Bertha the shoebox's build thread (the story of an aerodynamically challenged Jeep and her 3rd life as a first car)

alright, a little update.

Got the Magnaflow cat's in. drove the jeep around enough to re-set the computer and she passed inspection. the Cat's went in easy and look great (the stainless is starting to blue). ill put in a full post on my experience and some things I learned after this weekend.

The cooling system seems to be working as designed. if I idle of more than about 1/2 an hour in TX heat with the A/C she'll start to get hot. considering adding an electric pusher fan.

A/C got broke and fixed again: see above thread

The ignition actuator pin broke. fixed that in less than 24 hrs.

Got my first offroad trip Saturday, to Bridgeport offroad. looking forward to it.
 
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alright. a lot has happened since the last post. ill try and catch up but it might take me a minute

here's the scoop on Catalytic converters: in my experience Walker and Eastern catalytic are shit. the welds are misaligned and you wind up with a huge exhaust leak at the header

Magnaflow is best if you in the federal emissions part. PN50209 for $372 is by far the best. they fit the first try, are way lighter (much nicer when you're manhandling them into position) are stainless so they don't rust, and look great. plus they have an improved design that gets you slightly more ground clearance and helps with the install.

If you can't get Maganflow your next bet is Bosal. PN079318 there more expensive. but there just a rebranded Magnaflow down to the warranty paper included in the box.

Rock auto has been great about fully refunding my returns on the Eastern and Walkers. Magnaflow's Take back program is fabulous.

ill post some pic's of the bluing cat's from my phone in a little while
 
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Man I’m behind. Alright so. I Wen’t to Bridgeport OHV park last Saturday. Had a ton of fun took the jeep down mostly 1&2 Diamond trails, all my recovery vehicle could handle. Guess I need to get a winch so I can run some 3’s. Below are some pictures. This gave me an idea on what mod’s I want to do, so expect to see some building coming soon.
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Found some mud holes to bash through, little did I know what a pain that would be to clean up later
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That pile of rocks was taller than I am. Really shocked the Jeep climbed it, these things are more capable than I gave them credit for.
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Great views!
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Back on pavement that was a pain to wash off with a pressure washer. I think next time I’ll stick to the rocks and the wooded trails, maybe not the mud bogs. 😁
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Oh, and I got the sticker.😃
 
so a little bit of an update turns out while wheeling I broke the Clutch peal "bushing" 3 trips to the dealership an $4.13 later and that's fixed. Clutch feels better than it ever has before. Got some amber covers to turn my gutters into fogs, Got a brand new Smittybuilt X20 10K winch from amazon for about $330. waiting on the steal of a deal winch plate from @Ephry73 to show up and then ill throw it all on and take some pictures. :)
 
Little bit of an update, Winch plate should get here in time for this weekend. I took a 5 hour trip last Sunday, and I got 15 MPG!!!!
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(174.8 miles)
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This sparked a little happy dance at the pump, as I normally get about 12-13 putting around the city with a little hwy.
 
Most of that tank was highway, so 5th gear floored about 2K and 75-80MPH.

normally 80% of my tanks are city.
Cool. I forget what gearing you have. My fifth with the AX15 and 4.10R&P I get to 70mph at about 2400rpm. Still plenty of room behind the skinny pedal to push
 
Cool. I forget what gearing you have. My fifth with the AX15 and 4.10R&P I get to 70mph at about 2400rpm. Still plenty of room behind the skinny pedal to push
I’d have to go look up my gearing but for me with an NV3550. I’m 1800-2200 cruising at Texas highway speed. But I don’t have much oomph then, normally I run 4th out to get up to speed and then run 5th to cruise.
 
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I’d have to go look up my gearing but for me with an NV3550. I’m 1800-2200 cruising at Texas highway speed. But I don’t have much oomph then, normally I run 4th out to get up to speed and then run 5th to cruise.
I normally only use 5th when on the throughway. 4th is the go to
 
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Ok, so let me see if I Can catch up.
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got the amber covers on the fogs for a more useable light in DD (they were previously gutter lights, great off-road but kinda useless on)

got the plate from @Ephry73 and put the winch on Saturday (it got respooled with proper line tension after this picture)

I have to say so far I am very happy with the winch (smittybuilt X20 10K) fairly easy install, I like the ability to swap control box locations and the wireless remote is slick, it successfully pulled the Jeep up a hill and so far I have no real complaints. I am watching my rad. Temps to see if I see a real change, though I don’t expect any problems. The most prevalent change I noticed was the extra weight, I have put roughly 125lb on the front bumper, and you can feel it in the Jeeps handling, turn in is much slower and slightly increased effort on the wheel, however the Jeep feels waaaay more planted at speed and around town, so that was an interesting Benefit I hadn’t considered

I also threw in some STP zinc additive to quite down the lifter tic a little, (n the 4.0 diesel rattle at idle but a annoying tic on Acell,) we’ll see if it actually does anything.
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you've got a nice jeep, I was wondering where did you get the hood stickers from ?
Thanks! I got the lettering from a place called DIY Vinyl its held up great for almost a year now, still one or 2 small creases from where I screwed up installing it, but no loss os adhesion or color fad (I park the jeep outside always) I recommend you go ahead and spring for the 3M , and take measurements of the space you want it in. my vinyl is actually non-proportional, or taller than it should be for Is wide as it is. they have tons of choices and I must have spent over a week before I decided on a font and coloring. ill try and remember to grab some closer pictures later today.
 
Alright, Monday update, ill be honest. I completely ignored all social media over the break and just had fun, so I have a little catch up to do.

Took a trip up to O.K. for a few days, stayed in a lovely cabin called "Vista Del Sol" and took the Jeep down to "Redneck Offroad Heaven" for my 2nd ever wheeling trip, and Didn't have to run a winch line! Great little park, very COVID friendly (saw no one the whole time I was there), and no ORV sticker to deal with had a blast working my way through the woods, and discovered my tires and my front end articulation are my current limiting factors.

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Put over 1,000 Miles on the jeep this week, and were about 500 away from the next Oil change, so that will be coming soon. the STP additive certainly helped waaaay more than I expected for $5, but it didn't make the problem disappear, for now, I am playing Christmas music and looking into a louder exhaust 😁
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she's in desperate need of a bath, but we have some rain coming through this week and it's really really cold.

Hopefully, we'll get some mods going here in the next few months, I'm looking at more lift (2.5 OME), lunchbox lockers front and rear, and some General Grabber X3's to replace my balding street biased AT tire.

I think that's about it, need to run the winch in and out for December, and I really need to find some guys to go wheeling with in the Dallas area, I'm going crazy here, started looking at subies. Damn COVID.
 
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Did an oil change, swapped to a Conventional 10W-30 because it was cheap an I was curious if it would help the lifter rattle at all. Also greased the front suspension, looks like it hadn’t been done in a while.

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oil looked fine, no shiny bits and no water or anything. Sometimes I find it hard to believe this engine has 260,000 miles in it.

The oil pressure sensor had been giving me some problems, ordered the new part and when it showed up (Thursday) the problem fixed itself. Spent some time trying to get the electrical connector off without breaking it, eventually gave up. I guess I’ll go after it if it starts to give me problems again. For now the intimidation tactic is working well.

On a side note, also changed the oil in my air cooled VW. It’s amazing how much harder on oil they are. The following photos are of the vw, both engines ran the same castrol GTX synthetic 10W-40 and had a service interval of about 3000 (in hindsight what is to much for the vw, and she has since been docked to 1,000)
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Camera doesn’t do it justice, it is absolutely mirror black. No sludge though, which is great.
 
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Alright, Monday update, ill be honest. I completely ignored all social media over the break and just had fun, so I have a little catch up to do.

Took a trip up to O.K. for a few days, stayed in a lovely cabin called "Vista Del Sol" and took the Jeep down to "Redneck Offroad Heaven" for my 2nd ever wheeling trip, and Didn't have to run a winch line! Great little park, very COVID friendly (saw no one the whole time I was there), and no ORV sticker to deal with had a blast working my way through the woods, and discovered my tires and my front end articulation are my current limiting factors.

View attachment 206838View attachment 206839View attachment 206840View attachment 206843
Put over 1,000 Miles on the jeep this week, and were about 500 away from the next Oil change, so that will be coming soon. the STP additive certainly helped waaaay more than I expected for $5, but it didn't make the problem disappear, for now, I am playing Christmas music and looking into a louder exhaust 😁
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she's in desperate need of a bath, but we have some rain coming through this week and it's really really cold.

Hopefully, we'll get some mods going here in the next few months, I'm looking at more lift (2.5 OME), lunchbox lockers front and rear, and some General Grabber X3's to replace my balding street biased AT tire.

I think that's about it, need to run the winch in and out for December, and I really need to find some guys to go wheeling with in the Dallas area, I'm going crazy here, started looking at subies. Damn COVID.
That's a cool overhead gauge . What is is?
 
That's a cool overhead gauge . What is is?
It’s an Ultra gauge with a horizontal surface mount. One of my favorite 100 dollar mods. It tracks fuel MPG rather accurately, shows my actual engine temp and other actual gauge values (not the smoothed out version, but the actual number the PCM sees). It just plugs into the OBD2, tell it your engine size (3.95 liters) and it works. Prior to this I ran a Veapeak wireless scanner and an app on my phone, that worked well, but there was lag in update, and it was annoying to have to set up the phone every time I got in the Jeep. This just fires up when I turn on the Jeep and is ready to go, keeps track of service mile intervals and all kinda stuff, and my phone is now free to run GPS if needed.

It also has other “pages” that I can customize with info depending on what I’m doing and what I want to see. And it will run performance data if your into that 😉
 
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ho' boy I probably should have updated during the middle of the break, but I didn't. so this is going to be a long one.

Swapped out the Cobra Classic CB for a smaller and more feature-packed President Bill Unit (mounted below the bottom of the switch panel)

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I added a "Mic Magnet" for the CB which has been FABULOUS!!!

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about 1/2 way through a Limb riser Install, my rivet gun decided to die, thankfully before I drilled anything (to save my already cracked windshield)


Got a lightbar from a buddy, have that wired in and a proper switch on the way

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Found a few inches of standing water in the Jeep, pulled all the carpet and dried it all out, traced the leak back to the Cowl-windshield seal (that'll be fun to replace when it gets here)

I have swaybar discos and a Ford F-150 intake coming (for the cowl intake)

also, have switches and a plug for the rear wiper and defroster coming, I got tired of not being able to see out of the back of the jeep.

lastly, I have some LED dash lights coming so I can see my gas and speed over 70 again.

I think that's pretty much all for right now, I'm looking into some more jeep upgrades. leaning towards an @CodaMan style 2-inch lift. other thoughts include armor, tummy tuck, or auto-lockers.