Oh, definitely take care of that because that's exactly what I was doing. Figured at least one latch one was fine and I guess the other one just worked itself loose and BAM. If my girlfriend hadn't been in the car to guide me off the right, I would have been screwed.

 

So as promised, here are a few of the best pictures from last weekend at katemcy rocks (K2):

















































Hope you enjoy the pictures-this weekend I am going wheeling at Stillwater Ranch

 

you should find out from your buddy that looks like it would be an awesome place to go

 

Its actually somewhere like 20 minutes outside Ouray plenty of beautiful sights out there just get a guide book and drive on some trails you will see sights way better than that.

Here are a couple of pictures from wheeling last weekend with San Antonio jeep exclusive at Stillwater ranch. Huge showing with 50+ jeeps and buggies from the club and lots of good trails there. No pics of my jeep but here are some of the event.






My buddy Reid:



More jeeps

 

Great pics and videos man!!! awesome

 

I have been troubleshooting my horrible gas mileage for quite some time now- it is down to 10 miles per gallon now. No other symptoms, but i figured i should do a compression test just to doublecheck to make sure the head/gasket is not bad.



Here are my numbers.

Dry:
Cylinder 1: 130 Psi
Cylinder 2: 135
Cylinder 3: 135
Cylinder 4: 135
Cylinder 5: 135
Cylinder 6: 139

Wet:
150 Psi on every cylinder

Numbers seem to show everything is fine. I forgot to do wide open throttle, so my numbers might be a tad lower, but I hear forgetting wot really only causes it to take longer to get up to max pressure.

Also here are my plugs- look fine and only have like 20k miles on them so I just regapped them but they are kind of purple tinted for some reason.





Any other input or thoughts are appreciated.

 

Got some stuff done on the jeep today.

-Added a breather to the t-case/doubler

-Changed the D300 transfercase oil and the doubler oil



-Greased up the steering/d-shafts/etc

Basically just getting the jeep ready for long term vehicle storage. Moving to Japan in a month or so. Definately sucks to leave the jeep but Japans gonna be sweet!

I'm gonna try to buy a another right hand drive Cherokee when I get there. Either that or I am gonna try to build up something else like a Suzuki for rock crawling.

 

Got some stuff done on the Jeep today.

-First I wrapped the fuel injectors in heat shielding in order to stop the fuel from vaporizing when the the engine is restarted after sitting for short time. (heat soak).







And I had some heat shield tape left over so I figured I might as well wrap the air intake.





Then I moved the heat shield mat that used to under the injectors to between the intake manifold and the exhaust manifold. Here is a view from underneath.



Then I decided to do my air box that houses my "cold air" intake also. This time I was smarter and just baught this stuff instead at Ace hardware for like 3$ instead of $20.





Here is the top part that came with the AirAid CAI that connects to the bottom half of the stock airbox. Sorry no pics of the final assembly but you get the point.



Overall I doubt this will do much but hey it really only cost me $3.00 since I already had leftover tape from the injectors. They say that you gain 1hp for every 10* drop in temperature, so maybe it'll help.

Another thing I am thinking of doing is installing a hood vent backwards right over the top of the air box to take in fresh air... we'll see.

I also did some other basic troubleshooting/maintenance:

-I had a clunk every time I went over a bump, and figured out it was due to my shock bolts in the engine compartment not being all the way tightened.

-I fixed the front fender pannel to keep the passenger door from hitting it every time it is opens and shuts. First I thought I had to adjust my hinges on my doors, but really I just had to bend the pannel further forward.

-I figured out my pitman arm nut was not tightened down enough so got that snugged down.

-I also have some type of clanking/creaking noise when I rock the jeep from side to side coming from right by the steering box or the point where the bumper is attached to the unibody. I couldn't pinpoint the exact source. I really just need front end frame stiffeners and a front bumper to hold both sides more rigidly together.

 

when are you going to chop this up? Do you have pics of what you think it might look like? Check out this pic I found of one. This is exactly how I want mine.

I ordered a front winch bumper from LandLfabrications.com. Its pretty slick and should look great once I get it put on.

 

Nice man I have a good amount of time to think about exactly what I plan to do with it because I am moving out to Japan in a month and the government is paying to put my jeep in long term vehicle storage since Japan wont let you bring US vehicles there without jumping through a million hoops for emissions...definately sad...but when I get back in a couple years, you can bet this thing is going to be transformed into a beast.

That pic you have is very clean (but whats up with the tiny surfboard?? haha), but the only reason I will cut mine up is to do a comp cut in the rear, along these lines (picture from ericsxj.com)


and maybe remove the roof to have an open sunroof. If were to go through the effort to cut the rear off though I would probably make it basically into a buggy on 40's. We will see what I decide though. You have a build thread yet bud? Let me know so I can check it out.

 

It is extremely hot here in Texas, so I waited until 9pm to start working on the jeep today. I am trying to get everything back in good condition again, so I decided I need to sand down and repaint my rock rails since they are scratched up/chipped all over and I don't want them to rust.

When I went to go buy paint, I figured why not paint the bumper endcaps while I was at it with some krylon plastic paint...then I thought about how scratched up my bushwackers are and how crappy they look, so decided I'd paint those as well. I couldn't just remove the bushwackers because I recently put nuts on the backside of all the screws to keep them from falling off anymore, so with the time it took to mask everything off/ sand down/ prep and paint several coats I just now finished everything at 2am.

I have no idea how well everything turned out- it was too dark to tell. But here are some pictures of the whole ordeal.

What I used:



Sliders sanded and cleaned and masked off:



Bumper endcaps sanded down:



Front bushwacker sanded down/cleaned/masked off:



Wet paint:







I will get some picture in the daylight of how everything looks. Pretty cheap way to hopefully make my jeep look a lot better. It was starting to look pretty beat after wheeling it so much, I have kind of neglected the looks of it.

 

So here are the pictures in daylight definitely cleaned everything up.

 

So I was tired of the unfinished look with the cut and fold rear quarter panels and I don't want to spend the money on a rear bumper just for it to sit there while I am in Japan soon. So, I made a compromise and bought some pre-97 bumper end caps since they only connect at the bumper instead of the newer style that connect to the lower quarter panels that are gone. They are a temporary solution to hold me over until I get a real bumper one day. What do you guys think?







Couple other things:

-this is why you should check over every single detail on your jeep after wheeling it. I noticed this today:





So got that tighted up and back in the yoke



-I also found a leak in the gas line right below the exhaust headers:



So I ordered a new oem fuel line to replace that section. Maybe that will help my 9mpg that I am getting for some reason right now? But I am not even going to get into that.

 

Attachment 110082

Attachment 110083

Attachment 110087

Attachment 110088

"-I still need to sand them down and maybe use some Bondo to smooth out the side that was smashed in and then repaint them"

Where you cut the bushwackers is there just a hole at the end of it now? Or what did you do to close the hole?

 

I was a little hesitant cutting the bushwackers and not sure how they would look, but it was either that or take them off and go fender less leaving holes from the bushwackers. So I just cut that bottom section straight off and they turned out great. When you look at them- you naturally are looking down at them so it is hard tell that they are left open. Plus its nice that they dont collect mud like the front ones used to.