I work at Unlimited Offroad in Fenton , Mi and we use a lot of JKS Sway Bar Links. But we also use BDS Suspension Links. Work better then JKS in some situations. I personally have JKS on my jeep but I like how BDS makes theres.

 

I work at Unlimited Offroad in Fenton , Mi and we use a lot of JKS Sway Bar Links. But we also use BDS Suspension Links. Work better then JKS in some situations. I personally have JKS on my jeep but I like how BDS makes theres.

 

Sick looking jeep so far!

 

Looks great. Sub'd

 

Thanks guys. I did a little more work last night. I cut my sway bar discos down as short as I could (about 1/2" trimmed), but the sway bar is still angled up pretty high. I wonder if they give you the same discos for the 3.5" kit as they do for the 6" kit? Maybe I'll eventually buy some better ones from JKS or BDS. It just sucks to have to replace a brand new part from the kit already.

I got my spare tire mounted on the Kevin's Off Road tire carrier, and it survived the trip to work. At first I heard a noise from my roof as I backed out of the driveway, then I discovered that I just left a socket up there. Doh! Glad I stopped and found it before it rolled off. I'll get some pictures of it soon, and I might start a thread on this goofy carrier.

Tomorrow I'm driving to Steamboat Springs for work, and I'm planning to hit some trails on the way there and back.

 

OK, I made a more detailed thread about the rooftop tire carrier to get some more feedback on it. Here is the link:
https://www.cherokeeforum.com/f67/ke...arrier-179028/

And here are some shots with the tire mounted on top. It's funny that with my Jeep lifted 5-6" (counting tires and suspension), the top of it is about even with my boss' FJ and some co-workers' Xterras (all stock). Why are the new SUVs so tall? I've got way more ground clearance for the same roof height.

 

Looking good! The spare tire mount is a good idea.. I see you still have the sticky glue stuff from the trim on your jeep its such a PITA to get off!! There is no easy way to do it but sit there and pick at it with something.

 

I found a good solution for the sticky glue: cover it up with mud! I managed to hit a couple trails this weekend and the Jeep did awesome. I'll post up some pictures later. The spare tire mount stayed on and is till tight to the roof rack despite some bumpy trails. I'll try putting the jack on there now.

 

OK, I finally got the Jeep properly dirty, although the fender flares do a nice job of keeping mud off the sides so I can still see out the windows.



On Saturday I did the Rollins Pass West trail:
http://www.traildamage.com/trails/index.php?id=134

There was a cool old railroad trestle along the way:


And some nice scenery:




The next day I ran part of Rabbit Ears Peak, which was a little tougher.
http://www.traildamage.com/trails/index.php?id=411

This picture was near the end where there is a narrow, steep climb. I was running out of time though, so I turned around at that point.

 

Did you cross that bridge in your jeep? That looks sketchy....

 

No, that trestle is closed to everything. It's hard to tell from that angle, but it's like 30' tall at mid-span and falling apart. Farther up the trail there are two smaller trestles that you can still walk on. The tunnel at the top is closed for good after a couple collapses.

 

Love the build here... any weird vibes or did the tc drop do the trick?

 

I think the TC drop did the trick. At first I would get a minor vibe around 40 mph, but I haven't noticed it lately. I still want to do some drilling on the Rusty's crossmember and get that mounted up. I would feel a lot more confident dragging it on some rocks with that than the way it is right now.

I was a dumb*** and destroyed my tire carrier today, so I'm looking at replacement options now. I'm debating a gutter-mounted rack vs. a rear bumper w/ tire carrier.

 

Wow, long time no update. The last few months I haven't done a lot of upgrades, just maintenance mostly. New radiator and water pump, flushed the transmission, added an aux transmission cooler, and took apart the window/lock switch and cleaned and re-soldered it. Now that it's getting warmer I've been working on the Jeep more lately.

I scored a good deal on a Detours Tailbone on craigslist, and I was excited because Detours isn't selling them right now. Picked it up from the guy (Chris) and finally had a chance to install it a few weeks later. I discovered that I was missing the inner cross member brace that comes with the Tailbone, so I gave Chris a call. He thought he had given me everything, but said he would check his Jeep for the rest of the parts. He then proceeded to ignore all of my texts and voicemails for the next two weeks until I gave up and ordered the missing parts from Detours. That cost me an extra $50 + shipping, so screw you, Chris.

Here are the parts I was missing, with a message added after I painted them.



Chris, or maybe the guy he got the Tailbone from, added some brackets to the carrier to mount a Hi-Lift behind the tire, so I took some pictures of that in case somebody was interested and wanted to do something similar:

Tubing welded on to carry the base of the jack:


Upper angle with bolt that goes through the jack about halfway up:




I sanded all the parts and painted them with spray-on bedliner. Last night I finished the installation and got the tire on finally. I added a license plate holder too, which I screwed into the back of the angled bracket for the base of the Hi-Lift.









I think I'm going to cut off the upper arm for the Hi-Lift and not use that. It makes the tire stick out an extra inch or two, and I'd like to get that clearance back. Plus, the bolt on the arm doesn't line up with the holes in my Hi-Lift, so I'd have to modify it anyway. My roof rack (still sanding and repainting it - another craigslist deal) has a mount for the jack on the side too, so I think I'll just use that. I'm also not sure if the Tailbone will like the weight of the 33x12.50 plus the jack on there. It already sags a bit when I open it.

I'm hoping to go wheeling on Memorial Day and get the Jeep dirty!

 

I made a small improvement to the Tailbone last night. The guy I bought it from (Chris sucks!) gave me a chunk of a Daystar bump stop that he used between the tire carrier and the hatch to keep the carrier from bouncing around so much. Without it there, I noticed that the tire really swayed backwards and forwards a lot, so I decided to mount it up too.

He had glued it on with some epoxy or something, and it had fallen off, so I decided to find a way to bolt it on instead. Problem was there is just one small hole in the tire carrier tube and no way to reach inside the tube to tighten a nut or something. I decided to try to rig something up with a drywall anchor.

A few bucks later at Home Depot and I had this:



Drilled a hole in the bump stop and inserted the anchor. I flipped the bolt around from the way you would normally use it to attach something to a wall. This way the bolt head will keep the anchor from spinning loose and falling off inside the carrier.



Before I started to install it, I realized that once I pushed the anchor through the hole and then tried to push the bump stop onto it, there would be nothing to hold the anchor in place. I dug through my stash of random screws and bolts and found a nut and washer to fit on the anchor and sandwich the tube of the tire carrier like so:




(not threaded in all the way yet)

I used some RTV on the bolt and the face of the bump stop to help secure it.



Here's how it sits with the carrier closed:



This made a HUGE improvement! The tire is rock solid back there now, and it doesn't seem like it will dent the hatch or anything.