Escape from Denver

mobile chernobyl

mobile chernobyl

Member
Joined
Jan 29, 2019
Messages
52
Location
Denver, Colorado
The idea of this build is to have it ready for a trip some of my buddies are taking to Moab in late March.

To start - I have a 2000 Wrangler Sport with manual transmission. I purchased it pretty much stock - the only thing that the previous owners had managed to do to it is add wider fender flares and remove a bunch of stuff - leaving it pretty barren on the inside (rhino-lined and no center console... only one cup holder :().

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My goal with this jeep was to have something simple and reliable - nothing too fancy like my JK that I had a year back. I really like the JK/JL 'rubicon take offs' that you can find on craigslist - especially in Denver - so I have bought a set of JK moab wheels and rubicon tires - all said I have 5 wheels with good meaty 265/75R17 BFGoodrich Mud Terrain T/A KM tires for under $400 so far! I'll continue to keep an eye on craigslist for 'cheap jeep' stuff but in the interim I have a list of things I'm going to do for a more trail ready Jeep.
  • Convert the rear Dana 35 into a 'Super35' with revolution 30 spline axles and an Eaton eLocker - rebuild entire axle (seals/bearings) and add 4.88 gears, lube locker and a diff guard and finished off with a nice coat of enamel paint
  • Change front axle's gears to 4.88, rebuild it like the rear, weld on a beefed up passenger side upper control arm bushing mount and replaced driver's side as well, weld on skid/gussets to the lower control arm mount, lube locker and a solid iron diff cover and finish it off with a coat of enamel
  • Some sort of control arm set - too many options right now and haven't narrowed it down!
  • 3" springs
  • 1.25" body lift
  • 1" motor mount lift
  • no SYE/CV for now - so marginally lowering the t-case... hopefully not much
  • RS5000x struts all around
  • Front and rear adjustable track bars - not sure which brand
  • Crown HD steering kit
  • Probably finish it off with some LED retrofits... I love LEDs haha.
There's probably a bunch of small stuff I forgot to mention but I'll inevitably get to that! I never documented my JK and quite honestly... never felt I had to. The little TJ has much more soul to it though and I'm going to try and keep track of my build here for other's going down this same path as well as to motivate myself to stay on schedule for Moab!

Step 1 was completed tonight - a nice clean garage and finally got my Tig/Plasma/Stick outfit setup - it's been in storage for about 4 years since I moved out here to Colorado (it can be surprisingly tough to not only find a place with enough room and power to weld - but more so it's flat out HARD to find a place out here with the crazy real estate market!)

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Rock on! 🤘
 
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I'm with @billiebob, either paint the ceiling or add a drop-down grid and get the ceiling tiles with sound deadening qualities. Even just the plain tiles with holes in them would help cut down on noise noticeably. Since your in Denver the added layer would help with cold as well as sound (which others in the house will appreciate when you start working on the Jeep in there).

Looks like you have the foundations of a good plan. For me the difficult part is sticking with the plan and not getting distracted by new (to me) and possibly shiny parts. Good luck!
 
Don't you wish you could knock that pillar out between the garages and have a single garage door? Sometimes I wonder about those.

Either way, the build sounds great so far, and having a nice clean garage is a great start to the madness!
 
Good luck! You're going to have your hands full between now and March. I think the market is finally slowing down in Denver, though it's still crazy out there.

That's one thing I need to do in the garage, paint the walls white and a little more lighting
 
Thanks All - The garage ceiling was slated to be slathered with a coating of Kilz white but I decided against it because I'm going to be redoing the whole garage in May/June - Epoxy floor, extra insulation and finish drywalling, Beefcake bench(s) and a proper steel frame welding table are all slated for then. Considering this was a garage with 1 light bulb and everything in storage boxes just one day ago is pretty good, I'll call it 'Stage 1'.

Chris said:
Don't you wish you could knock that pillar out between the garages and have a single garage door? Sometimes I wonder about those.
Click to expand...

I did a lot of research on this - decided against it and a few other structural modifications to the house because it just wouldn't add up in the end - this is my first house so I'm going to wait until I get more land and can build a proper steel pole barn to go all out.
 
mobile chernobyl said:
I did a lot of research on this - decided against it and a few other structural modifications to the house because it just wouldn't add up in the end - this is my first house so I'm going to wait until I get more land and can build a proper steel pole barn to go all out.
Click to expand...

Makes sense. I'm sure that is there as a load bearing beam, so removing it wouldn't be easy.

As long as your wheelbase doesn't get too wide, I think you'll be fine ;)
 
mobile chernobyl said:
.... Considering this was a garage with 1 light bulb and everything in storage boxes just one day ago is pretty good, I'll call it 'Stage 1
Click to expand...

What did you do for lighting? I see wires to each fixture. I have a single bulb garage too, though I have a 4k lumen led fixture coming in the next week or so. I still think I need more throughout
 
tworley said:
What did you do for lighting? I see wires to each fixture. I have a single bulb garage too, though I have a 4k lumen led fixture coming in the next week or so. I still think I need more throughout
Click to expand...

This is essentially what I have:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07JD3NCV4/?tag=wranglerorg-20

My company sells a bunch of lighting stuff so I was able to able to purchase it through them - but this is pretty much the same price. I went with 4000k for color temp because it's a nice neutral white - doesn't wash out colors like 'cooler whites' and puts out more light than a typical 'warm white' 3000k.

I screwed small eyelet hooks on the light and screwed jack-chain to the rafters for suspension. I've seen it in a few restaurants and thought it was a cool look haha.
 
mobile chernobyl said:
This is essentially what I have:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07JD3NCV4/?tag=wranglerorg-20

My company sells a bunch of lighting stuff so I was able to able to purchase it through them - but this is pretty much the same price. I went with 4000k for color temp because it's a nice neutral white - doesn't wash out colors like 'cooler whites' and puts out more light than a typical 'warm white' 3000k.

I screwed small eyelet hooks on the light and screwed jack-chain to the rafters for suspension. I've seen it in a few restaurants and thought it was a cool look haha.
Click to expand...

Are they all tied into the one original light fixture?
 
Yea it's a hoopty setup haha. 240w total or 2A @ 120vac doesnt have me worried. I made all the cording and got one of those old school 2-outlet light socket adapters to plug each row of 3 lights into the original bulb socket - then pulled out the original 150w incandescent.
 
Some updates!

Got most of the lift done - CA's, track bars, sway bar end links and springs all on. 3" springs from BDS where my final choice - 158lb front and 200lb rear spring rate. Installed the 1.25" body lift and a 1" MML - which I was REALLY happy I had friends over to help with haha.

Now I'm adjusting pinion angles and have some general questions for those that have been there and done that before... I have the rear pinion adjusted to around -1 degree and the front pinion angle adjusted to about .25 degrees above the front drive shaft. From everything I've read, the tolerance is up to 1 degree negative for the rear, and 1 degree positive for the front. This is mainly due to the fact that they will oppose the force of the wheel contact when being driven... simple physics right?

Below are my angles - if anyone can give them a nod or a suggestion to change - that would be greatly appreciated! Starting to really enjoy working on my TJ but I know all this hard work will be worth it when I finally have time to get out on the weekends!
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You really need a SYE and CV driveshaft for the rear! Do you not already have one?

As for the front, caster takes precedence over pinion angle. So have an alignment shop set the caster correctly, and whatever the pinion angle ends up being is okay, as the front isn't nearly as sensitive to angles as the rear (gotta love that short driveshaft!).
 
Chris said:
You really need a SYE and CV driveshaft for the rear! Do you not already have one?

As for the front, caster takes precedence over pinion angle. So have an alignment shop set the caster correctly, and whatever the pinion angle ends up being is okay, as the front isn't nearly as sensitive to angles as the rear (gotta love that short driveshaft!).
Click to expand...
This is backwards, in the front pinion angle takes precedence over caster. Get the pinion angle set as instructed in the fsm, and if you feel like you need more caster you can dial it in until you get vibration, than back it off. That will get you max caster angle while still having a decent pinion angle.
 
Chris said:
My bad, I always thought it was caster over pinion angle in the front!

But if the FSM says it, then it can't be wrong!
Click to expand...
I believe, but I am not sure that if you have manual hubs you can set the caster angle over pinion angle because the front drive shaft isn't spinning all the time. With the front driveshaft always spinning as it does in most of our jeeps you want as close to perfect pinion angle or you will have bad vibes and eat up u joints
 
So I think I should be good - I've tried to sift through this great forum of information and from what I've read:

The general consensus seems to allow the front pinion to be parallel to the front drive shaft with a tolerance of 0 to positive 1 degree in terms of the front pinion pointing ABOVE the front drive shaft because the action/reaction of wheel torque will push the pinion back down into the 0 degree (parallel) realm.

The general consensus seems to allow the rear pinion to be parallel to the harmonic balancer ring with a tolerance of 0 to negative 1 degree in terms of the rear pinion pointing UNDER the harmonic balancer due to the same action/reaction from wheel torque pushing the rear pinion back up into the 0 degree (parallel) realm.

I've gotten the angles pretty close - I guess now the only thing to do is test drive it to see if it has driveline vibes!

Thanks
 
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