El Viejo, a slow 2006 LJ build

[Neal]

Thanks, everyone. I just can't understand why my wife doesn't recognize my brilliance as easily as you guys do...

I'm always looking for easy, cheap ways to do things, and I really prefer the simplest way to get things done. I see so much Jeep stuff for sale these days that is overdone, flashy, and often only minimally useful - form at the cost of function. I look for solutions that can be done on a garage workbench with basic hand tools - to me, a drill press is high tech! For example, I had to replace a gasket on the shift tower on my 6-speed tranny a few weeks ago. I totally destroyed the shift knob getting it off the cane, just being clumsy. I had also just purchased a straight transfer case lever to replace the one that lays down flat. Since I needed a knob for the TC lever as well as a new one for the tranny I dug out a couple of old knobs from my CJ-5 (from about 25 years ago, I keep stuff forever). The screw threads on the old knobs were too small for my cane, which was metric anyway (10mm threads). I drilled out the threads on the knobs to 1/2" and set 3/8x16 nutserts into the holes, gluing them in place with JB Weld (I love that stuff!). A few minutes with a buffer and the old knobs looked pretty good again. I then recut the shifter cane threads to 3/8x16 and screwed the new old knobs in place. About a half an hour's work, not counting waiting for the JB Weld to set, and essentially no money spent.

Instant retro, which goes well with my square mirrors and turn signals in the grille. When I'm rowing through the gears I can almost pretend I'm driving my old CJ, although I have to admit the LJ rides a whole lot better!

 

[wormsTJ]

Your Jeep looks amazing. I can't wait to get mine. Still getting the engine done and the frame cleaned. When I get a chance I will get some pictures of her.

 

[Neal]

Well, it's been a few weeks since I posted anything here, and I just couldn't leave well enough alone. My incredibly ancient Realistic (Radio Shack) TRC-418 CB, having served me faithfully for over 40 years, finally tapped out. It went to sleep after my last trail run and never woke up. Sigh.

Goodbye, old friend.

I had heard a lot of good things about the Uniden Pro 510XL, so I ordered one from Wally World (on sale for 36 bucks!).

Hello, new friend.

I decided that I didn't want to mount it on top of the dash, like the old one, so I needed to come up with a new mounting spot. I liked the look of the Arizona Rocky Road overhead mount, but, as always, I was too cheap to pay for one. My version is made of aluminum square tubing (because that's what I had laying around), while ARR's is steel. Also, theirs is welded and, since I don't weld, mine would be riveted. Layout went quickly and I soon had the pieces cut and ready to assemble.

Aluminum, assem....oh, never mind!

I notched the ends of the tube to fit over the door surrounds and bolt in using the existing knobs. I'm using a flat plate to have a place to mount the radio without drilling big holes in the tube. I bent up a new mounting bracket because the one that came with the radio looked too flimsy.

Lots of rivets, because anything worth doing is worth overdoing...

Once I had the pieces put together I mounted it all up to see how it fit. I immediately noticed that I had a serious problem, having overlooked something that, in hindsight, should have been obvious. Extra points to everyone who can see where I screwed up.

In tomorrow's exiting episode, I'll fix the problem I failed to account for and finish the job. TTFN.

 

[Chris]

Good job! It looks nearly identical to the Arizona Rocky Road CB mount which is what I am using!

I'm also running almost the same CB radio, except mine is the Uniden PRO520XL.

 

[Neal]

So after mounting up my cheap knockoff radio bar I realized that with it mounted directly to the door surrounds it sat too close to the windshield frame, and there would be no way to operate the latches that hold the front of the soft top to the frame. I went back and looked at the pictures on the ARR website and noticed that they had tabs welded to the bar that moved it several inches back from the mounting holes in the surrounds. Duh! A couple of other things caught my attention. First, I had formed the mounting tabs on the ends of the bar by simply cutting away three sides of the square tubing, and it struck me that that approach had resulted in some fairly flimsy mounting points. Bouncing around on the trail might cause them to flex and eventually break - probably a Bad Thing. Also, the plate I made for mounting the radio to the bar had to stick out several inches to allow room for attaching the antenna cable, and the weight of the radio could cause the bar to twist, resulting again in breakage and Bad Thing-ism. Solution? Make some extension tabs, dummy!

What I should have done from the beginning. 1/8" x 2" flat stock and more rivets. Much stronger, too, since it is riveted into both the cut and uncut portions of the tube.

The New, Improved Cheap Knockoff Radio Bar, Mark II. Since I had moved the bar 3" further away from the windshield frame I was able to trim the mounting plate by the same amount and greatly reduce the amount of torque applied to the bar. Hey, maybe if I keep at it I'll eventually get good at this stuff!

A couple of shots of the bar back in place. Soft top latches work fine now. I still have to trim some edges, do some cosmetic clean-up and paint the thing, but it fits and I'm happy.

I have installed a quick disconnect on the power wires so I can dismount the radio and store it in my cargo box. I used about $30 in materials, so the project comes in at just less than half the cost of the ARR bar. I think my next project will be a in-cab winch/ARB locker/power port panel, using old school military-style switches and lights. Later, folks!

 

[PCO6]

Neal - Some say that LJ's don't look right UNLESS you install 35's. I'm not totally sure about that but yours definitely looks right. Nice job on everything and a great write up. I really like your winch cover. It's probably a good idea for snow too!

 

[Chris]

Neal - Some say that LJ's don't look right UNLESS you install 35's. I'm not totally sure about that but yours definitely looks right. Nice job on everything and a great write up. I really like your winch cover. It's probably a good idea for snow too!

X2 to this. I was literally thinking EXACTLY the same thing.

His LJ pulls it off perfectly.

 

[Neal]

My latest project took a while to come together, partly because my fab and wiring skills are rudimentary at best, and partly because I'm just plain lazy. The idea was to build and install a winch/locker/power panel in the lower center stack. I went through several design ideas and cut up a lot of cardboard mocking up the designs before settling on one that looked like it would work. It is basically a ripoff of 12voltguy's TJ panel, with MILSPEC switches and lights instead of more modern-looking hardware. I wanted an old school/military look for the panel, as a tribute to both the military heritage of the Jeep and my own time in the service.

Are you mocking me? OK, you're right, that was pretty bad. The best I can say of this is that, while crude, it worked.

Enough of the cardboard stuff, it's time to cut and bend some metal! Pretty basic, just the panel face and two side pieces, with tabs to add a little rigidity to the light .025 aluminum.

Assembled, with proper AN screws and nuts (authenticity, right?), and holes drilled.

Painted flat black, with switches in place, and mounted up for a test fit. From left to right: winch power, in/out switch, front and rear lockers, compressor and dual power ports, one for a standard auto plug and the other for two USB plugs. I used aircraft-style switch guards for the winch power and compressor switches that lock the switch in the ON position to avoid shutting the power off if I accidentally bump the guard. The toggles for the lockers lock in both the on and off positions. The indicator lights are press-to-test lights from a helicopter fuel transfer panel. It would have cost about $175 to pick all this stuff up online because, MILSPEC, but I lucked out by having some friends in the aircraft salvage industry who supplied most of what I needed for free. The only things I had to buy were the 12 volt bulbs for the indicator lights, since aircraft lights are usually either 24 or 28 volts, and the marine-grade power plugs.

With the bezel installed, everything looks good. While testing the panel for fitment, I initially found that it stuck out about a half inch too far, and the gearshift was just barely making contact with some of the switches. After a small adjustment (and boy, am I glad I left enough material on the side panels to be able to put another bend in them!) nothing hits and there is room to flip switches in any gear. If you look at the photo above you can see the original bend line running just to the left of the mounting screws. I flattened the side plates out and put in a new 90 degree bend a half inch further up. Success!

I'm not going to go into my adventures in wiring, suffice to say that everything works the way it should (finally!), and nothing caught fire. If you don't call 911, it wasn't really a fire, right? And anyway, it was just a bench test. Um, moving on... In the interests of full disclosure I have to admit that the front locker switch is just for show, since I don't actually have a front locker yet (tax return???). I felt it looked better with the switch installed than with a couple of hole plugs and a "this space for rent" sign. The power receptacles were the easiest to hook up, using the OEM wiring to supply constant power for the top (auto plug) receptacle and switched power for the dual USB receptacle. Total cost for this project was about $45, although it would have been much higher, probably just north of $200, if not for my friends who gave me a bunch of free stuff. If you ever wonder why 12voltguy charges what he does for his panels (not unreasonable, IMO), there's your answer. His build quality is much higher as well. Oh, yeah, and he has to make a profit, too.

 

[Chris]

Wow, that thing is like the cockpit of a plane! So many switches...

The end result looks good though!

 

[bobthetj03]

That winch cover is genius!

 

[Neal]

So my wife (Jeep Girl Extraordinaire!) bought me a front set of BedTred floor liners for Father's Day. I didn't ask for the rear set because I didn't want to chop it up to fit my cargo box - I may revisit that decision later. The box showed up the day after I left on a short vacation (of course!), but my daughter (Jeep Girl Jr.) rescued it for me and stuck the it in the garage. I installed it this morning before work - yeah, it's that easy, although I cheated and removed the old carpet a couple of weeks ago.

The contents of the box. Three pieces - driver's side, passenger side, and rear. Some heat shielding for the transmission tunnel - very thin, I'll have to see how well it works in practice. Some velcro to stick it all to the floor. Instructions. That's all there is to it. The molding to fit the floor is obvious.

Velcro and heat shields installed. The underside of each piece is basically the same as the loop side of velcro, so the supplied strips are just the hook side, since they only have to stick to the floor.

They do recommend that you loosen the screws that hold the center console down so that you can tuck each piece under the console. I suppose that you could just try to stuff the edges under the console without moving it, but doing it their way is a lot easier and really doesn't take up much more time.

Driver's side done. Had to wrestle with it a bit to get it to where it lay flat, but that's just because I'm clumsy.

Passenger side went in just as easily.

The rear piece was a bit more trouble, I had to trim some material around the passenger side seat rails to make it fit. Probably added a whole minute to the install. Maybe two. Also, they didn't punch any holes for the rear cup holder screws, so I'll have to do that later.

One thing that bugged me just a little was that there was no velcro to secure the front and rear pieces together. The gap makes it look a bit unfinished, so I'll slap some velcro under there myself. Not a big deal, but it is something they could have designed into it at virtually no extra cost.

And that's it. It drops right into place with very little persuading, and the molding gives it a custom look. It needed only minor trimming to fit, more attributable to the inevitable slight differences in each individual vehicle than to the design of the product. Any reasonably competent person could handle this project in about 15 minutes, so of course it took me a half hour.:eusa_doh:

 

[VirtualRussel]

One thing that bugged me just a little was that there was no velcro to secure the front and rear pieces together. The gap makes it look a bit unfinished, so I'll slap some velcro under there myself. Not a big deal, but it is something they could have designed into it at virtually no extra cost.

If I have any complaint, and I mean this as being more nit-picky than anything else, this would be the only feedback I'd give the BedRug team.

Looks great BTW!

 

[Neal]

As a certified, card-carrying Cranky Old Guy, I was seriously miffed that the only thing I could complain about was that I could hardly find anything to complain about! (The Wife just walks away, shaking her head...)

 

[Chris]

Love that BedTred!

 

[JMT]

Somehow I missed your build thread all this time.

Great read. Appreciate your well-thought out mods from the beginning, attention to detail, creative fab work, and all together they make for a great looking LJ. But you already knew I liked your Jeep! Now I just enjoyed seeing all the details. Thanks!

 

[Neal]

Well, it's been a while since I have posted anything here, so I thought I'd throw in a couple of small projects that I put together recently. They're not really mods, more like little add-ons that are fun to plan and build, make things a bit easier for me and keep me from throwing money that I don't have at big ticket items.

First up, I stole a page from Jerry Bransford's book and mounted my fire extinguisher below the driver's seat (he probably did it better). I used some spare aluminum strap that was left over from another project and bolted it directly to the front of the seat frame.

Now that I know that it fits and doesn't hit anything when I move the seat forward or back I'll take it out, clean up the corners and paint it so it looks a little less jury-rigged. I also left room for when I get a larger extinguisher, because this one is a bit too small for my peace of mind.

Next, I finally decided to rig up something to hold my phone while cruising the trails. I had a camera tilt head that was missing some parts, some more aluminum strap cut to size and a block of aluminum my daughter brought home from one of her metal shop courses. A run to Ace for some hardware and a little brainstorming combined with an off-the shelf magnetic mount resulted in a setup that is fully adjustable and super cheap. It has worked fine while bouncing around in the rocks and is very sturdy.

Now I can cruise around listening to my tunes and driving off cliffs while following the GPS, and if any or all of it catches fire, I can do something about it. Both projects together took only a couple of hours and I spent less than thirty bucks on them, including the magnetic mount kit.

 

[Neal]

I just noticed that it has been 6 months since I posted anything in this build thread. The money has been a little tight lately and I haven't really done much building. I have, however, been out wheeling, which is how this post came about. On a recent wheeling trip I got into a rock garden and there was a bit of crunching and banging from down below. I got out to take a look and here's what I found.

Amazingly enough, I didn't puncture the oil pan, but it was obviously time for some extra protection. I couldn't afford a full-up tummy tuck, but the Savvy aluminum skid, at $299, was a good deal so I ordered one. The good news - it was delivered in only 4 days. The bad news - no instructions included. I guess the folks at Savvy figure that if you are smart enough to buy one of their products you are smart enough to figure out how to install it. So I cheated - I turned to the forum for assistance and found an excellent write-up with plenty of pictures by Mountaineer Tom. A couple of hours of test fitting, drilling holes in the stock skid and grinding down a few high spots near the exhaust and I was done.

So now I have protection from the oil pan to the transfer case. Although I still have to deal with the stock skid hanging way down, at least now I have a smooth ramp to slide on rather than a shovel to dig in with. Progress, of a sort...

 

[Chris]

Thanks for reminding me I need to order that portion of the Savvy skid to go with the Savvy transfer case skid. It would be pretty easy to do some serious engine damage if you banged your oil pan on the rocks too hard!

 

[Neal]

Thanks for reminding me I need to order that portion of the Savvy skid to go with the Savvy transfer case skid. It would be pretty easy to do some serious engine damage if you banged your oil pan on the rocks too hard!

Oh, yeah. I think if I had whanged the pan any harder that day I would have been walking home. I did have to make one change from Tom's write-up - I had to turn the driver's side engine mount bracket around with the tab in front. I just couldn't get things to line up otherwise. Different Jeeps, different solutions. I'm saving up now for the Savvy t/c skid, body and engine mount lifts and cable shifter. Who needs new tires, anyway?

 

[Chris]

Oh, yeah. I think if I had whanged the pan any harder that day I would have been walking home. I did have to make one change from Tom's write-up - I had to turn the driver's side engine mount bracket around with the tab in front. I just couldn't get things to line up otherwise. Different Jeeps, different solutions. I'm saving up now for the Savvy t/c skid, body and engine mount lifts and cable shifter. Who needs new tires, anyway?

I just got my Savvy belly-up skid a few weeks ago. That thing is truly a work of art the way the built it. Far better than anything on the market, that's for sure.

Yeah... tires? Who needs those