Alright here goes, I've been putting this off for a while but after completing a few things I'm quickly getting behind so I decided to get to it.
So this really isn't a build thread since I'm no builder. But more as a keep track of mods/trips thread
To start out my first rig ever going on 16 years ago now was a 1988 Jeep Cherokee (I'll see if I can dig up a good old print and scan it). When I purchased the rig I knew nothing about the 4wheel drive world. However I quickly was thrown into it with the meeting of a few new friends. Long story short I ended up selling the Cherokee (Chermut) as I called it when I joined the Army in 1999. After that I literally owned more Toyota's Hilux's 4runners Tacomas than I can remember or keep track of (I think at least over 20 in the last 10 years. What led me back to the Jeep world was the need/want for a late model vehicle that could get me reliably back and forth to the trail/expeditions without a trailer or constantly holding the pedal to the floor in 3rd gear while climbing grades. It all came together when I ran HITR with a bunch of peeps from RME last year. I have Brian (TJDukit) and Eric (Frieed) to blame for my latest purchase. After watching those two on the trail and seeing their (nearly) stock vehicles follow my heavily modified Toyota on every line I took, I was hooked. I'm a sucker for open air wheeling, Jeep adding two more doors and with Rubicon including everything I would do anyway with a warranty, I couldn't think of a better fit.
To be honest I've wanted a JKU since they came to fruition a few years ago, luckily (and not so luckily) I was not in a position to buy one when they first came out. But this turned out to be a good thing anyway. Jeep reworked a few things since then and it ended up being worth the wait.
So what I ended up with was a 2013 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited Rubicon
What my plans are:
After having a very built rig again I concluded the "hardcore" wheeling wasn't really my cup of tea anymore. I want to "build" this Jeep to be a comfortable driver, I want to be able to set the cruise and motor to where ever I'm going without fighting the vehicle wandering, lack of power or back breaking ride. I want to be able to run mild to moderate "crawling" trails. But more so outfit it to go explore the state and the west. My goal is to take my Utah Back Country Adventures book and run it cover to cover. I want to be in the trip a month club, but due to my current schedule I'll often be solo, so reliability and self recovery will be key. Which is why I opted for the Rubicon, while the Front Dana 44 doesn't offer that much more strength, for the tires I plan to run its more than beefy. Also will enjoy the factory (warrantied) hopefully reliable lockers for those oh sheet situations. The 4 door will offer plenty of space for gear, food and recovery equipment especially with the rear seats folding flat (I will miss my truck bed though).
I can't thank Dempsey (Turbominivan) enough for helping me with the purchase. Dempsey is awesome to work with and a great person, I can't recommend him enough if you plan a purchase in the future. I'm glad I met him as I believe I have a new life long 4Wheelin buddy.
So here's the Jeep before I even saw it in person. Freshly arrived from the factory as ordered in only about 3 weeks
And after I brought it home
Before I even had the chance to do some mods it was off Moab for Easter Jeep Safari. I again met some new friends, Marc (mbryson) was kind enough to share his camp, even though he had never met me, and Bart (Bart) just happened to be occupying the next stall over. Unfortunately didn't have a whole bunch of time hanging out together, but hope to remedy that in the future.
I didn't do anything crazy while in Moab, I don't officially know, but I would venture to guess I was the lowest mileage Jeep out on the trails.
First on the list was Long Canyon with Marc, his parents, and a couple nice fellas from Iowa Marc had met the day before.
Mileage on the first trail
And of course the boulder poser shot
Second trail was Fins and Things. No photo's since it was a solo run and kinda late in the day so I was just trying to get through it. But still under 1k
3rd day down I ran Elephant Hill with Marc and Dempsey
Still under 1k mileage shot
Random poser shot
After returning from Moab I quickly decided I needed to get a little more elevation. I was dragging my gas tank on everything.
I contacted Davy (Mesha) with Alljeep.com.
Must have been subliminal messaging from Brian's Jeep with his 18 foot sticker
I ended up ordering a 2.5in Teraflex spring lift, Epic Rock Guard Bumper, and the needed vacuum pump relocation kit. I was going back and forth but ended up calling Davy back and having him add the Teraflex speed bumps to my order.
My free time is short, and my patience for installing things is even shorter, so inquired with Davy about having them install the kit. Davy's prices are very reasonable, and I figured the extra money spent was worth my sanity from working on my back in the driveway. Davy set me up with his partner in crime Ryan (skippy). I dropped it of to Ryan and he had it done the next day awesome service. Again a shout out to Alljeep.com, if your looking for parts or installs give them a call great to work with.
A few before and after shots
Front before Lift
After lift
Rear Before
Rear After
As you can see in the pictures I opted to go with shock extenders instead of new shocks. As with most money is a little tight, and well the shocks had 2000 miles on them. I plan to upgrade in the future to a good remote reservoir shock.
Few days later my pal Brian returned from his deployment and we hit 5mile to test both our new suspensions
My bumper finally arrived from being back ordered and I had a chance to install it. Didn't get any pictures of the vac pump relocation, since its pretty straight forward. I did run into a small problem, the space Teraflex intends to relocate the pump to is currently occupied by the horn. Not sure if this is new for the '13 over the '12, but I haven't figured out a new place to mount it yet. Bumper install was fairly uneventful, the hardest part was getting the stupid plastic tabs out of the factory bumper. And a few extra times on and off due to me miss placing the destructions for a bit. I also found the holes teraflex intends you to use on the bottom of the bumper also don't work so well with the '13 model.
More of a off and on shot, not quite done yet have to pick up some more hardware to make it work with my frame. I plan to order a winch to sit in it this weekend.
Not a great shot the weather turned on me and I had to move inside
Ride height after bumper install, we'll have to see how it looks with a winch in, lost a little bit of elevation
Updated bumper pic's finally had time to get it buttoned down the rest of the way
Going to hopefully go pick up a winch in the morning to fill the gaping hole
To be continued........
So this really isn't a build thread since I'm no builder. But more as a keep track of mods/trips thread
To start out my first rig ever going on 16 years ago now was a 1988 Jeep Cherokee (I'll see if I can dig up a good old print and scan it). When I purchased the rig I knew nothing about the 4wheel drive world. However I quickly was thrown into it with the meeting of a few new friends. Long story short I ended up selling the Cherokee (Chermut) as I called it when I joined the Army in 1999. After that I literally owned more Toyota's Hilux's 4runners Tacomas than I can remember or keep track of (I think at least over 20 in the last 10 years. What led me back to the Jeep world was the need/want for a late model vehicle that could get me reliably back and forth to the trail/expeditions without a trailer or constantly holding the pedal to the floor in 3rd gear while climbing grades. It all came together when I ran HITR with a bunch of peeps from RME last year. I have Brian (TJDukit) and Eric (Frieed) to blame for my latest purchase. After watching those two on the trail and seeing their (nearly) stock vehicles follow my heavily modified Toyota on every line I took, I was hooked. I'm a sucker for open air wheeling, Jeep adding two more doors and with Rubicon including everything I would do anyway with a warranty, I couldn't think of a better fit.
To be honest I've wanted a JKU since they came to fruition a few years ago, luckily (and not so luckily) I was not in a position to buy one when they first came out. But this turned out to be a good thing anyway. Jeep reworked a few things since then and it ended up being worth the wait.
So what I ended up with was a 2013 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited Rubicon
What my plans are:
After having a very built rig again I concluded the "hardcore" wheeling wasn't really my cup of tea anymore. I want to "build" this Jeep to be a comfortable driver, I want to be able to set the cruise and motor to where ever I'm going without fighting the vehicle wandering, lack of power or back breaking ride. I want to be able to run mild to moderate "crawling" trails. But more so outfit it to go explore the state and the west. My goal is to take my Utah Back Country Adventures book and run it cover to cover. I want to be in the trip a month club, but due to my current schedule I'll often be solo, so reliability and self recovery will be key. Which is why I opted for the Rubicon, while the Front Dana 44 doesn't offer that much more strength, for the tires I plan to run its more than beefy. Also will enjoy the factory (warrantied) hopefully reliable lockers for those oh sheet situations. The 4 door will offer plenty of space for gear, food and recovery equipment especially with the rear seats folding flat (I will miss my truck bed though).
I can't thank Dempsey (Turbominivan) enough for helping me with the purchase. Dempsey is awesome to work with and a great person, I can't recommend him enough if you plan a purchase in the future. I'm glad I met him as I believe I have a new life long 4Wheelin buddy.
So here's the Jeep before I even saw it in person. Freshly arrived from the factory as ordered in only about 3 weeks
And after I brought it home
Before I even had the chance to do some mods it was off Moab for Easter Jeep Safari. I again met some new friends, Marc (mbryson) was kind enough to share his camp, even though he had never met me, and Bart (Bart) just happened to be occupying the next stall over. Unfortunately didn't have a whole bunch of time hanging out together, but hope to remedy that in the future.
I didn't do anything crazy while in Moab, I don't officially know, but I would venture to guess I was the lowest mileage Jeep out on the trails.
First on the list was Long Canyon with Marc, his parents, and a couple nice fellas from Iowa Marc had met the day before.
Mileage on the first trail
And of course the boulder poser shot
Second trail was Fins and Things. No photo's since it was a solo run and kinda late in the day so I was just trying to get through it. But still under 1k
3rd day down I ran Elephant Hill with Marc and Dempsey
Still under 1k mileage shot
Random poser shot
After returning from Moab I quickly decided I needed to get a little more elevation. I was dragging my gas tank on everything.
I contacted Davy (Mesha) with Alljeep.com.
Must have been subliminal messaging from Brian's Jeep with his 18 foot sticker
I ended up ordering a 2.5in Teraflex spring lift, Epic Rock Guard Bumper, and the needed vacuum pump relocation kit. I was going back and forth but ended up calling Davy back and having him add the Teraflex speed bumps to my order.
My free time is short, and my patience for installing things is even shorter, so inquired with Davy about having them install the kit. Davy's prices are very reasonable, and I figured the extra money spent was worth my sanity from working on my back in the driveway. Davy set me up with his partner in crime Ryan (skippy). I dropped it of to Ryan and he had it done the next day awesome service. Again a shout out to Alljeep.com, if your looking for parts or installs give them a call great to work with.
A few before and after shots
Front before Lift
After lift
Rear Before
Rear After
As you can see in the pictures I opted to go with shock extenders instead of new shocks. As with most money is a little tight, and well the shocks had 2000 miles on them. I plan to upgrade in the future to a good remote reservoir shock.
Few days later my pal Brian returned from his deployment and we hit 5mile to test both our new suspensions
My bumper finally arrived from being back ordered and I had a chance to install it. Didn't get any pictures of the vac pump relocation, since its pretty straight forward. I did run into a small problem, the space Teraflex intends to relocate the pump to is currently occupied by the horn. Not sure if this is new for the '13 over the '12, but I haven't figured out a new place to mount it yet. Bumper install was fairly uneventful, the hardest part was getting the stupid plastic tabs out of the factory bumper. And a few extra times on and off due to me miss placing the destructions for a bit. I also found the holes teraflex intends you to use on the bottom of the bumper also don't work so well with the '13 model.
More of a off and on shot, not quite done yet have to pick up some more hardware to make it work with my frame. I plan to order a winch to sit in it this weekend.
Not a great shot the weather turned on me and I had to move inside
Ride height after bumper install, we'll have to see how it looks with a winch in, lost a little bit of elevation
Updated bumper pic's finally had time to get it buttoned down the rest of the way
Going to hopefully go pick up a winch in the morning to fill the gaping hole
To be continued........
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