hello from West Chester PA

Westtown Willy

Westtown Willy

TJ dummy
Supporting Member
Joined
May 10, 2018
Messages
2,457
Location
Clown World
hi all, joined up yesterday - I picked up my 04 X in late 2016 & modestly modified it, it's pretty plain looking which is the way I like it but it rips through the trails like a beast. I'm not very mechanical or an expert in much to do with Jeeps but I’ve learned quite a bit by reading & watching videos to teach myself how to work on some parts of my TJ & also wheeling it a good bit. This is a great forum, format is really nice & I’ll toss my experience in anywhere it fits. Here's my pile:
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Welcome to the forum. You and I have similar taste I assume. I prefer the look of a mostly stock TJ as far as cosmetics go. I think they look excellent as they are, they just need a lift, some bumpers, and bigger tires. I'm not a fan of the overdone look with all the LED light bars and crap.

That being said, I dig your look!
 
Chris said:
Welcome to the forum. You and I have similar taste I assume. I prefer the look of a mostly stock TJ as far as cosmetics go. I think they look excellent as they are, they just need a lift, some bumpers, and bigger tires. I'm not a fan of the overdone look with all the LED light bars and crap.

That being said, I dig your look!
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thank you, and I couldn't agree more, the TJ is such a beautiful vehicle & in my view the absolute pinnacle of Jeep evolution, its successors may be more powerful, comfortable & refined but aesthetically they've gone backwards. Everything dime I've put into my TJ has been performance & function related, zero cosmetics though some of the things do also improve the look as you've said. The one thing I have on there that I could do without are the small round tube mounted LEDs, I don't wheel at night so they're useless to me but they were on there when I bought it & I've just left them...
 
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Westtown Willy said:
thank you, and I couldn't agree more, the TJ is such a beautiful vehicle & in my view the absolute pinnacle of Jeep evolution, its successors may be more powerful, comfortable & refined but aesthetically they've gone backwards. Everything dime I've put into my TJ has been performance & function related, zero cosmetics though some of the things do also improve the look as you've said. The one thing I have on there that I could do without are the small round tube mounted LEDs, I don't wheel at night so they're useless to me but they were on there when I bought it & I've just left them...
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I bought a good set of LED headlights and that absolutely lights up the night, even on the darkest of roads. But aside from that, all I've done is bumpers, a winch, and then obviously lifted it, added bigger tires, etc. But other than that, I don't want to ruin the look of it.

We've driven enough JKs to know that they're more comfortable and refined, but they feel more like an SUV to me now with all the gadgets than they do a Jeep. I like that the TJ is simple, easy to work on, and as basic as a "modern" vehicle can be. No power windows, power doors, heated seats, etc. Just the bare minimum, which is why I love it!
 
Reminds me of me. ‘05 X. Welcome to the forum. I can really appreciate the work you’ve done on your Jeep. We come from the same place; no auto experience and now here we are. Nice work and love to hear your wheelin’ it!
 
JMT said:
Reminds me of me. ‘05 X. Welcome to the forum. I can really appreciate the work you’ve done on your Jeep. We come from the same place; no auto experience and now here we are. Nice work and love to hear your wheelin’ it!
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thanks, and yea on the no auto experience. When we were kids getting our first cars (early 80's) my best friend was one of those born mechanics, ended up in Vo-Tech while we were in high school & was already building cars & motors at 16 & opened his shop at 18 which he's in to this day, so I happily let him fix all my stuff & so it went from then until the mid-90's when I could afford to start buying new cars with warranties :aaaaa:.

Fast forward 20 more years & I find myself buying this thing that rides like a lawn tractor & actually resembles the vehicles (from a mechanical standpoint) we used to run around with way back when. So finally, in 2016 at 50 years old I decided it was time to learn some stuff, bought a set of mechanics tools, a 4 ton floor jack, a couple 6 ton stands & a creeper & I've learned more & done more with the TJ than all other vehicles combined.

Funnier part is the wheeling, I had been sort of poking around for years looking for a convertible to bop around in on warm sunny days, a replacement toy for the end of my Harley riding days. For one reason or another I could never settle on anything I really liked until one day a Wrangler popped up in my search. As soon as I saw it I knew that was it, so I refined the search to only Wranglers & a few months later I found mine. No intention of wheeling. Then one day I got a random invite to the mountains & I figured why not, gotta try it at least once... hahaha I've been unable to stay out of the mountains ever since. I'm lucky enough to live in a wheeler's paradise of sorts, in a two hour radius we have Rausch Creek, Anthracite & the recently opened Famous Reading Outdoors, altogether around 30,000 dedicated acres. We get guys from New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland & Virginia coming here, I've met a ton of good people.
 
That is such a cool story. I’ve read of several others on here who’ve hit up Rausch Creek. It’s nice to live in a wheelin mecca. My story is very similar if you read my build thread, except I sound clueless, because I was clueless. It’s apparent I got the Jeep bug, but it was after I bought it as an early Christmas present on Dec 23, 2016. I planned something extremely mild, like a 2” BB. I did that, but that was only for starters, and by the way, before that the most I’d ever done to a vehicle was put gas in it and change the oil! After listening to the folks in here I thought it would be much smarter to replace the BB with some fresh springs, shocks. Went OME. Somewhere along the line I started getting a hankering for getting off-road, but I didn’t know any Jeep folks and I live in the sticks. So I bought a winch and the rest is history. No one has touched my Jeep to do anything since I got it (except mounting and balancing tires). The sequence seems to be wheel, modify, wheel, modify and wheel some more. I never saw this coming. Just wanted a vehicle that would fit in my short garage and could pull a small trailer and get around our property. We too have some great spots for wheelin; Wolf Caves and Hidden Falls and Long Ranch are the three OHV parks Ive been too and still finding fresh territory there. Heading to SWR Off-road Memorial Day weekend. And there are others. On another note, I didn’t really think of the convertible aspect, but when Spring came the top and doors came off and it was paradise on wheels! Thumbs up to you and I wish you the best in all your adventures. Will we ever grow up? Or is this growing up?!
 
JMT said:
I bought it as an early Christmas present on Dec 23, 2016. Will we ever grow up? Or is this growing up?!
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I bought mine as a late 50th birthday present to myself on December 5, 2016 hahaha.

Grow up? Ha. My dad (81) makes the same statement every year on his birthday, "I don't know what's happening but I'm still 16 in my head", I think that says it all
 
Westtown Willy said:
I bought mine as a late 50th birthday present to myself on December 5, 2016 hahaha.

Grow up? Ha. My dad (81) makes the same statement every year on his birthday, "I don't know what's happening but I'm still 16 in my head", I think that says it all
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True, true...
 
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