Progress

The strip down has begun. The bad part about stipping down a vehicle is that you have more parts that you need to put someplace. My packing skills are extraordinary.

The first large obstacle I had to overcome today before I began was to remove the wheels from this rig. The dealer did not provide us with a key for the lug nuts so I had to weld on a nut to each security lug on each wheel to remove these little bastards.

I then started to remove the fender and TJ side rails. I also replace the headlights with the new KC units.

This is just a picture for dramatic effect.

Rear bumper before removal.

Rear bumper after removal.

Rear Dana 44 axle and stock fuel tank before removal and rebuild.

This is the big empty hole where the stock fuel tank used to be located. The crossmember at the very top of this picture will be removed prior to the install of the large capacity Gen Right Safari gas tank.

Stock gas tank is out of the way. Today was a solid day of progress. Time for a beer.

Gen Right Delivery

Installation photos and new delivery

Dual Battery switch in the cab. You can run it in single battery, dual batteries and in emergency mode.

You can see that this is a very tight fit between the ECU on the firewall (top), the air conditioning stuff on the right side and the fender on the left. Trust me when I say that this is the cleanest you can get all these wires in this corner of the engine bay.

AEM air intake and throttle body spacer from the front of the vehicle. I also got the E3 plugs installed.

You can see the separator next to the filter which will help keep engine temperature from the intake when the hood is closed.

Poison Spyder Customs steering box protection.

We got a delivery of fuel cans today. These are NATO metal cans with the good spouts and locking top not that stupid California emissions controlled crap they sell as of the first of this year. These bad boys dont come with spill proof spouts, these are made for grown ups.

Garvin rear bumper in the foreground.

Poison Spyder Customs rock rails and crusher corners

Another shot of the crusher corners and rock rails. These will give this jeep an urban assault vehicle look and feel not to mention keeping rocks from denting the body. Very high quality metal work. Ready for primer and paint.

Dual Battery and cold air intake installed

Its late as I write this post so I will wait until tomorrow before I get some pictures of todays install. I started out taking out the stock air box and all associated hoses. Then I removed the stock battery and battery tray. Since there was lots of access on that side of the engine bay I went ahead and started installing the E3 spark plugs.

After the plugs were in I began the install of the dual batteries. The actual batteries were pretty easy but the wiring was a Bit**. I got the dual battery switch finished about 30 min ago. I also installed the AEM cold air intake, cold air separater and throttle body spacer. It looks and sounds very nice.

I finished testing the batteries and made sure everything is operational. It was a very tight fit. Everything works great.

The delivery truck showed up on Friday and delivered the Poison Spyder Customs Steering box armor, Crusher Corners, and Rocker knockers. The Steering box armor was powder coated black but the corners and rock rails are bare metal. The fabrication work on them is fantastic. I will coat them with POR15 and paint them black.

As soon as the package shows up this week with the lock nut key I will be able to get the wheels off and begin on the lift kit.

Pictures to follow when I have some good lighting.

4th Delivery - Small but important

I got a small delivery today. The Royal Purple Synthetic gear oil, Automatic Transmission Fluid and Engine oil showed up.

The second box that arrived is the Power Tank 15 lbs. CO2 On Board Air (OBA) system. It included a 160 lbs pressure guage, coiled air hose, 15 lbs cylinder, Pressure regulator and various quick connectors. It also has a roll cage clamp kit and a very nice aluminum mounting kit.

I just got a phone call from FedEx as I was writing this post. There is a truck 10 min away with a large shipment from Poison Spyder Customs. I gotta go unload a truck. New post to follow.

3rd Delivery

AEM Brute force cold air intake. These make nice power and have a great sound.

Rubicon Express Constant Velocity (CV) Driveshaft. This is an absolute requirement for any lift over 4" in my opinion. Without a SYE kit and a CV driveshaft you are guaranteed to have vibration on a lifted jeep at highway speed. This is a requirement of mine that cannot be skipped.

New speedometer gear. This gear is selected to compensate for the larger tires and different ring and pinion gears. Basically, this makes sure that your speedometer guage in the rig reads 70 mph when you are going 70 mph. If this little gear is not replaced your speedo will read 60 mph when you are actually going 70 (with 35's and 3.55 gears) We will be running 35's with 4.88 gears and a 38 gear tooth speedo. If you are a real Jeep guy you should recognize that this white gear is a #37 and not a 38. That is because I decided to change the gear sets from 4.56's to 4.88's after I realized how much weight we would be pulling. The #38 is on the way.

Superwinch with sythetic winch line and superwinch fairlead. I know that many of you think I should be using a Warn winch. They are very good (nearly perfect) but this winch went toe to toe with nearly identical performance numbers in the "winches in hell" comparison and this winch is several hundred dollars cheaper. I would put my reputation behind it, and I dont give that away easily.

Everyone knows Optima batteries. I personally use Optima in my rig but this jeep needs a dual battery set up and a cold air conditioning system. This dual set up will provide more power than you can imagine. It is fully selectable, can jump itself if your main battery dies. When you want the ABSOLUTE best, this is it. Bar none.

Power slot brakes and Hawk pads. I use these on my rig. They are awsome and have a long life. You get what you pay for. You wont see these but you will know they are there every time you stop.

Galaxy 929 with PA system, Firestick antenna and Firestick Coax cable. Very nice radio.

2nd Delivery of parts

Garvin industries - rear bumper and swing out tire carrier.

Garvin Industries expedition roof rack and trail rack. Yes I know that Shelby is barefoot, she follows me into the garage to see what is happening. She has already informed her mother that she will be welding the roll cage after it arrives. Kidding - Really

Banks Engineering - header- good for torque and HP

Flowmaster Super 44 off-road muffler. This muffler has just the right sound on any Jeep.

Superior Ring and Pinion with Master install kit. Unfortunately these are a 4.56 gear ratio and we needed a 4.88 gear set. These will be returned to Quadratec and hopefully we can get the 4.88 set before I start to install the Superior/ARB Super 44 (33 Spline)rear end.

Currie Heavy Duty tie rod steering linkage. These guys will not get bent. Massive

For the AW4 automatic transmission we picked up a B&M tranny cooler and guage. This will help keep the temp down on that automatic pulling all this extra weight.

Here come the first part deliveries

Rubicon Express 5.5" front coil springs.

Rubicon Express rear 5.5" coil springs.

Rubicon Express front and rear steel braided brake lines in extended lengths.

Rubicon Express drop pitman arm.

Rubicon Express front sway bar disconnects on left and rear sway bar connectors on right.

Rubicon Express skid plate.

Rubicon Express skid plate brackets and control arm mounts for the skid plate under the transfer case.

Rubicon Express rear Tri link. Very impressive packaging. This will give the rear massive articulation and eliminate the need for a rear track bar.

Rubicon Express rear control arms. These suckers are massive.

Tuffy security drawer for the rear. Great for locking up your valuables.

ARB air locker compressor. This is the new compact one. We are using ours only for the lockers. Dont worry there will be an OBA (on board air) system as well.

Bushwacker 4.75" fender flares. These have been redesigned with a new texture simular to a rhino lining. Very nice.

JKS ACOS rear- adjustable coil over spacers for adjusting the rear of the vehicle for added weight

JKS ACOS front - adjustable coil over spacers. These are very nice for fine tuning the level of a jeep after adding weight. We are going to have a lot of weight.

Hal Guard fire extinguisher

LubeLocker Dana 44 differential gaskets for rear axle.

E3 Spark plugs - Proven power and fuel economy

Jeep Rock Key

Black Lug nuts.

This is the Teraflex transfer case Slip Yoke Eliminator (SYE) kit. It has a new output shaft, rear housing and fixed yoke along with several e-clips to set everything in place.

This is the ARB Dana 44 rear differential cover. It is very heavy duty and has the added feature of a dip stick and a drain plug.