ZMotorSports 2011 JKUR Build Thread

I am new here but thought I would throw up some pictures of my latest Jeep build. It is not real time as I have owned it now for almost two years.

I bought the Jeep with only 3208 miles on the odometer and commenced building my "Dream Jeep". This is my daily driver and weekend wheeler.

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On lift just before sitting it down with the 4" BDS Suspension Lift and 35" KM2 tires/ATX Crawl wheels.
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Backed outside the shop after just barely sitting her on the ground with new lift and tires/wheels.
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More to come as I dig through the pictures. Also pictured here is the Warn Rockcrawler bumper/Powerplant combination that I purchased used just to get me by until I could fabricated my own bumpers.

Mike.
 
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zmotorsports

Hardcore Gearhead
Vendor
Location
West Haven, UT
So one of our friends that we wheeled with last week in Moab jinxed me. As we were airing up on the last day of the trip I also opened my hood in order to blow off some of the dust from the engine bay as I was heading to the car wash immediately after leaving the trail, I hate towing the Jeep home with it being filthy.

He walked over and asked if I had any issues with my Rugged Ridge aluminum hood hinges. I replied saying I hadn’t had a single problem in the nearly 5 years they’ve been on my Jeep. I also told him I didn’t particularly care for the looks of them but they worked as advertised and solved the hood flutter that the JK’s are notorious for. He informed me that he had to replace his under warranty a couple of times and wasn’t impressed. I also told him if mine ever give me any issues that I was going to replace them with hood latches from the new JL’s as Jeep finally came up with a positive locking hood latch without a freakin’ bungee cord style strap.

Well, when we arrived home I went to check fluids and get the Jeep ready for daily commuting and noticed my passenger side Rugged Ridge hood latch decided to come apart and some pieces were missing. I told the wife it’s time for JL hood latches so yesterday on the way home from work I stopped by my local Jeep dealer and picked up a couple of JL latches and catches, or brackets as Mopar refers to them.

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The bolt size was the same but the spacing of the alignment tabs were not so I drilled out the holes to 3/8” for fitment.
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I prefer to use a step drill bit to avoid raised burrs.
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Masked for a little touch up to avoid any future corrosion issues.
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Lower latch installed.
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JL hood latch on JK mod completed.
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I am much happy with how those look as they fit in better with the whole “sleeper” theme of my Jeep.

Thanks for looking.

Mike
 

zmotorsports

Hardcore Gearhead
Vendor
Location
West Haven, UT
Yesterday I took some time to investigate an interesting issue that my Jeep had developed over the past week and a half or three tanks of fuel.

Immediately after fueling my fuel trims usually go high negative. This is a design trait of many operating systems in order to reset the adaptives as well as fine tuning of the fuel trims to evaluate fuel composition and quality, especially on flex fuel vehicles.

I had some slight issues with my LTFT (Long Term Fuel Trims) last winter that I was fine tuning and after tweaking my tune, specifically my air flow calculations, back in February the 6.2 L94 engine has been running flawless in my 2011 Jeep. From single digit winter driving in February to triple digit heat over the summer and from 2k feet elevations all the way up to 13k plus feet in Ouray it has performed flawlessly and adjusted fuel trims perfectly.

Last week when I fueled up on the way home from work I noticed that it stayed high negative on my LTFT's longer than normal. I also noticed that during the week I got a CEL several times and each time I was idling at a stop light for an extended period of time. I could watch my LTFT go to -30.4 before setting the rich code (P0172 & P0175).

Yesterday after breakfast I had some time to myself so I decided I was going to check a couple of items on the Jeep. First being the air filter, which I generally clean at each LOF service but this one had a recent trip to Moab on it so I thought it could be possible that it may be dirty even though I put my Outerwear on it for the week of the rally. After removing my air filter I noted that from the outside it appeared a bit dirty but with a light inside it was obviously not plugged or even that bad for that matter. I installed my backup filter anyways. I usually keep a cleaned/oiled filter in a ziplock baggy that I carry in the coach for backup and also switch between the two during a LOF service @ approx. 4.5k miles.

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Also while I was at it I though I'd pull the intake duct off and clean the throttle body. During our trip to Ouray in August I worked the snot out of the ole' girl and thought maybe I got a little bit of oil vapor from the PCV system that could have gummed up the throttle body and affecting the nearly closed position at idle which could be why it was running rich at idle. And since it was already out I also sprayed the MAF sensor with cleaner and let dry. The good news is that the MAF sensor was clean, the air filter wasn't that dirty and there was hardly any residue in the throttle body. I also ran my hand inside of the intake duct and could feel no grit or anything indicating that the air filter is performing its duties as designed. I was especially concerned due to the amount of dirt/dust that we had encountered in Moab last month as it was extremely dry and dusty. Luckily I was the trail leader on several of the days so it was minimal but the other days I was back in the dust as tail-gunner, although I held back a bit further to stay clear of as much dust as possible.

I decided to hook up my HP Tuners scanner to the Jeep and go for a drive as it does a great job of giving visual cues that are easier to watch while driving than my Snap-on Modis Ultra scanner. Plus I could load a few more PID's onto the screen for viewing.

I noticed that just idling in the shop I could tell it was running rich from the smell and the idle was a bit off to me. During my drive I noted that the O2 sensors were switching perfectly and very quick just like they should have been. I also noted that the MAF sensor appeared to be reporting properly as was the MAP sensor, each of which can cause my issue if not reporting correctly. What caught my attention was that while the upstream O2 sensors were switching rapidly my STFT (Short Term Fuel Trim) numbers were pretty much spot on at +/- <5 which is near perfect, usually around +/- 1.5 or less, yet my LTFT was still at -27 to around -29.6 while driving. This had me scratching my head because the LTFT is supposed to be a mean or average of the STFT but the STFT was pretty much at zero and hadn't even left the single digits.:headscrat

I pulled over to study my data and that's when I saw it. I noticed that my ethanol fuel content was at 45.1%. That was erroneous as we don't have E85 around here and most everything is only max of 10% ethanol. I thought maybe I got a bad batch of fuel. I went home and did some reading to discover how the GM operating system determined the ethanol content percentage and it has to do with the O2 sensor reporting and fuel trims immediately after a fillup. This made perfect sense as my issue started immediately after a fillup a little over a week ago.

If you look at this screen shot of my HP Tuners data log you can see where I've circled both upstream O2 sensors as they are switching perfectly and the area to the left with my STFT and LTFT numbers that are in a yellow box.
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I went back to the shop and pulled out my Snap-on scanner and reset both the ethanol content adaptive as well as reset my fuel trims. The ethanol percentage went to 3% which is the factory default so I'm certain after the the next fueling event it will go to around 9-11% which is where it is usually at but I will confirm after that next fillup. The wife and I went for a drive nice drive afterwards and everything appears to be reporting properly now but that was definitely a learning curve as I have not experienced that scenario before on my Jeep, or any vehicle for that matter.

Sorry this was a bit lengthy but I just thought I would share in case others notice an issue with fuel trims after a fueling event in an FFV (Flex Fuel Vehicle).

Mike
 

RockChucker

Well-Known Member
Location
Highland
Awesome tech. Didn't know that. I don't have flex fuel....and my Gen III system is much dumber. Hopefully I don't have any issues like these...not to mention my PCM probably doesn't know when I add fuel haha
 

zmotorsports

Hardcore Gearhead
Vendor
Location
West Haven, UT
Awesome tech. Didn't know that. I don't have flex fuel....and my Gen III system is much dumber. Hopefully I don't have any issues like these...not to mention my PCM probably doesn't know when I add fuel haha

Yeah, this was all new to me as well as this is my first flex fuel system. This symptom definitely had me scratching my head, which is why I thought I'd share in case anyone else stumbles across a similar issue.

Mike
 

I Lean

Mbryson's hairdresser
Vendor
Location
Utah
Yeah, this was all new to me as well as this is my first flex fuel system. This symptom definitely had me scratching my head, which is why I thought I'd share in case anyone else stumbles across a similar issue.

Mike
What was the symptom? Just the fuel trim numbers? What would it show up as, for a normal person who wouldn't be watching those? ;)
 

zmotorsports

Hardcore Gearhead
Vendor
Location
West Haven, UT
What was the symptom? Just the fuel trim numbers? What would it show up as, for a normal person who wouldn't be watching those? ;)

Long Term Fuel Trim's were extremely high negative and threw a P0172 and P0175 code several times. Those codes are Bank 1 and Bank 2 rich condition. Most people wouldn't know until the codes were thrown. I watch my LTFT #'s as one of the PID's on my Aeroforce gauge so I could see it coming just as the CEL lit up.

Mike
 

Mouse

Trying to wheel
Supporting Member
Location
West Haven, UT
I read through your troubleshooting and it isn't apparent to me how the PCM knows that it is refueled...is it just O2 sensor input from changed ethanol? If so, it seems as though this correction is just one-way for your jeep, adjusting for more ethanol, but not less.
 

zmotorsports

Hardcore Gearhead
Vendor
Location
West Haven, UT
I read through your troubleshooting and it isn't apparent to me how the PCM knows that it is refueled...is it just O2 sensor input from changed ethanol? If so, it seems as though this correction is just one-way for your jeep, adjusting for more ethanol, but not less.

The PCM detects a fueling event by using the fuel level sensor which then resets the adaptives.
 

zmotorsports

Hardcore Gearhead
Vendor
Location
West Haven, UT
If anyone wants to monitor their fuel trims. The Torque app will display them.

Yes, the Torque app is a great tool for those that want to monitor their engine performance system. Most PID's are available through it and even some troubleshooting if you know what to look for and how to interpret the data.

Mike
 

zmotorsports

Hardcore Gearhead
Vendor
Location
West Haven, UT
My wife and I each had a couple of vacation days that need to be used before the end of the year or we'll lose them and I'll be damned if I was going to let that happen so we took Friday off and went for a drive.

Going up over Logan Canyon we found ourselves smack in the middle of a winter storm.
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We also found a couple of side trails to play on.
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Snow isn't my favorite but we had a good time playing in it for a few hours.

Mike
 

zmotorsports

Hardcore Gearhead
Vendor
Location
West Haven, UT
On Christmas Eve as I was leaving work when I started the Jeep I heard that ugly click, click, clicking sound coming from under the dash.

I have replaced several of the blend door actuators on the Jeep JK’s so I swung by my local NAPA and picked one up but didn't have time to tear into it until last Saturday.

After pulling it into the shop and cycled the blend door and realized it wasn’t the blend door actuator. I switched the modes and it wasn’t the mode door actuator either. I then hit the recirculating switch and BINGO, there’s the noise. CRAP! That’s the hardest one to access.

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Access is less than ideal, especially for a big guy with large hands. I don’t know why they didn’t mount the actuator on the left side of the HVAC box where there’s plenty of room. But NO, they put it on the right side between the HVAC box and the right kick panel where there’s a whopping 3 inches of space.

Start by removing the glove box and the right dash speaker.
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And this is where the culprit resides.
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After the removal process I opted to open the original one and see which gear is stripped.
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Sure enough, there’s the broken tooth. See pick pointing to the broken gear.
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Reassembled, cleaned, wiring put back in place and new cabin filters installed.
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As a follow up to the above repair.....

I thought I would follow up with some tips for anyone replacing a recirculation actuator in a Jeep Wrangler.

First I hate interior work but I’ve found that this little 1/4” extended length ratchet is the magic bullet for interior work. It has the long neck allowing access without the body of the tool getting in the way, it allows one handed removal of fasteners and has enough torque to perform the job but not so much that it strips the plastic bosses out nor too fast where it over-runs the threads pulling plastic threads out.
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When installing the new actuator it is critical for proper spline alignment or the HVAC actuator will not calibrate. This is why I had to pull mine back out and re-clock the splined last night as it wouldn’t calibrate.

Upon removing the actuator from the package this flat spot on the output shaft should line up directly with the raised line on the body.

See two pictures below.
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To do that the recirculation damper door must be fully raised (open) before installing the actuator assembly. Mine was raised but dropped slightly as I was engaging the splined originally. It must be pushed upwards then instal the actuator into the splined damper door for proper positioning.

Lastly after replacement a bi-directional scantool will make life easier by running a calibration cycle.
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For the Snap-on tools the test is under HVAC system, then special tests and lastly actuator recalibration. Thus will run all actuators through their range to calibrate. After a successful calibration or passed message you can complete reassembly of the dash.

Lastly here is the part number for the Jeep actuator motors.
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Dorman also makes one that is popular but the NAPA one is made by Echlin and I prefer it.

Thanks for looking.

Mike
 

DesertRam

Active Member
Thanks Mike. I keep threatening to this (or similar) to my Ram 2500, as its recirc has been non-functional since I bought it with almost no air flow through the vents. It's a pain to get into the dash, so I did the down and dirty "repair" by just pulling the blower motor and removing the recirc door completely. Now AC is blended all the time, but at least it blows fast and cold.
 

zmotorsports

Hardcore Gearhead
Vendor
Location
West Haven, UT
I expected this would have gone into more depth with you pulling out a billet of aluminum and machining your own replacement gear :grimacing:

As always, excellent documentation and getting more into the "science" of it all.

Sorry to disappoint ya, no machined aluminum gear as something has to be the sacrificial component and I'd rather it be the actuator gear than the damper door itself which is much more in depth to replace.

I do appreciate the confidence however. :D

Mike
 
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