4 what it's worth

With the pandemic happening Im guessing I wont make it to Reno this year. But I can finally post some pics from last year.

Started out by battling bay area traffic. Tried taking Calaveras as it had just reopened, was a lot of fun for me, but not a good towing road.




Somehow this pair of dikes stayed put the whole ride up...




Solid group




The Reno trails were great
















I may have been spotting people into a wall




Apparently I drove into one at some point :dunno:






















:laugh3:




:shiver:

Few random updates as I try and get caught up with where the build is now.

I was having issues with a rough idle. Turned out to be the IAC valve. It just needed a quick cleaning, once it was back in it idled smoothly.



Decided to make a cabinet for a 10" sub that tucks into the passenger side wheel well. I used MDF.




I dont know how much of a difference it made, but I was careful to build it to the minimum suggested volume for a sealed cabinet.




Flag on the left side is to mount the amp.




Ended up going full lunar style :attom:







Theres so many loose and rattling parts of the jeep that when the sub is cranked, everything buzzes!




Then went wheeling!

OK some more wheelin' shots from a year or more ago.

Did a trip thru Fordyce




Also I got this high clearance bumper installed, and finally I dont hit the rear bumper on every rock. But I have to carry the tire in the backseat right now which is not ideal.




Sent WH1






Using the starter to crawl




Landed pretty hard after that shot and broke




People with buggys are crazy. Im amazed no one rolled on this




Also made it out to Rubicon




3 wheelin up soupbowl




Dont come to California, its terrible.

Made some upgrades:

Beef'd up the electrical by adding new wires in the engine bay, swapped the fuseable link for a real fuse.




Put in a zj alternator, the bracket just needs a little trimming




Finally worked on the front suspension. Added better bumpstops. So far these are working pretty well, but they are getting beat up after a few trips out. The delrin rod in the middle is for a hard stop.




Added limit straps with some cool adjustable hangers.




The bottom of the coil is retained with these plates




Finally added hydro assist, this is long overdue.




When I installed my ram I didnt do a great job of checking for clearance, so the ram ended up hitting the tie rod at full lock. I used some offset heim joints on my tie rod to get it out of the way. Unfortunately they were rubbing on the inside of my wheel, so they had to be ground down.




Just hangin'

Cool pics, thanks for posting them up.
Please expand on your comment "Using the starter to crawl". Must be a new driving technique I haven't heard of yet :dunno:

The green cj stalled while trying to climb that ledge. Without taking it out of gear he just turned over the starter and it kept crawling. I dont think the gearing is low enough for the engine to start like some of the toyota guys.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmQHzzf7VCM

Pretty cool. I guess with a 200+:1 crawl ratio and a light rig you can get away with that.

After seeing how well my smaller rear bumper worked, I started scheming ideas for how I could rebuild my front bumper to be high clearance and lightweight. This ended up taking much longer than I anticipated but I also added more tubes than I originally planned. Guess it didnt matter since this is when everything was shut down anyway so I had plenty of garage time.

Anyway, I wanted to hide the winch so I bought some builder plates and cut my front crossmember.




I welded 2 scraps of 2x6 together and fit them between the plates. I added a bunch of internal gussets later to add strength to this area. But if I were to do this again, I would have added some spacers to the plates to make them slightly wider than the frame...




Drilled holes and mounted the winch/fairlead. The 6in was just barely wide enough to mount the winch. The one good thing is that the holes are close to the side wall which prevents the tube from collapsing around the bolts.




Used the ol' Magnum Holeshooter to add some holes.




The 3 holes got sleeved with 1.5in tube. These are so you can see the rope as it spools. Then I cut/folded the corners up.

This is when I decided Id try and add some tube around the engine/rad, but I wanted to keep it all underneath the fenders. The clearances are so tight Im pretty sure this would only work with 1.5in tube. I tied the inner fender into the tube as well, I just dont have pics of that.






The tube that goes across the front was what I was most unsure about. I had done some test fitting and measuring, but still wasnt sure I could get an unbent tube to fit under the front clip. In the end, yes it is possible, but obviously there is a lot of trimming that has to happen. Remember that the clip is made of fiberglass so use enough protective equipment if youre cutting it.

I also wanted to make the bumper removable, so I made the vertical tubes bolt to plates. One neat trick for the plates that mount above the tube, is to use a very thin section of tube that is flat on top to weld to the plate, and notched around the tube on bottom.




One nice thing about having a lot of tube in the front is you have a lot of places to mount things. The plate cooler is for the transmission, the cylindrical cooler is for the steering.

It is removable, but adding spacers between the plates and the frame would have saved me from having to install it with a mallet. It was much easier to fully weld off the jeep.




I notched a square hole in the front of the bumper and the shackle mounts are plug welded on the back side.




Fully painted and reinstalled.




These little zip tie mounts were super helpful to get the wiring out of the way.




Lots of places to add light mounts.




I filled the awkward gap between the bumper and front clip with a single row light bar.

For the winch I installed the control box next to the fuse block, and then ran in-cab controls. I added a few led strips above the spool, so when the winch is armed, the lights shine on the rope and help you see how its spooling. But I need to make them a little brighter.

Finished:






I had to trim the grille around the steering cooler, but it fits in pretty well.




If youre thinking about doing something similar, just know there is a lot of trimming/cutting of the fenders/front clip. Since my wiring is out of control dealing with routing is a pain, and you run out of room fast. Also my panel gaps are as wide as the grand canyon now, if that matters to anyone who owns an xj. Otherwise I highly recommend it.

Looking good! You def have the fab skills. I can appreciate the thought you put into that bumper and tube work and it came out great.

How accessible is the winch line? Main issue with hidden winches is they are a pain to unwind the spool *when* your line binds up on itself.

I like it

That looks awesome! I really like how you added the tubing to protect the fenders.


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That looks sick man. Awesome work

High clearance bumper with lights looks very nice. Good Job!

Dig this xj alot.

I like it a lot! Now you got me thinking if trimming up my bumper more before I add the tube to the sides. I may be coming your tube work behind the header too. Great work

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Got some more randoms that might be interesting to you guys.

Starting with the most random, like this FC I saw on the freeway.






Or this zj on treads.




Ran the rubicon in a day in a last minute planned trip over haloween.




A huge windstorm had ripped through a few days prior and there were lots of trees down. It was kinda sad to see the big sluice tree had fallen.




There was a question about how accessible the winch line is, here is a view from underneath with it all spooled up:




I was at Target doing some shopping/mall crawling and when I got back to the jeep, it wouldnt start. I used a screw driver to jump the starter, and it fired right up. After doing some more diagnosing, I figured the only thing it could be was something broken in the ignition. Sure enough, the ignition switch pin had broken. Started up just fine with a new one. Still no idea how this broke.




Broke a few wheel studs trying one day getting too crazy with the impact.




I again had the issue where the d44 bearing retainer washer got stuck in the spindle threads. I used this as a time to install stage 8 locking spindle nuts which look like they will eliminate that issue. Kind of a pain to line up the second to last ring with the tangs, but better than getting the washer stuck in there.




Also had to fix the check engine light Id had for a year since it was time to smog. Found a pretty good hole in this rubber hose going to whatever this box is near the gas tank.




I noticed there was a "test weight" on my smog certificate. Anyone know if they actually weigh the whole vehicle when you get smogged on the dyno? 3625 seems crazy low for a full body caged xj.




State website says that should be the vehicle weight...