Midnight LJR Build

[Midnight LJR]

Took the Jeep on its first official wheeling trip this weekend. Went to Tamarack lake near Castle Crag State Park. Lake was amazing and I will definitely plan to make a trip back to camp. Was great to meet some off the forum members who have been helping with the build.

Old train car we stayed in.

Exploring downtown Dunsmuir.

The Castle Crags

The only real little obstacle on the way down to the lake.

and the most important part to quote @Alex01 “what’s the point in buying all those fancy savvy controls arms if you can’t pose on a rock”

I was extremely happy with how the Jeep did set the cruise control at 70 all the way there and back 3.5 hours each way and it drove great. If I can get the small vibration sorted out this will be a amazing road trip Jeep.

Off Road the Jeep rides amazing aired down to 10psi the ride was down right luxurious on some very rocket roads. I really enjoyed being able to just flip the switch on the Sway loc instead of crawling around under the Jeep.

The crawl ratio with the rubicon transfer case was really awesome in the technical part.

The best part was my daughter screaming “WEEEEEEEEE!” when we would go over the big rocks.

Already excited about the next group run!

 

[Midnight LJR]

Got my TRE thimble installed today. Followed the video here on the forum. I ran some thread through to lock it in. Glad I did it because I felt like I learned a new trail repair skill.

Don’t worry about the winch line I still have to tension it and don’t have anywhere to do it on my street.

 

[Midnight LJR]

Couple of nice quality of life improvements today, my wife got me for my birthday.

Some Bartac grab handles.

Aa really nice lightweight aluminum storage box for the back from Gr8tops.

This thing is very light and shaped perfect to fit the back of the LJ. I am planning to use it for tools and recovery gear to keep them all safe and boxed up when wheeling. I think I am going to try to find a way to strap my ice chest above it.

 

[tomtaylz]

Couple of nice quality of life improvements today, my wife got me for my birthday.

Some Bartac grab handles.
View attachment 124917

Aa really nice lightweight aluminum storage box for the back from Gr8tops.
View attachment 124914View attachment 124916View attachment 124915

This thing is very light and shaped perfect to fit the back of the LJ. I am planning to use it for tools and recovery gear to keep them all safe and boxed up when wheeling. I think I am going to try to find a way to strap my ice chest above it.

Wow she got you all that even after you gave her a black eye , or maybe because of

 

[Midnight LJR]

Wow she got you all that even after you gave her a black eye , or maybe because of

HAHAHA

Nice avatar picture BTW =-)

 

[bobthetj03]

Happy Birthday! Nice gifts!

 

[Hammer24]

This is such a beautiful rig! Probably exactly how i'd build an lj myself. great stuff mate

 

[lowranger]

Couple of nice quality of life improvements today, my wife got me for my birthday.

Some Bartac grab handles.
View attachment 124917

Aa really nice lightweight aluminum storage box for the back from Gr8tops.
View attachment 124914View attachment 124916View attachment 124915

This thing is very light and shaped perfect to fit the back of the LJ. I am planning to use it for tools and recovery gear to keep them all safe and boxed up when wheeling. I think I am going to try to find a way to strap my ice chest above it.

I made a rack for the top of my box so I could do the same thing, strap a few things to it if need be. I took two racks, cut them down then welded them together in the center. You could probably just use one rack and cut it down to fit.

 

[Midnight LJR]

Oh th

I made a rack for the top of my box so I could do the same thing, strap a few things to it if need be. I took two racks, cut them down then welded them together in the center. You could probably just use one rack and cut it down to fit.View attachment 124959

That’s a nice setup, thanks for sharing.

 

[Midnight LJR]

Took a friend on his first wheeling trip on Slick Rock Trail Friday, I was excited to test the Jeep on more difficult obstacles. I was also very interested into how this wheel and tire combo would handle airing down. I dropped the pressure to 8 lbs for this whole run, the grip felt good and I didn't lose a bead so that will probably be where I stick when wheeling for now as a default. I was impressed with the traction the All Terrains provided on the rocks, I was a bit concerned about them because I have only ever wheeled on more aggressive mud terrains.


Start of the trail

Bridge crossing before a great camping spot near the start of the trail.

Coming down the Staircase one of the first named obstacles, there is a bypass to the left that is useful for rigs without lockers when coming up.

The one water crossing on the trail, it can get quite deep at certain times of the year.

These photos give you an idea of what I would call the average terrain looks like on the trail.

This section is called slick rock and from my understanding is the section the trail gets it name from, it is quite steep and a lot of fun. This is the most common place to have lunch at the top or bottom of this section.

One of my favorite things about Slick Rock is the middle of the trail opens up into this great little easy forest drive where you get to enjoy the scenery for a bit.

I don't know if this area has a name, but it is a lot of fun, and does seem to have a little bypass around it, although I am not sure if it is a "official" bypass. This requires you to do a pivot around your slider to make the turn and while not very hard has always been one of my favorite things to do when wheeling. I imagine it would be a much harder obstacles in some of the newer bigger jeeps.

This is one of the best rocks ever because technically it is not a poser shot, you do need to go over this rock to set yourself up for the next section. But really allows you to show off that flex. lol

This is one of the new obstacles that was added in when the rerouted the trail around some private property I have never done it before. this is called Winch Hill. It was quite a challenging section with all the soft dirt around the rocks, it was a good test of the jeep and I was happy to make it to the top without using my winch.

This is the last technical section before the trail ended we did take the bypass around another new obstacle called Rock Pile that looks to be a lot of fun, it was already getting dark and my friend had to still drive home so we left that one for next time.

There is also a great little forested section at the very end with some very sharp tight turns, that kept making me think if a new gladiator would even be able to make it out.

My parents have a cabin right next to this trail and I am glad I was able to sneak in a run this year. I have had a few forums members ask about putting together a Slick Rock run and I will be doing that for sure. I have not done a ton of trails, but this one really is amazing and has a little of everything the scenery is amazing. My wife and I often talk of moving out of California, however the Sierra Nevada mountains make that a very hard thing to do.

As far as the jeep goes it did amazing and was a joy to wheel, I have never wheeled a stick before on a trail as hard as this so that took quite a bit of adjusting but the very low crawl ratio made it to where it wasn't bad I enjoyed it a lot. Only really issue I ran into was the tiny bit of rubbing on the back of the rear fender I need to sort out. But it would only just touch the tiniest bit and didn't seem to be hard enough to damage anything.

 

[Alex01]

Great photos it looks like you had a good time. Look into a hand throttle. I have the one made by Terra Flex and it's useful when you're pointed towards the sky trying to get over a rock.

Count me in for the future slick rock run

 

[Vasq]

Thanks for sharing, those photos are amazing!

 

[Midnight LJR]

Great photos it looks like you had a good time. Look into a hand throttle. I have the one made by Terra Flex and it's useful when you're pointed towards the sky trying to get over a rock.

Count me in for the future slick rock run

I was thinking about getting one of those. I’ll have to check yours out.

 

[Alex01]

I was thinking about getting one of those. I’ll have to check yours out.

You're welcome to take it out for a test next run if you'd like.

 

[bobthetj03]

Slick Rock is one of my favs! We usually camp at Lake Alpine and run it from that direction, and if time allows turn around just past the water crossing and take it back the direction you went. We ran it last August, one week prior to them opening up the new re-routed section, so I haven't tried that yet. Looks tough!

 

[ranger101]

Great shots. Such a good looking rig!

 

[mattcogdell]

Looks like an amazing trip! I wish the east coast had some riding like that!

Did you ever solve your TT vibration at idle? I pulled my skid today and loosened the two horizontal trans mount bolts. All the vibration when away. It was so nice to sit in a Jeep the didn’t rattle my teeth. Went back under, tightened them up and the vibration was back!

(Curious if I could build a trans mount that used tubing and the factory mount to solve the issue.)

 

[Midnight LJR]

Looks like an amazing trip! I wish the east coast had some riding like that!

Did you ever solve your TT vibration at idle? I pulled my skid today and loosened the two horizontal trans mount bolts. All the vibration when away. It was so nice to sit in a Jeep the didn’t rattle my teeth. Went back under, tightened them up and the vibration was back!

(Curious if I could build a trans mount that used tubing and the factory mount to solve the issue.)

I didn’t solve the increase vibrations at idle, but don’t technically consider it a problem, meaning I don’t think anything is wrong. I just think it is a result of the harder solid rubber bushings in the Savvy skid. My opinion is if you don’t want any increase in idle vibrations is that you should keep the stock rubber mount and use the UCF mid level tuck.

On a positive side the harder transmission bushings make shifting in 4 Lo with a manual transmission much easier. Before all the driveline torque generated by the low crawl ratio would move the transmission around so much it was hard to shift while off road Inwould occasionally mis a gear. But now with the firmer bushings it shifts great.

Everything is a comprise it’s just choosing which one you want to live with.

 

[DrDmoney]

Great pictures! I would be up for a Slickrock run or a combination Deer Valley/Slickrock run.

 

[zebra12]

Thank you for the scenic pictures. Your Unlimited looks great too.