your from rockford huh. not to far from there. im in the quad cities. happen to be a member of qc jeepers?

 

Nope, not a QC Jeeper. Looks like a good club though. I take it you're a member?

 

Yea I am

 

Couple of new pics from tonight. Got my winch installed and also added a pair of stock Wrangler lights (Hella 500's).







That's it for now!

 

Great build. Awesome info. Thanks again. I'm subscribed.

 

Thanks man. If you have any other questions let me know.

Ok, guess I never mentioned I picked up a set of 33x12.5x15 TSLs a while back, but I didn't have any rims to mount them on. Finally got a set of rims last week thanks to a fellow CF member (thanks Will). I'm keeping the 31's for dd duty and the 33's will be for off road use only. Went to work today getting it setup for the 33's. Helpful tip, don't go mudding the night before you plan on working on your Jeep. I didn't take that many pics since this has been covered so many times.





I used this same cut and fold method on the '88, but this time I'm trying to keep the back half of the wheel well liner.




First side done.


It started getting dark, so I don't have many more pictures.




I pulled the rear flares off and stuck the rear tires on in the dark. I still have to finish the rears up tomorrow.


Contemplating doing a two tone paint job similar to what we did on the '88 after I'm done hacking.


I'm thinking a semi-gloss black from the body line down. Or I could do the standard around the wheel wells or just the front fender and rear quarter... decisions, decisions... Lots more work ahead of me, but at least it's getting closer to what I envisioned.

 

Finished doing the rear wells today. Still have to do the lower quarters, but saving that for another day.






More to come.

 

looks good. plan on going to winterfest again next year? maybe we can actually meet haha

 

thanks man. yep, i'll be at the next wf. probably get there on friday night again. haha, maybe we will.

 

Finally finished up my bumpstops. Nothing fancy, but it works. They're made with 1/4" plate and Chevy truck front bumps. Already tested them out this weekend at the Cliffs and they worked great.



Couple pics from this weekend. I really don't have anything of myself. Spent most of the time wheeling and rearranging the sheet metal on the Jeep.

 

With Winterfest coming closer into view, I've been doing a bit of work on the old mule. I have a laundry list of things left to do, but I knocked out a couple of items. I changed the plugs, removed the oil filler neck since the grommet was leaking like a sieve, and then worked on eliminating the sea of vacuum hose under the hood. After doing this my random idle surge, dieseling at shut off, hard cold starts, and stuttering on hard cornering has disappeared. I also noticed an increase in my fuel economy, which is a nice little bonus. I know I could of traced the miles of vacuum hoses, check valves, solenoids, and whatnot under the hood, but I wanted less to have to slog through in case of an issue on the trail.



So what's left to do? Off the top of my head:
* axle shaft u-joint
* frame stiffeners
* make my skid work with the stiffeners
* trans filter and pan gasket
* zj tie rod
* 8.25 pinion seal
* paint lower half of the Jeep
* rear storage

Hopefully I'll have a more interesting update next time.

 

Got the stiffeners burned in last night. Took a bit longer than we expected it to. The biggest problem we had was getting good clean welds, no matter how much we messed with temp and wire feed speed. Called a buddy and he suggested heating the frame in the spots we were going to weld to with a torch to burn off the galvanizing. After that, things want smoothly. On to the pics.

Hitting a spot we missed with the torch:


Burning the drivers side in:


One side done:


Ground down:


Coated with cold galvanizing paint for the time being:


More to come...

 

I was using this cheap lil' bike flag when I went to the parks and using zip ties to attach it to my antenna. It was bit ghetto, so I finally got around to making something a little more respectable. I had everything already laying around the garage, so all it cost me was some time out of the day. Pretty easy to do and probably not worth the writeup, but here's one anyway.

I decided to use this hole in the bumper where the cap would normally be attached. Those lost the battle a long time ago, so it's not like it was doing anything. So I measured to see how long a piece of strap steel I needed.


Made this:


I got it lined up where I wanted it and marked the factory hole. After drilling it out, I snugged the bolt up, and marked where my next hole needed to be. Then I drilled a pilot hole through the bumper and the strap steel.


All together





Not bad for free

 

I got a whole mess of things done on the Jeep, but nothing exciting, so no need to really update. However, today I went ahead and painted it.

 

Got back from Winterfest on Sunday afternoon. I had a really great time out there with everyone and can't wait till next year. I smashed in my passenger side rocker, added some new scraps/dents, and did something to my transfer case. Got to looking through my WF pics tonight and I got a kick out of comparing the Jeep over the past few years.

WF 2011 - 2" and 29x9.5x15


WF 2012 - 3" and 31x10.5x15


WF 2013 - 3" and 33x12.5x15