dont have many pictures of the install because it took place around 10-2am with my dad and we were very tired and frustrated.

We got it finished the next night after I got off work and took it for a ride to my Uncles. I had never been so psyched about anything it was so awesome ridding around in it.

I had my second Birthday with the jeep a little after this and that ment jeep goodies! It wasn't much but got one of my favorite mods out of it My Hula Girl!

The blank paint wasn't for me but yellow was!






One of the things im going to be redoing this summer is the paint. It was a cheap paint and is starting to fade and offroading has done a lot of damage to it and I want it to still look nice. Getting the dents out is gonna be rough!

Scored a Sucro rack for free from a friend!

and also got some warn side plates as a gift from my dad. It really needed something black to break up some of the yellow.



I am the rescue jeep for a few local friends whenever they get stuck they call me its pretty funny except when its late at night and they are stuck in a friends woods or mud pit.

mud pit on the side of the road at a neighbors house silly awd v8 zj's
my friend sold that and got him self a nice wj which we just lifted.


Me and the guy in the zj went to trails road for the first time. this was my very first time offroading.





these pictures remind me I also picked up a sweet winch bumper off ebay for like 300. I believe the guy who made and sold them has been banned from ebay and has really bad rep. At least that's what i heard a few months ago.

Man I wish I started this thread when I began the build. Well I'll throw up some interior mods I have done.

so here is the first thing



I grabbed the sound bar out of a family members jeep. they have 2 totaled cherokees so I get to grab all my parts from their. Once i ripped the bar out of the headliner i sprayed it with some paint and popped two pioneer speakers in it.

I also swapped the stinky cassette player with a nice new pioneer head unit. The head unit has a jack for my iPod and I didn't want to spend 30 bucks on some sort of holder so I fabricated my own which looks way better in my own opinion.





Skipping ahead a bit, last year for my birthday I got quadratec floor mats. They are awesome! driver side is showing some wear though.



Last year I bought some lights at the All Breeds show in PA so here is where i put the switch. I'll get to the lights later on.



cut a hole right next to the e-brake and popped the switch in.

sorry for crappy cell pictures.

Alright leaving off with the first trip to trails rd I dont think much changed with the jeep except that a guy on the forum (our girlfriends played softball together, small world) gave me some jks quick disconnects for the use of my stock wheels and tires to pass inspection.

My second trip to Trails Rd was a meet and great put together in the maryland thread. On this trip I meet some great guys learned a lot and made some cool friends that I now wheel with monthly.

Here are some pictures enjoy!

Most of us where pretty new to this but here is out fearless leader
jonathoner













the yj wasnt very impressive for all that it had







I haven't looked at these pictures or videos for a while and watching the video I used to be so timid now I know my jeep and my limits and I just go for it. A lot of the guys I met this day also peer pressure me when wheeling today, Im glad I do it though!

Since that trip to Trails Rd the next thing modification besides little minor maintenance things I cant remember was trimming the fenders oh and tires.
Well I picked up 2 brand new 33x12.50r15 KM2's for around 250 off craigslist, it was a sweet deal and made a new friend! I bought the other two from NTB for retail price. I mounted them my self which i think may have destroyed our mounting tool (the one they pops the tire off the bead). Good year charged me 60 for balancing which I think was high but they were the only ones near by that had the weights for those tires.

I was pretty hesitant on doing this but knew it had to be done with the new 33s so I spent hours searching for a write up that was clear and Well looked the best. I met a Family, members at the country club where I work and surprisingly they off-road. I talked to them and went over their house when I got off, They had 2 xj's and one jk that they wheeled. When I was their they just finished trimming the XJ's fenders and he showed me the write up he followed which was awesome.

I cant find any pictures from when I did it (got a new computer at one point, some pictures didn't transfer) but here is the write up I followed http://alum.wpi.edu/~kastein/NAXJA/Front1.pdf it allows you to retain factory flares so if you make an ugly cut its ok! you can hide it. I did the trim a little differently but based my moves off of this. I believe i cut around 2-2.5" out of the fender. I never did the back because I had more room for the tires and just didnt get around to it but it is coming soon.

Trying to flex around the house







The passenger side was almost fully stuffed, If I had something a little taller to flex on I could have sat that stock control arm in their.

Around that time I bought a d30 off craigslist to use for an axle build.
the axle was in good condition came with everything including a heavy duty steering stabilizer from rustys. picked it up for 30$
I also bought an IRO hd tierod get ride of the flimsy stock one. This tie rod has taken a beating and is pretty solid and has a great price.

A little later I went to the all breeds show in pa with my dad we both brought our jeeps. Some how I managed not to take a picture of my xj next to his cj-2a but oh well. The show is pretty fun if any of you haven't check it out before. tons of jeeps dirty clean stock beater new and old all kinds. The show did manage to piss me off though they wouldn't let me take my jeep on the coarse which is what i payed for. They said since i was 18 I couldn't. Apparently some minor got his jeep stuck or some crap and that meant no more minors, my dad and i tried to fight it and they said my dad could drive it and i could sit shotty, my dad said its not my jeep its his and he put all the work into it. I asked them what happens when an adult breaks or gets stuck? they were not thrilled with that question.

After the show I meet two friends from the forum Squazzz and KevKaos59 to go to rausch creek. this was my first time up their, we stayed for the weekend and it was awesome!
I took one picture around 2 in the morning and my camera died

I managed to find a few though.

I never got to build the axle i bought but i did learn how everything goes together by messing with it. I decided to drop the jeep off at a professionals for the gear install. I took my jeep to Delmarva offroad to get the 4.56 ring and pinion installed in my d30 and C8.25. The d30 also received a lock right locker, alloy usa seals, nitro chromo shafts, and 760 ujoints. The price was pretty good and he was a friendly guy to work with.
Took a while to get the jeep back but once I drove it those lower gears made quit the difference on 33s! both on and offroad. the gears and tire set up changed my speedo by about 5mph 45=40.

First trip to Rausch with the gears and locker was awesome! So much more traction and didn't have to brake as much crawling down hill.





Only problem I had was the winch only trails but I think if I gave it more gas I would have been fine. Or maybe I should stay off them till i get a winch.. nah

also experienced a lot of body damage this trip
rocker panels where also smashed. thank you chuck

another picture of the damage from multiple impacts

time to do this