thank you!

Thanks guys!

So recently I decided to tackle something I had wanted to do for a long time, and that was cleaning and bed lining the entirety of the Jeep floor boards. My Jeep was in really good shape when I got it, low miles with minimal rust (less now). This means that my floorboards were in pretty good shape to begin with so I was fairly certain nothing was rusted to the point of needing new metal. Thankfully this was true. There was of corse surface rust in a few places but nothing serious or even bubbled. After stripping the interior I started by removing the old insulating sticky aluminum foil stuff (I don’t actually know what it’s called). This was a bad job because it didn’t want to come up easy and left a lot of very sticky stuff attached to the metal once you peaked it off. But with some effort it eventually came off. I actually didn’t end up taking them all off however, I left the last one on after realizing there was zero rust where those things were stuck to. There was even a place where surface rust was all around it but nothing where it was. So I figured it would be better (and easier) just to leave the last one on. After the floor was free of everything I was removing I sanded everything down with 80 grit sand paper and cleaned everything up. Then I painted the entire floor of the Jeep in por-15.

The Bed liner I was putting down can be painted over rust but por-15 does a better job at stopping it. Next I again sanded everything down and cleaned it out. Then I put the interior all back together (except for the back seat and all the carpet). Why you ask? Well the bed liner I was putting down needs a week to cure and seeing as I was leaving for a week long trip a couple weeks later I thought that would be a perfect time for it to sit and cure. And since I needed the Jeep in the mean time I Put it back together and drove it like that (which was pretty cool to be honest). So when the time came for me to paint it I removed the interior again, did a final wipe down, and went ahead and mixed the roll on bed liner. I went with monstaliner because of the reviews it got and the fact that it seemed to fit my application well. It’s not rough to the touch but kind of slick. It’s still textured and the best way to describe it (and the way I heard others describe it) is that it feels like an orange peal. Which makes it easy to clean out and won’t stain. I went with monstashades which is their tintable bed liner and I chose the color desert sand. I just rolled two coats on and let it sit for the week I was gone. I really think it turned out great. I decided to leave the carpet out of the back half of the Jeep and keep it in the front passenger area. I would like to leave all of it out but it helps with noise reduction and insulation so I decided to keep it.


I got to throughly clean the carpet while it was out and it looks great now. I did rip the carpet padding off the underside of the carpet. That stuff just holds water and isn’t necessary to me. The carpet dries a lot better by itself. Here’s a picture of the carpet in the Jeep without the seats.
And here’s what the back looks like all put together. To conclude this very long post I’ll just say I’m very happy I did it, this is peace of mind and adds more time to the life of my Jeep. If you’ve got the time I recommend it.

Thanks man I appreciate it

Yes I did I even bought some but because of how hard it was to get the original ones off I decided if I eventually wanted to go no carpet I wouldn’t want to have to take it all up again in the future. If I thought I would always keep carpet in the driver and passenger area I would have put it down. So if you plan on keeping carpet I would recommend it. There’s not a big sound difference without it but it would obviously be better to have it.

I mentioned a while ago that I would be starting on some storeage related mods. Well I eventually got to them. I’ll admit I’m a little late posting this seeing as this project has been done for a few months now but whatever. Last year I upgraded from a donut, to a full sized spare. And while I’m glad I did, I hate how much room it takes up in the back even though my tires are still stock size. So I decided to make a roof rack so that I could throw the spare tire up there. The rack was to be made out of 1” tubing. And seeing as I don’t have the ability to weld, notch, or bend, most of the work I did was designing it. After taking measurements and drawing up a 3D design on my computer. I let a fabricator buddy of mine take it from there. Here are the first few pictures of the rack.




Once i got it, I started designing brackets to mount it to the Jeep. I figured the easiest way would be to use the gutter rails on the roof. So I made some really simple gutter rail mounts out of 2” (I think it’s 2”) flat bar, and some scrap steel that I had laying around. The flat bar went from inside the rail to the rack and the scrap steel I had was bent around the rail with a bolt through the middle that attached them both together. Here’s some pictures.




There are 6 supports/brackets total (3 on each side). After those were made I had my friend weld the supports to the rack. If you’re wondering how sturdy it is, the flat bar is welded to the rack on both front and back and the guy who welded it (who is 260lbs) got up on top of it and it held just fine. There’s no movement front to back or side to side at all and the clamp style mounts hold very tight. As for the spare tire mount. I wanted to mimic the way the spare mounts in the cargo area and use the same hardware so I made another clamp that wraps around one of the rack cross members and has a hole where the threaded rod slips through (and 2 bolt holes). Here’s a couple pictures.



After that I painted the rack with some old rust oleum paint we had. Its a thicker paint and the can says ”professional” on it. That’s all I can tell you about it. But I brushed on about 3 coats. It’s actually super tough paint and I haven’t so much as scratched it yet so I’m happy. After that I threw it up on the Jeep, put the spare tire up there, tightened everything down and that was that. I also got a tire cover since the wall of the tire would be straight up and exposed all the time. And yes of corse the cover was tan colored.




I really love how the rack turned out. I made it because it was the best option I had at the time for getting the spare tire out of the Jeep. As some of you may know I had been looking at getting a swing out tire carrier bumper but decided against it since they’re too expensive for my taste. Having a tire on the back is preferable for me since having it up top cuts down on gas mileage. But recently I worked out a way to still do the swing out carrier without buying/making a new bumper. That project is underway now but for the time being the tire is going to stay on the rack. If you have the ability to notch and bend tubing, and can weld, this could easily be under a $100 to build. It cost me a little extra since I had to have so much of it done.

Thank you, and yes I did, It makes cleaning out the back way easier. I keep an old thick blanket folded back there that is big enough to cover the back seats when they’re folded down for my dog. When the seat is up it covers the cargo area so it’s a nice alternative to carpet if you don’t want a metal cargo area all the time.

i understand that, my 99 is super clean inside and I was also hesitant but i figured I could always just put the carpet back if I wanted to. And even if your plan is to leave the carpet in it’s never a bad idea to treat the rust, bedline, and throw the carpet back in.