I bought my first Jeep ever in December of 2016. I wasn't looking for a wheeler, just a summertime convertible to take out of the garage on sunny days & warm summer nights so my search was pretty much appearance as opposed to performance based. My short list included a 4.0 liter 5 speed manual that was one solid color on all black with a 3 inch lift & 33x12.5 tires; to my eye that is the quintessential Jeep.
My search encompassed southeastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey & Delaware. Being in the rust belt I figured many would be ruled out due to frame rot issues so I took my time & crawled under quite a few & ultimately found one in New Jersey that had every single thing on my list, a perfect frame, plus a couple extras that I really liked including the front bumper, rock sliders & a Banks Power exhaust which gives it a beautiful purr. It also had a winch but as I was bargaining with the owner we were around $500 apart so to sweeten the deal I told him he could take his winch off if that’d make him feel better about my offer, he did & the deal was done.
$1,150 & one Warn Zeon S later the winch is back but that’s another story esas:
The ‘convertible only street machine’ idea lasted only a few months before I made the mistake of wheeling it once, got bit, knew immediately I'd be wheeling the crap out of it which has held true; at that point the performance modifications began in earnest* :borra2:
* My build is fairly modest among the hardcore crowd and I've kicked around the idea of going bigger but a couple factors have stopped me each time. Where I wheel there are plenty of trails and obstacles that are out of my reach based upon the limitations of my rig, my less than advanced skill level, or a combination of both. However as I've gone forward I've chipped away around the edges of those areas & the list is slowly shrinking. If I showed up next week with 40s on tons those trails wouldn't be nearly as challenging if at all, in fact most of the trails I do would become boring essentially shrinking the size of the park to a precious few challenges. Point being it's all relative, I guess I'm happier being a smaller fish in a big pond, for now anyway. Second factor is more practical, I'm fortunate enough that rust isn't an issue with my TJ & I plan to keep it indefinitely so it does not leave the garage in any kind of inclement weather, the only time it gets wet is when I wheel it and at the end of each outing it gets 3 or 4 cycles at the self-clean car wash including a complete flushing of the frame rails. As it stands I have less than one inch of clearance to get it into the garage so any more increase in lift or tire size would doom it to a life outdoors & that just ain't gonna happen.
Anyway enough of that nonsense, here's how she looked the day I brought her home:
My search encompassed southeastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey & Delaware. Being in the rust belt I figured many would be ruled out due to frame rot issues so I took my time & crawled under quite a few & ultimately found one in New Jersey that had every single thing on my list, a perfect frame, plus a couple extras that I really liked including the front bumper, rock sliders & a Banks Power exhaust which gives it a beautiful purr. It also had a winch but as I was bargaining with the owner we were around $500 apart so to sweeten the deal I told him he could take his winch off if that’d make him feel better about my offer, he did & the deal was done.
$1,150 & one Warn Zeon S later the winch is back but that’s another story esas:
The ‘convertible only street machine’ idea lasted only a few months before I made the mistake of wheeling it once, got bit, knew immediately I'd be wheeling the crap out of it which has held true; at that point the performance modifications began in earnest* :borra2:
* My build is fairly modest among the hardcore crowd and I've kicked around the idea of going bigger but a couple factors have stopped me each time. Where I wheel there are plenty of trails and obstacles that are out of my reach based upon the limitations of my rig, my less than advanced skill level, or a combination of both. However as I've gone forward I've chipped away around the edges of those areas & the list is slowly shrinking. If I showed up next week with 40s on tons those trails wouldn't be nearly as challenging if at all, in fact most of the trails I do would become boring essentially shrinking the size of the park to a precious few challenges. Point being it's all relative, I guess I'm happier being a smaller fish in a big pond, for now anyway. Second factor is more practical, I'm fortunate enough that rust isn't an issue with my TJ & I plan to keep it indefinitely so it does not leave the garage in any kind of inclement weather, the only time it gets wet is when I wheel it and at the end of each outing it gets 3 or 4 cycles at the self-clean car wash including a complete flushing of the frame rails. As it stands I have less than one inch of clearance to get it into the garage so any more increase in lift or tire size would doom it to a life outdoors & that just ain't gonna happen.
Anyway enough of that nonsense, here's how she looked the day I brought her home: