A Second Chance at the TJ

Tob

Paint-Matched Bezels Club
Supporting Member
Joined
Jan 15, 2020
Messages
1,435
Location
Lake Charles, Louisiana
Well folks, I reckon it's high time I start a build thread. I've been listening, reading, learning, and laughing my way through this forum for a while now (a while before I joined too), and I'm ready to take my TJ to the next level.

My goal is to keep track of what I have done so far, and what I plan to do with the guidance and wisdom from this forum. This thread will probably take up a slower pace; being in college, not only am I limited on how much I can milk out of my wallet, but I also have limited time to spend towards the TJ above regular maintenance.


I'll start with a little backstory...

A Series of Not-So-Unfortunate Events: A Second Chance at the TJ

I always knew I wanted a Jeep growing up. For my first car vehicle, I thought I wanted a 2-door JK. After shopping around, I realized a TJ or YJ would be more financially feasible. Eventually I found a local seller with a manual (that was a must-have) 2002 TJ with ~140k on the clock. I'll admit, as an excited teen getting their dream vehicle, I was seeing each one I looked at with rose-colored glasses. After a quick test drive and talk with the seller, it was mine for $9500.

Here's some pictures.

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The day I got it, March 2018


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Specs: '02 Sport, 4.0L NV3550, Dana 30 and Dana 44 rear, 3.73 final drive, 305/70R17 (33.8") BFG KM2 on Fuel Hostage wheels, unidentified lift.

This thing was my baby. For the first 6 months of owning it, agonizingly enough, I couldn't drive it because I only had a learner's permit instead of a full license. As much as I hate to admit it, in that time I went through a "cheap parts catalog phase". I was looking at RGB halo headlights, K&N intake, throttle body spacer, B&M sport shifter, cheap neoprene seat covers, chinese amazon bumpers... sadly I actually bought some of those 🤦‍♂️.

Fast forward a few months of daily driving between college and home, and the unthinkable happened. Coming off an interstate exit ramp, some [CENSORED] ran a red light and plowed right into the front passenger side of the Jeep. Almost exactly a year after I got it.

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I was pretty devastated. It may not look all that bad besides the suspension and body, but it turned out that the whole frame was significantly bent. At this point I had the choice to take the insurance money, buy it back on the cheap and get it fixed up, or say goodbye and find a new ride. Considering I needed a daily driver and couldn't twiddle my thumbs waiting for a shop to fix it from the frame up, I decided to let it go. Last I saw, it was sold in an auction in Houston.

Although this seemed unfortunate at the time, insurance ended up giving $12,300 for the Jeep - almost 3k more than I had bought it for. Now it was time to find a new ride. I had always wanted something like a 350Z or WRX, and at first I struggled with the idea of sticking to Jeeps. A few days later, I came back to my senses and started hunting down TJ's 😜. With the extra 3k the insurance had given, I set my sights on something a bit nicer. After a few months of searching and test driving, I finally found exactly what I wanted, more or less.

A clean, relatively unmolested '04 Rubicon, only 87k miles, 5-speed manual, for the small price of $12K! Needless to say, it was love at first sight. I drove to see it and test drive the next evening and drove back the next morning to buy it. According to the seller, I narrowly snatched it from some northerners looking to take it back up to the salt belt to its rusty grave 😰

The day I drove it home - April 2019
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The first things to go were the wheels - the seller actually still had the original Moabs, which I switched back on. Then the tube bumpers - sorry to the tube bumper guys but I can't stand 'em.

This is my current TJ.

How it sits now
For suspension, PO left me with a 3" Rusty's Offroad lift, including a transfer case drop, rear track bar bracket, and dropped pitman arm. I have already begun making it mine. Wheels back to Moabs, bumpers replaced with Bestop front and LoD rear, side steps gone, new stereo and speakers, floor liners, CB radio, headlight bezels, a set of half doors...

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I didn't really get a chance to wheel it until this past Memorial Day weekend at perhaps the only offroad park in Louisiana (worth visiting), Catahoula Recreation in Sicily Island. I learned a lot about what it was capable of, its limitations, and my inexperience as an offroad driver.

I also learned the meaning of "The Shovel" that day... 😒
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Anyways, enough about the past and present. As for the future, my loose plan is staying at about 3" of suspension lift with a 1.25" body lift and 33's. I know they always say you'll go bigger eventually, but after reading about the compromises to daily-ability that larger tires bring, the capability of a well-built rig on 33's, and especially seeing the post from @Chris about selling his dream Savvy TJ, I'm pretty sure about sticking to 33's.

For the short term, I already have a Savvy 1.25" body lift, Rancho RS5000X shocks, Hella replacement headlights, Savvy transfer case cable shift linkage, M.O.R.E. motor mount lift, new fuel pump, and switches for a locker bypass mod all waiting to be installed. I'll be replacing the dropped pitman arm soon, too.
 
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The tentative list for down the road:
OEM style pitman arm
Jounce bumpers to replace the originals that have fallen out
body lift
MML
adjustable control arms
CV driveshafts
angled track bar bracket
adjustable track bar(s)
cable TC shift linkage
winch
15x8 American Racing AR23's
33's
regear
onboard air
tuffy security console to replace cracked original
Savvy gas skid
high clearance transfer case skid
Savvy sliders
 
Got some time this past weekend to install the Hella headlights and Rancho RS5000X's. No issues with rear upper shock bolts. I wish I could say I noticed a huge difference after installing both, but nope.

I really like the look of the Hella headlights though. They have less curvature than the Wagner BriteLites that they replaced.

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@Chris would be proud. I ripped the bushwacker fender covers off yesterday after cleaning the Jeep from my trip to Hidden Falls. Add 'em to the list of stuff I regret buying for the Jeep 😒. Don't know what I was thinking at the time but I prefer the look of the fenders without the plastic covers. Turns out they hold in a lot of dust, water, mud, etc. up against the fender... beware.

Speaking of Hidden Falls, somehow my 4ft firefly antenna got damaged from that trip. I'm thinking the culprit is the flag pulling it back from the wind drag at 70mph for 12+ hours. It's permanently bent backwards a bit at the base. I'm planning on ordering a 2ft or 3ft to replace it.
 
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@Chris would be proud. I ripped the bushwacker fender covers off yesterday after cleaning the Jeep from my trip to Hidden Falls. Add 'em to the list of stuff I regret buying for the Jeep 😒. Don't know what I was thinking at the time but I prefer the look of the fenders without the plastic covers.

Speaking of Hidden Falls, somehow my 4ft firefly antenna got damaged from that trip. I'm thinking the culprit is the flag pulling it back from the wind drag at 70mph for 12+ hours. It's permanently bent backwards a bit at the base. I'm planning on ordering a 2ft or 3ft to replace it.

Well done! I hate Bushwackers, absolutely hate them.
 
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I finally found some time to work on the Jeep. I got the OEM pitman arm in, then went to a friend's shop for the day and we replaced the fuel pump and installed the body lift and MML. Using a lift made things a lot easier, especially dropping the gas tank.

Everything was going smoothly... almost too smoothly — that is, until we got to the MML. My suspicions were confirmed when we ran into a problem with the driver's side motor mount bolt. The A/C compressor was right in the way. We had to take the power steering and A/C compressor off the engine to change out the motor mount. 🤦‍♂️

I noticed a bit more vibration from the new motor mounts. On the way home, I experienced death wobble for the first time - not fun. In a year and a half of driving this Jeep, it has never had death wobble. I was thinking about it the rest of the way home, and the only suspension/steering-related item I had changed that day was the pitman arm. Which, when switched from dropped to OEM, pulled the drag link up and gave the wheels some toe-in. I don't want to jump to conclusions but I'm thinking the excessive toe-in may have caused the death wobble. I'm going to do an alignment today and see if it still happens. I can visualize in my head how the toe-in might cause death wobble, especially after being set off by a small bump in the road, but I don't know how true to real life it is.

As for the rest of the week, I need to find time to do all of this, except the valve cover gasket, which I did last week.

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I picked up some aluminum tubing from home depot today and got the alignment done. It turns out the toe-in was about 3/4" at 18" in front of the axle. I set it at 1/8", centered the steering wheel, and called it a day. Easy stuff, I'll never pay someone to do that.

There's definitely slightly more body roll after the body and motor lift. Also, I don't know how, but it feels a little more peppy after changing the fuel pump. The long start after sitting is gone, thankfully. I also switched out the damaged 4 ft firefly for a 2 ft fs2. It ought to stay out of the way of the low hanging branches on my upcoming trip to Hot Springs ORV.
 
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Now that I got a motor mount lift in, I finally got rid of the transfer case drop yesterday... sort of. I dropped the shovel, emptied its payload of dirt and rocks, and put it back on without the 1" drop spacers. Then I realized the bolts had too long of a shank to install without the spacers, so I just installed the spacers on the outside of the skid. No driveline vibes! It'll do for now until, I get around to doing the tuck.

I also installed the Teraflex hand throttle. I was not impressed. It works just fine, but I didn't need or use over half the hardware they sent in the kit. The parts list on the instructions didn't quite match up with what came in the box, either. All the hardware seems to be common, cheap stuff that anyone can get their hands on. I think you'd be better off piecing the kit together yourself instead of paying Teraflex to send you the same cheap parts and a sticker sheet. I'm willing to bet my sticker sheet that all those parts don't cost anywhere near $40.

Overall, it's a cool addition to the Jeep. You can adjust the tightness of the lever so that it either holds its position or springs back upon release. Don't tell the legal people at Teraflex I said this, but it'll definitely come in handy as poor man's cruise control on long interstate trips. :)
 
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I recently got a few upgrades for the front of the Jeep. Savvy bumper, Antirock, and a Warn M8000 and TRE synthetic line with safety thimble. I've also got a new safety thimble fairlead on the way from TRE.

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The next big purchases will most likely be tummy tuck-related. Then 33's and 15x8's.
 
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Before I put the winch on, I was running the Savvy bumper how it came, with the shiny corners from cleaning up the welds. It was bothering me and I knew I wasn't going to paint it so I decided to scuff it all up to match. At first I started to take a sanding flap disk on a 4.5" angle grinder to it, but it was overkill. Sandpaper did a much better job.

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Today turned out to be a productive day. I finally installed the Savvy cable shift I've been sitting on for several months. Buttery smooth! Love it. While I had the skid plate off, I went ahead and changed the transfer case fluid. Then transmission fluid (Redline MTL) and motor oil too.

Here's the payload from the transmission drain plug magnet.

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Yes, it's sideways, no I don't feel like fixing it and reuploading 😜

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Not sure what normal wear and tear looks like for a 103,000 mile transmission but this doesn't look terrible to me. No big chunks, just powdery shavings.
 
I have been working on relocating the winch control box to behind the passenger headlight. I bought 39 in. 2/0 cable from batterycablesusa.com. Seems to be good quality. Very flexible and well insulated. I could've gone a bit shorter but rather err on the side of caution. I reused the rubber boots that came with the winch, but I had to trim part of the tapered section to fit the bigger cable.

For the relocation, my original plan was to stick it right between the headlight and the intake horn like so:

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This is EJD's setup. https://wranglertjforum.com/threads/winch-solenoid-relocation.5881/post-156064
I tried this, but I couldn't get the box to fit with the horn in place. Not to mention, with the controller plugged in to the box, I tried to close the hood, but the hood prop hits and won't let the hood close. So I decided to go a different direction.

Taking the horn out frees up a lot of space.

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Those two existing holes caught my eye. I decided to repurpose this bracket that held the box to the winch:

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After a few bends and cuts, I came up with this:

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With this, the factory mounting on the box side is retained, and the angled side will bolt into those two holes in the second pic. I'm going to sand it and give it a few spray paint coats tomorrow. I'll get some pictures of the finished product tomorrow.

Among other things, I've got this waiting to go in, just need to grab a 5/8" bit.

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Thinking hard about getting my tummy tuck stuff together. I might start ordering Savvy control arms, center skid, rear track bar + angled bracket, and DC driveshaft... just empty every pocket.

TJ Fest seems to be looming closer and closer, and I really don't wanna take the shovel to Moab.
 
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Finished the control box relocation today. Here's the bracket painted and bolted in place:

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After a quick test fit, it was contacting the airbox hard, so I bent it a little more forward. I connected the motor ground to the conveniently nearby headlight ground. Here's the end result:

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I'm happy with it. I can still get to the headlight plug if I need to and the wired controller can plug in with plenty of clearance from the closed hood.

Not to mention, I really, really like the look of the front end now without the box. Much cleaner. Time to finally get that winch cover ordered.

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The track bar went in today.

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And while I had the drill out, I drilled a much needed drain hole for the bracket that the Savvy steering box protector sealed up. I went with a 7/16" on the back side, as close as I could get to the bottom of the bracket. It drained well, but I'll be keeping an eye on it to make sure it stops crud buildup.

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I also need to drill frame drain holes near the rear lower control arm mounts. I can feel a bunch of sand in there, but no rust, thankfully. My frame's in near pristine condition and I'd like to keep it that way. The plan is to unbolt the control arm and drill a 5/8" hole right above it. From what I can tell, it seems to be the spot to get the best drainage.

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I got a little too careless in the rocks during my Thanksgiving wheeling trip to Arkansas and put a good dent in the oil pan... 7 hours from home :eek:. Close call. I wouldn't care much except that it seems to have started a pretty bad leak. So it looks like I'll be tackling an oil pan and rear main seal replacement pretty soon. It's hard to see in the picture, but it looks worse in person.

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I went ahead and ordered Savvy double adjustable control arms, under armor, and gas tank skid from rwkhaussupply.com. Called in and got it for ~$100 cheaper than it would have been from Savvy with the 8% off code. Sadly, the under armor is on backorder, estimated 8 weeks, and nothing ships till it's all on hand. I still need to order a rear track bar with angled bracket and a DC driveshaft. Tummy tucks aren't cheap!

In the meantime, I really need to get the locker pumps relocated and learn how to cycle the axles and set bumpstops - which I've been running without since I've got it 🤫
 
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A few parts have started coming in. While waiting for parts to arrive, I'm keeping myself busy by ordering more 🙂. Waiting on a torque wrench to arrive to start doing more work, including cycling the suspension. The RockJock rear track bar with angled bracket showed up the other day, along with the mini skids and a few other goodies. Speaking of, guess who's about to join the Paint-Matched Bezels Club? 😎

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In other news, I've been riding around with a P0432 code for a long while now. I'm trying to finally crack down on a few miscellaneous issues like this before TJ Fest to make sure my TJ's in tip top shape before putting it through a 2600 mile road trip and some Moab off-road miles. To fix this, I ordered Flowmaster replacement cats and forum-prescribed NGK O2 sensors. This is stacking up to be a lot to get done before TJ Fest!
 
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The winch cover that I ordered from coversandall.com came in today. Big thanks to @Chris for sending me a forum logo to print on the cover! The fit is a lil wonky because of the safety thimble and fairlead, but all in all I like it! Seems to be high quality... time will tell.
That looks really cool, I dig it! I would get a winch cover like this for myself but you simply don’t need one here in the desert.
 
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Well, after nearly 2 years of owning this Jeep, I finally bought a torque wrench like the responsible vehicle owner I am :).

First impressions:
  • Wow, this is nice, sure takes the guesswork out of tightening stuff!
  • Pretty sure I've over-torqued 99% of the bolts I've touched on this Jeep :oops:
Time to go back through alllll the things I've tinkered with (very many) and torque them back to spec. This also means I'll be getting a few more projects done that I've been waiting to do with a torque wrench.

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After a bit of research, I went with a dial type for accuracy and maintenance-free, calibration-free use. I just can't bring myself to trust a click-type.