Help me (and other new members) learn from your mistakes

RMETeeJay said:
An aired down stock TJ with an experienced driver is much more capable than many think.
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I'm a little hesitant to offer advice, because I'm barely knowledgeable about building Jeeps. But I've found many times in life that it works best to improve my own knowledge and skill until my skills are no longer the limiting factor in performance. When the tools (i.e. the Jeep) become the limiting factor, THEN it is time to upgrade.

When I was auto-crossing my Rx8, I followed this path, and never ended up modding the car - because it was always more capable on the track than I was. It was painful to admit, over and over ... but my skills were always the limiting factor. On the upside, I saved a lot of money with that in mind :) In this case, my goal was to become a better driver, not to win best time of the day. If my goal had been to win the day, then maybe I could have spent my way to a few wins. 🤷‍♂️

I'll also second the advice to buy quality, depending on your goals. I plan to drive this LJ for a long time (been driving my TJ for 21 years). Whenever I did anything to the TJ, I did it right. Never regretted it. Well, there was that cheap-ass radio I put in. Been regretting that.

Of course, if your goal is to build, then go ahead and BUILD! It all depends on your goals.
 
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  1. Drive and wheel it for a while as it is. They're far more capable in stock form than most realize. Depending on what your tastes are or turn into for off-roading, this may save you big $ in the long run.
  2. Use this forum; it's a tremendous resource full of knowledge and people willing to help.
  3. Buy quality parts to do it right the first time (aka, 'buy once, cry once'). Going cheap usually costs more in the end to replace the cheap stuff that doesn't last or didn't perform up to expected standards.
  4. It's your Jeep; so build it for your needs and tastes and nobody else's.
 
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Going with a higher axle ratio after installing bigger tires than your more experienced buddies and fellow wheelers are recommending. And where higher/lower ratios go, 4.56 is a higher ratio than 4.88 is. 5.38 is a very low ratio, 3.07 is a very high ratio.

For my personal example, early in my Wrangler ownership days, I replaced my 30" tires with 33's. I had a 5-speed with the 4.0 then and asked for advice. Everyone said 4.56 but that ratio scared me, I thought it would give me screaming high rpms on the highway so I thought I was taking the safer/more conservative approach by going with 4.10. I was happy for 2-3 days until I finally figured out it actually sucked big time. I was having to downshift way too often, even for the gentlest of grades on the highway. It was about 3 days before I learned I should have gone with the 4.56 for 33's everyone was recommending. It taught me a HUGE lesson.

The bottom line is it sucks to be even slightly undergeared. I'd much rather be slightly overgeared than slightly undergeared on the highway.
 
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  1. Keep it light!
  2. Build for the biggest tire in the group of your wheeling friends.
  3. Skids first, winch second.
  4. Cutting brakes are the most fun you can have on 4 wheels.
  5. If youre crawling spend money on things that give you more control = slower speed, smoother acceleration (auto + gears + brakes).
  6. Communism has failed every time it was tried.
  7. Cut before you bump.
 
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tuppercole said:
A million years ago, so it needs to be adjusted for inflation, I was told "You're going to spend $10K on an MG. It can be a $10K MG, or it can be a $3K MG with $7K in work to be done, but it'll be $10,000"
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Yep, you got it!

If a clean TJ is $18,000 and a beat one is $4,000, you can mark my word you’ll put in another $14,000 to get it to the same level as the clean one. This seems to be true with most vehicles.
 
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I regret buying a TJ not knowing much. More time learning and researching would have saved my 15 months of work, but looking back that’s the fun in it!!

Biggest regret honestly was buying a TJ that someone else mod’ed to high heaven. Wish I would have started unmolested, got to the same end result, just a different path!
 
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merrill77 said:
I'm a little hesitant to offer advice, because I'm barely knowledgeable about building Jeeps. But I've found many times in life that it works best to improve my own knowledge and skill until my skills are no longer the limiting factor in performance. When the tools (i.e. the Jeep) become the limiting factor, THEN it is time to upgrade.

When I was auto-crossing my Rx8, I followed this path, and never ended up modding the car - because it was always more capable on the track than I was. It was painful to admit, over and over ... but my skills were always the limiting factor. On the upside, I saved a lot of money with that in mind :) In this case, my goal was to become a better driver, not to win best time of the day. If my goal had been to win the day, then maybe I could have spent my way to a few wins. 🤷‍♂️

I'll also second the advice to buy quality, depending on your goals. I plan to drive this LJ for a long time (been driving my TJ for 21 years). Whenever I did anything to the TJ, I did it right. Never regretted it. Well, there was that cheap-ass radio I put in. Been regretting that.

Of course, if your goal is to build, then go ahead and BUILD! It all depends on your goals.
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I know lots of folks who keep trying to build their rig bigger instead of learning how to outdrive what they have.
 
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Keep it simple a simple spacer lift and decent shocks and a good tire will take you a long ways. I regret waiting so long to go with an sye kit but I was broke in my 20s lol keep your bumpers simple and light. If I built mine again I wouldn’t go with 35s I would have stuck with 33s and a mild spacer lift and body lift. I saw bikini tops mentioned but I actually love mine. It was rough in the winter using a shop vac to suck all the snow out of the interior before work. I just put my hard top on now tho.
 
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Apparition said:
Depends on the number of each
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Count how many lockers there are.
download (3).jpg
 
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There is so much good advice in this thread...I actually gave it some thought before I posted this-

I spent my second and third year in the construction industry replacing all the crappy tools and gadgets I bought the first year in business.

Like Blaine said you really don’t know.

But it is fun to do stuff and you get one of these things and you just can’t wait to start doing stuff... And that right there is really probably where we all go a little wrong, some more than others.

That being said the first thing I tell people is to avoid one with a bad build because it’s hard to fix it when you don’t know what a good build is- And when you don’t know what a good build is you don’t know what a bad build is so you’re not qualified to evaluate it. And a lot of times the buddy you take with you to see one doesn’t know any more than you but he doesn’t want to let on. So avoid trying to straighten out someone’s mess if you don’t know what you’re getting into. If your finances are limited this may be even more important and everybody’s finances are limited somewhere.

That leads me to #2- Try to become aware of what’s going on a little bit so you can make good deliberate decisions for yourself.

And as I’m typing this I’m thinking that we’re talking about people changing things that a lot of times they don’t need to change at all...And that covers everything from people wasting money they don’t have to spend to Doing things that are unnecessary when they’ve got a half a dozen things that really need attention on the vehicle.

I think if people could get a good understanding of how these things work underneath and what to sort out before they start spending money on everything else it might make things a lot easier for them.

Finding someone with some usable experience helps too- might speed you up on knowing what you are looking for - But that leads back to what Blaine says that you don’t really know and in that case you often don’t know who to listen to and can end up getting some really bad advice.

If I’d gotten on here sooner and attempted to learn more it sure would have been a good idea.
 
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