Found a couple of gear baskets on CL around here... one was for 150, one is 125, and another one is 50 bucks, but they advertised it as a "roof rack" and for that price, I'm expecting mounting rails and crossbars not so much a basket

 

And my latest addition to the collection...




It's a sicknesses ain't it?

 

You got a pic of your entire collection? I'm kinda jealous of you. Here's my family's collection:


My brother is actually moving up to Alaska soon. I think he's going to Kotzebue (sp?). That anywhere near you? Any advice for him?

 

Kotzebue is about 400 miles north of me. If you think I'm remote, it's like the dark side of the moon out there.

As soon as I get some of my snow moved and get my new MJ to the house (needs a new waterpump before I move it) I'll make sure to get a pose shot with all my jeeps.

The count now is 2 FS Wagoneers, 2 XJ's and 2 MJ's. Now I've just got to decide which one to focus on and put money into. Looks like SubZero is gonna get some lights starting next week and then it's onto the lift.

 

That's crazy how different Alaska is. Sounds like you got a good selection of Jeeps and parts availability.

 

It is pretty different up here in alot of ways. As far as parts, I think you folks down there are alot better off than we are up here. Most of our wrecking yards are scrapping rigs that are older than 15 years old. That means that alot of what we are trying to get parts off of are getting crushed.

But, if you are diligent in searching, you can find some secret 'stashes' of old collections that folks are getting rid of.

Patience pays off.

 

So although it may seem like I am putting the cart before the horse things worked out to where I could get my new Rigid lights before I got the lift put together.

So I got my rig in to have the lights installed (as I still don't have a place to work on it and this winter will NEVER quit. It's still just above zero and snowing) and here are some of the in process pics and finished product.

First I wanted to get some light WAY down the road so I got a 40" single row light that is a hybrid spot/flood combo. It puts light a good 1500 feet down the road and gives me good light on the edges of the road.

At first I was going to mount it under the rack, but decided that there wasn't enough room without potential rubbing.



Unfortunately the best option was to actually drill through my rack and mount this instead of using some sort of clamp. But I think it turned out nice.





Then I wanted more light on the edges(Ditch lights), this is more for the Moose that have a tendency to run right up on the road. These D2 Dually's (Floods)should help. FYI I used the Detours A-Pillar mounts. All the guys were jazzed about them and they REALLY cleaned up the install.





What I love is that it looks so clean and low profile on the install. Just blends in with the rack.



Really makes the rest of the rig look shabby no?



But the results of the light is NOT shabby at all.

Standard headlights:



Headlights with the 40" SR lightbar:



Headlights and SR + D2's:



And the gratuitous 'head on' shot:



Also had some SRM2's put in for backup lights. Will have edit in the installed photos, but here's what they look like in operation:



And you definitely shouldn't ride my bumper:



I am VERY happy with these lights, although I will say not the install. Looks like I will be re-doing a big portion of it once it warms up.

I liked the lights so much that I became a distributor and will probably become a forum vendor soon.

That being said, the next big thing on the list is the lift. I tried to do some horse trading with a local vendor and this guy tried to tell me that if I really wanted to run 32" tires that I HAD to have at LEAST a 6inch lift to make it happen. After more hours of discussion with forum members and reading hours of reading on several XJ forums I have decided that a 3in lift should allow me to stuff 31's or 32's in there while still keeping it mild enough to stay my daily driver.

I will also be installing some knockoff bushwackers and a sunvisor. Then I'm going to either spray it with Krylon camo black or PlastiDip spray on. Haven't decided yet.

 

So next step....

RC Series II 3" lift with full spring packs. Should go well with 32"s no?



Question? Is there any benefit to buying adjustable LCA's with this kit? I want to make sure I can tweak things as I need for ride comfort as this is my Daily Driver.

Now I just have to talk to Grimus to see what the cube dimension weight is so I can see how many millions of $ it's gonna cost to get it up here.

 

Anyone?

 

I got a few more pics of my Rigid lights, the SRM's for backup:





Plus I got some Lens covers for my forward facing lights. Blue looks good on the snow. (although I may get amber ones in the future) We are gaining alot of daylight so I probably won't be using the lights much till late August now, but we'll see how the lens change the light quality.





Then I had a new head unit installed. Not a huge stereo guy, but it's got BlueTooth so I can talk handsfree with my phone or play my audiobooks through my car stereo.



Note: the switch panel is just temporary, was going to put a panel in place of the vent below the heater control, but have changed my mind. Looking for a new location for 5-6 Contura V switches now.

Gonna be PlastiDipping my truck as soon as we get some warm days (probably at least a month). And then building a locking secure cargo box.

Still looking for an answer on my LCA question above.

 

Adjustable lower control arms arent going to be much of a benfit. The money can be re alocated elsewhere. I say this becuase I run a rc 4.5" short arm kit with solid control arms and my brother had adjustable ones on his tj and I saw no difference. Plus control arms suffer alot of abuse and I feel better having somethig wihout threads to ruin

 

Thanks! This ^ was the kind of 'real world' advice I was looking for.

 

I've has no problems with my adjustable uppers and lowers (i'm on 4.5" lift too) and I beat the living daylights out of my XJ.

 

Im just in the bandwagon that believes why modify the original design? The xj didnt come with adjustable arm from factory so why bother

 

Actually they did. The adjustment is done with shims though. Benefit of adjustables are you can easily adjust them for caster, and make them shorter/longer when you change up lift amounts.