grooving did a LOT. my tires were almost bald in the center so I only had the side edges. I gained 160 fresh edges per tire which helps a lot a lot. Tires also flex way better than they did before. I couldn't be happier with the outcome.

took me ~45 minutes per tire and cost almost nothing. I would def do it again.

Hey jeeps lookin good! Like your tailight idea real original.

what did you use to groove the tires? Ive seen hot irons used on huge tires and tractors before

i used an electric chain saw. worked awesome. Cut just slow enough that i was never scarred of going to deep, but fast enough to keep the time down.

since my last update some things have changed.

I got a new roof rack, its an olympic TopHat. Goes the full length of the jeep and had rub bars down the sides. Much nicer when i lean over into trees. Before it would always rip the load bars from the gutter mounts, now it just rubs on the tube. Perfect. A lot more space too.

Got a new front bumper. 4LowFab is a company starting up down the street form me. I got a sweet bumper from them. Stick out 2" past the grill and still fits my XRC 8 winch behind it. I used to have it in a basket, but i never moved it and I shortened my jeep by about a foot and my approach angle is silly now

Got a new (to me) set of tires. Stepped up from 34x9.5 TSLs to 35x12.5 general grabber MTs. Following people with 12.5s was getting harder with my skinny meats, and the jeep is getting heavier so the added width was very welcome. Also I haven't had radials in a few years (bias swampers and bias no name muds before that) and wow did it make a difference. MUCH quieter and smoother.

sacked up and did the 2x6 rocker mod. My sliders were spanked so i replaced those and gained another ~4" of ground clearance.

also had to replace my carrier bearings in the 8.8 and took the opportunity to install my blue torch fab DIY diff cover while i was at it.

got around to installing my hood.

I scored a spare several months ago, and some z34 lumina vents, installed and painted them up body color. Finally got around to slapping them on the heep.

and some underpics of the 2x6

bought some 14" travel 5150 bilsteins off a member here. My old shocks were the 8" travel guys that come with the 3" bds lift. 7 years, ~60k miles, and a few boulders crushing the bodies later they were pretty much spanked. I flexed decent with the lowers relocated level with the bottom of the tube and 4.5" of lift, but the shocks were the limiting factor for down travel by a long shot.

I didn't want the typical hoop to frame rail with cross support since i wanted to keep my rear seat, and be able to sleep in the back while camping. I made some brackets up out of 1/8th steel. The top of the bracket bolts into the rear seat belt bolts, and the tree bolts that hold the back of the rear seat, the bracket reaches out and holds the shock, and reaches down, through the floor, and welds to the frame rail.

It wasn't all that hard to do, seems uber solid, and i get to keep my space. If at any point i'm not satisfied with the stiffness I can add a bolt or weld in cross brace very easily. I haven't taken the bds shocks off yet, or finished the second side so i can't say what the total flex increase is, but i'm hoping to get to it this weekend, according to my solid model it should be quite a bit (or at least as much as the leaves will allow