NightMares

Alright, so I went ahead and ordered some wheel spacers this morning through my work. Also ordered my CB radio, AM/FM/CB splitter to utilize the Antenna X antenna, and a PA microphone. Planning on installing the CB where the ash tray is, PA microphone behind the grille. It's not the perfect setup, but I figure a mile of radio is better than no cell service. In the future I might upgrade to a better setup, but for now at least I have something functional on its way.

NightMares

Sweet awesome news.

Back on Feb. 1st my wife wrecked her Escape and it's been in the body shop ever since. We've been making due with just the Jeep since then, and today she had a bunch of errands to run while I was at work. She dropped me off this morning and took off with the Jeep, called me about an hour later and said it broke down. She had to pull into a parking lot, it was steaming and blowing antifreeze all over. I called our tow guy, he swung out to pick it up and couldn't get it to start. It's currently in route to my shop, I'll take a look tonight to see the damage done.

aero3685

Looking good. Keep up the work

JandDGreens

So now you two are with out a vehicle? That s**ks. Hope it isn't to serious either.

NightMares

Apparently Photobucket decided to limit my pictures so that's always awesome. I created a new account with the plus upgrade, so from here on out the pictures will always be here.

As for out a vehicle, we actually still have our 88 Bronco. Not very dependable, it's been sitting for almost 8 years. My wife inherited it from her Grandpa who, at 78 years old, bought it new. We got it with 46 thousand original miles on it, but the downside is it's never had a real service. It came from Brigham City, Utah so it's rusted out and all the suspension components are destroyed. The motor has a leaking head gasket, it has antifreeze in the oil, and it runs extremely rough. Some days it'll run fine, then other times it'll overheat. I haven't spent the time or money on it, we've been focusing on the Jeep to get it ready for all the events I've wanted to take it on, so the Bronco has been on the back burner for a little over a year now just sitting. I had to register it online last night, and call the 1-800 number on our insurance to get it street legal to drive in the meantime. I also have access to my work's shop truck, so worst case scenario we have that to rely on if anything happens to the Bronco until either the Escape in back in our possession or the Jeep is back on the road.

On the plus side, it looks to be ONLY the radiator visually at this point with the Jeep. At a quick glance, I thought it just blew the upper hose off since it was caught between the battery and the radiator support, but after closer inspection I've found it actually blew the whole side off. I'm assuming, actually no, more like praying, that the radiator was just cracked and the built pressure finally caused it to blow. Otherwise, I have another problem somewhere else that caused it to build enough pressure to blow apart a radiator. It did, however, start right up when I got to it last night. I was able to drive it around the shop and pull it in the back bay to get it locked up for the night.

I've ordered a radiator for it, hopefully it'll be delivered today. Here's to fingers crossed there's no internal motor damage.

NightMares

Radiator is loaded in the Bronco. Off work tonight at 5:30, gotta run the wife around on a few errands, also got to swing by the local parts warehouse to grab antifreeze and some new upper and lower radiator hoses. Figured since I'm going that far, might as well replace everything so I can avoid future issues.

NightMares

Well last night did not go as planned. 2 sick kids and a few errands to run after work, I didn't get over there to swap the radiator until around 11 at night after everyone in my house was asleep. Around 1:00 I gave in at a stopping point and cleaned up for the night. I'll hopefully get it all buttoned up tonight.

So far what I've found isn't too concerning, but I have some small doubts that everything's in proper working order. I got the radiator swapped, just have yet to fully complete reassembling the Jeep. Not much to do, just the upper core support, bumper, grille, hoot latch, and get the electric fan hooked back up.

I think I might be jumping to conclusions or paranoid, but I noticed two things last night while working on it.

1) after getting everything installed, I started the engine to top the coolant off. Nothing gushed out like a normal blown headgasket, it bubbled as normal and never once got close to overheating. I let it idle for about a half hour while I cleaned up the mess of antifreeze and ATF on the shop floor, it got up to normal temp and had plenty of heat. After pulling it back into the shop and letting it idle to finish topping the overflow tank off, I noticed a steady stream of white smoke. Of course, it was 40 degrees outside and the shop door was open, so more than likely it was just from the cold air outside, but it concerned me. No real way to tell if it smelled like antifreeze or not due to the fact that I was covered in it.

2) After seeing the white "smoke" I checked the oil. Not milky, not white, in fact it's actually quite black which surprised me seeing as it has less than 500 miles on it's fresh oil change. However, it did seem a little more "liquidy" than normal oil.

Again, I'm hoping it's just paranoia and there's actually nothing wrong, but I'll finish it up tonight and see what happens tomorrow while running errands.

Some pictures







Here's how I left it for the night last night.

NightMares

Good news. Got everything back together including the wheel spacers installed. Runs great, looks great, I'm happy. Drove it around for an hour or so, no leaks and no overheating. Some smoking from under the hood for a little bit, but when i pulled over to double check it was burning off what showered the side of the block. I'm calling it good, my boss told me the watery oil is due to me using Pennzoil, and told me to get that crap out of my engine. That's why it's watery, apparently Pennzoil is the bottom of the barrel junk.

As for the wheel spacers, no more rubbing. I now have to trim the rocker trim if my tires don't rip it off before I get to it, but inside clearance is greatly improved.

Before





After

NightMares

Updated pictures of it with the wheel spacers. Pretty big difference.

NightMares

Made a spur of the moment decision last night while talking to my rep placing the orders for my work. They have deals all the time that last for only a few days, one of them yesterday being a company I've been thinking about for quite a while. He told me the special was almost 60% off and only for yesterday and today, so I snatched one up and it got delivered this morning.

Enough chatty chat, say hello to Borla.



Going to try to get it over to the muffler shop next week and have them install it. Also, glad to put the WJ back in its rightful parking spot at work.

NightMares

Took it on a trip this weekend down to Brigham City and Salt Lake to visit some of the wife's family. Did great the whole way down, pulled about 17 miles to the gallon with cruise set at 78. My wife's family is big in classic Toyota's and they had a great time looking at the Jeep and deciding what to do with their old land cruisers. Of course, though, driving the jeep came with a price (well...for the wife at least). My wife's cousin pointed out it looked funny having aftermarket headlights and factory tail lights. So what better to do on the drive back to Boise then have the wife shop and find me a set of Spyder tail lights to match.

I almost went with the common red horseshoe LED tails, but at this point they're becoming almost as common to see as the factory tail lights and I want something to spice up the Jeep with. Plus, the red tails don't really go well with the black and dark red scheme the Jeep has going for it. My wife came across a set that kept catching her eyes, but I didn't like them...until she found the smoked version.

Spyder LED tail lights, LED turn signals, standard halogen backup. The tails and turn signals have a black housing, instead of the common seen chrome which I didn't want. She found them on eBay as a clearance item, they have scuffs and scratches on the lens covers (which my current headlights already have some scratches from the brush in the desert they've found). I'll have to swing by a radio shack and get some 50w 6ohm resistors for the turn signals, I'll try to do that sometime this week before the tail lights get here so I can install them this weekend. I normally don't like buying off eBay for the simple reason of warranty problems, but considering these are name brand (same as my headlights and the fog lights I've yet to install) I have no problem buying them. Worst case scenario, I have a problem with them, I call Spyder and show my date of purchase from eBay and I should be fine.

Scratches don't look bad at all in the second picture

ZombieResponseJeep

That wheel and tire combo looks great

NightMares

Thanks man. I'm playing with the idea of having the gray sections of the wheels powder coated when I spray the cladding black to match the graphics.

NightMares

Awesome news. Had a truck over at the muffler shop earlier this week that just got finished up today. Swapped my Jeep for the truck, so the Borla will be on it by the end of the day. Pretty exciting.

Also, finally came up with a real "name" for the Jeep. My wife has called it Monica since I got it since I was "cheating" on "Helga" my GMC with the Jeep. But since I sold the truck, Monica Lewinsky has got to go. Through high school, I got called Nightmares due to my last name being Mares, and it's stuck since then. I decided to incorporate it into the Jeep with "Killakee"

The name is from Ireland referring to the "Hell Fire Club" and the haunted land around Dublin. I'm Irish, the name fits well with the Jeep, and I'm happy with it.

Also gives me a cooler reason to convince the wife on why I need the Pro Comp "Helldorado" wheels.

NightMares

And it's in. Sounds great, not loud at all but it's definitely noticeable. Windows up at cruising speed you can barely hear it, at higher RPM's the motor drowns out the exhaust inside so I don't really know how it sounds at high RPM's from outside. Sounds better in person than it does on the Youtube video's, but I'm happy with my choice of going Borla rather than the typical Flowmaster like a lot of others do. Also glad the Borla doesn't sound like a honda with a coffee can, that's something I hear all to often here working an off road shop from the Jeep's with the 4.0