High Mileage 2001 Sahara Build

Been a little busy while in Jackson (snowboarding mostly). But here are some photos from my drive on Sunday from Buffalo Wyoming to Jackson Wyoming. Definitely one of the most beautiful drives in the country. I should have stopped for more photos.

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Togwotee Pass:

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Well I'm back in Chicago now. I put 900 miles on the Jeep yesterday and another 500 today. Only problem on the whole trip was the speedometer, which I believe is just a loose connection at the transfer case.

I think this might have been the Jeeps last long road trip. I've driven it on 10 - 15 1000+ mile road trips and I'm a bit over it. It is just too noisy, too slow, and too uncomfortable to drive 1000's of miles. I have an off-road vehicle, not a highway cruiser.

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Farmergreg said:
Great report. I really liked the area around 10 Sleep Wy.
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I'm hoping I can make up for the lack of tech in my build thread with an excessive amount of nice pictures. Wyoming is a great place for scenic photos. I was in Tensleep last Sunday. Really an amazing area, especially the mountains between Buffalo and Tensleep. The canyon drive through there is unbelievable and definitely one of the nicest drives in the country.
 
Well, today was sort of a ridiculous day with the Jeep. Going to explain the story a little bit so maybe other people don't get caught with the same problem, but the short version is that I've been driving around with my rear wheels barely secured since the frame swap...

On Wednesday, a buddy and I decided to swap tires for fun and also take a quick look at my drum brakes that have been having some lock up issues lately. When we went to take off the lug nuts on my rear wheel, they screamed the whole way out (we were using hand tools). We couldn't really figure out what was going on since the lugs and studs looked reasonably ok. When we went to put the tires back on, the lugs screamed the whole way on as well. We spent a few minutes trying to figure out what was going on, but couldn't see anything wrong. Since my shop was the last person to touch the lugs, we thought it might just be fine and I wrote down to mention it when the Jeep went into the shop in a few weeks. Well, we ended up ruining the last lug and stud so I made an appointment to take it in to a local mechanic today to replace the stud. I thought that would be fairly simple...

The mechanic ended up snapping a few studs trying to get the lugs off. Since the Revolution studs are fairly hard to find and something was obviously wrong, I started looking around for shafts to swap in while I figured a solution out. The Jeep was completely stuck on the lift since there was no way to ge the wheel bolted back up.

The shop that had done my frame swap still had my old axles, so I took an hour Uber there and back to pick up the shafts. Turns out that my new Revolution shafts have much much longer studs than the stock shafts. My shop had bottomed the capped lugs out on the studs and sent it out the door for me to drive across the country. The threads on all the studs were completely ruined. I'm very happy that nothing bad happened considering my wheels were beating the lug nuts outward hard enough to ruin the threads.

So yeah, I drove 3000 miles across the country with bottomed out lugs and loose tires. This is just another reason to check a shop's work... The Jeep is still stuck on the lift over at my local mechanic. They're going to swap the driver axle shaft back to my stock one on Tuesday and give it back to me. I'm going to swap the passenger shaft sometime next week. Not sure how my buddy and I didn't notice that the studs were stretched, but it was late at night so I'll give myself a pass on this one.
 
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Sounds more to me like the threads didn't match. You'd have know if your wheel was loose... It makes a hell of a racket. I forgot to torque the lugs on a car one time. They loosened up on my drive to work and you could feel it in the steering wheel, suspension, your ass, etc. Also, those caps are not very thick. You can drive the stud through them... You won't hit 100 ft lbs of torque.
 
Mike_H said:
Sounds more to me like the threads didn't match. You'd have know if your wheel was loose... It makes a hell of a racket. I forgot to torque the lugs on a car one time. They loosened up on my drive to work and you could feel it in the steering wheel, suspension, your ass, etc. Also, those caps are not very thick. You can drive the stud through them... You won't hit 100 ft lbs of torque.
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I was initially thinking the same thing. I did feel like I was using the lug nut to essentially cut threads as I was taking it on / off. I tried to compare the threads on the Revolution shafts versus my stock shafts today and they looked the same. But if I was using the lug nut as a die, they would have looked the same either way I guess. It might also explain why I couldn't see anything wrong, as the threads would look matched.

My local mechanic thinks that the lugs were bottoming out so I went with that. But I did notice when trying to reinstall the lugs that I couldn't thread them on by hand. It felt like I was trying to thread a coarse nut on a fine thread bolt. The bottoming out theory would seem to make sense as the Revolution shafts have 2 inch studs while the stock shafts have very short studs. The shop that did the frame swap just reused my lug nuts. If the thread mismatch is the case it would really suck as it might mean my fronts are screwed too. I haven't taken the tires off the front yet to check.

I'm still not sure of the exact problem, but I was leaning towards a thread mismatch until my local mechanic mentioned the lugs bottoming out. I was very confused how I could drive down the highway without noticing that. I'll try to look closer when I swap shafts next week. Either way, I would've expected my shop to catch this problem. It seems like they just hammered them on with an impact and didn't notice anything wrong.
 
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So now I'm at a complete loss. The threads are the same on the stock shafts and revolution shafts. I'm able to hand thread a lug nut onto one of the passenger side axle shafts and onto a stock shaft. I also tried to tighten the lugs down with an impact. I can't blow through the cap with the stud even with a lot of ugga-duggas.

Quick run down:
Driver side: I ruin a stud, shop snaps a different stud when removing.
Passenger side: Shop ruins a stud when removing lug nut.


The tops of the studs are ruined but the lug nuts appear to be fine internally. Any ideas?

Driver side snapped by local mechanic when removing:

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Passenger side stud local mechanic ruined while removing:

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Driver side stud I ruined after removing lug nut and trying to reinstall:

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Stock lug nut threads on just fine:

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All studs are jacked up at the ends.

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Doing some very mild wheeling tomorrow. Gave the Jeep a look over and noticed something... Pretty obvious, but anyone notice whats missing?

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Going to be taking the lug nuts off the front tonight... Hopefully this doesn't turn into me running to the 24/7 autozone down the street trying to find studs.
 
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First time doing some actual wheeling since the frame swap. I thought today was going to be casual, but we got a bit lost and it turned into a winch fest. I got stuck a few times and pulled cable about 5 times throughout the day. Jeep did great with 0 problems. Very happy with its performance today.

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Luckily, it looks like I'll have some time to work on the Jeep again this Summer. During the school year, I usually work about 90 hours per week when including extracurriculars. Guess there are some downsides to picking a difficult major. This Summer I'm only working 40 hours + 1 class so I should have some time to look over the Jeep.

My plans are to get wheeling again, look at the disastrous situation that is my brakes, cycle the suspension to check bumpstops, and to change my muffler out. I know that may take some of you a day, but I work slowly and in chunks when I get time.

I was hoping to get some input on my brakes. The front BMB's have started squealing and the rears like to lock up or grab randomly. I'm hoping the rears just need some adjustment but I'll have to take a closer look at the fronts. At least the Jeep still stops on a dime when I need it.

The new Borla exhaust I just had put on is way way too quiet. I needed to change the entire exhaust front to rear to fix my downpipe hitting the driveshaft. A previous shop had put the wrong downpipe on and the whole setup needed to be redone. I was hoping the Borla would be a little more noticeable, but you can't hear it even at 4000 rpm. I might have some fun with a $30 glasspack from autozone or just a straight pipe with the cats, but that definitely would not be a long term solution.

Otherwise, I will say the shocks have made a significant difference in how my Jeep rides. I tried to bottom it out on some speed bumps today and I couldn't get it to. The added uptravel of the shorter Savvy shocks has made my Jeep ride a whole lot better.

Anyways, here is a shot of the Jeep in full Summer mode today. I like the look besides the wheels, which I'm hoping to change to Trail Ready Beadlocks within the next year. The back seems higher than the front, but it is just parked on a slope. I'll have to measure my springs to make sure.


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Chris said:
Remove the third cat. It doesn’t cause any codes and it makes it a lot more burly sounding.
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For some reason I had in my head that removing the third cat would throw codes, but I guess there are no O2 sensors behind that cat so there is no way for it to throw anything.

In all honesty, I would probably like my old banks muffler back with a cat delete. The banks with the cat was just barely loud enough. I'm considering just buying a bunch of adapters and a cheap muffler and trying some combinations around for a weekend. A straight pipe might be fun for a week... but there is no way I'm going to blow my ears out for much longer than that.

When I first got in the Jeep after my new exhaust, I started grinding the starter with the engine already running because I couldn't tell it was on :ROFLMAO:. The Borla is whisper quiet.
 
jodomcfrodo said:
For some reason I had in my head that removing the third cat would throw codes, but I guess there are no O2 sensors behind that cat so there is no way for it to throw anything.

In all honesty, I would probably like my old banks muffler back with a cat delete. The banks with the cat was just barely loud enough. I'm considering just buying a bunch of adapters and a cheap muffler and trying some combinations around for a weekend. A straight pipe might be fun for a week... but there is no way I'm going to blow my ears out for much longer than that.

When I first got in the Jeep after my new exhaust, I started grinding the starter with the engine already running because I couldn't tell it was on :ROFLMAO:. The Borla is whisper quiet.
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Yep, I removed mine and it didn't throw any codes or anything. And with the stock exhaust, it made it sound just like it had an aftermarket exhaust.

That's crazy the Borla was that quiet! I would have thought anything from Borla would be louder than stock, but it sounds like this one might actually be quieter than stock! I guess that's nice for long drives. One thing I can't stand is when exhausts drone on the highway.
 
Chris said:
Yep, I removed mine and it didn't throw any codes or anything. And with the stock exhaust, it made it sound just like it had an aftermarket exhaust.

That's crazy the Borla was that quiet! I would have thought anything from Borla would be louder than stock, but it sounds like this one might actually be quieter than stock! I guess that's nice for long drives. One thing I can't stand is when exhausts drone on the highway.
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I'll have to yank the cat off and figure out what flanges / adapters I need. The Savvy skid system should make it a little easier to do. Too bad I just had the cat replaced 3 days ago... Didn't realize I could just delete it.

One of my buddies had a Borla exhaust and I thought it sounded great. I bought the only one that Borla makes so they must have discontinued the louder version. I'm not sure if the Borla is quieter than stock because I'm so used to the Banks (which is one of the loudest you can buy I think), but it is a definite change. I can't even hear it until 4000 and it is still underwhelming then. I don't take many highway trips so droning isn't too annoying to me, although I'd like to avoid it if I can. The banks didn't drone but I could hear it loud and clear when I stepped on the pedal.

That being said, I'm 20, so a louder exhaust isn't the end of the world. I have a few more years where I'm allowed to be irresponsible and annoying to the general public I guess...
 
jodomcfrodo said:
I'll have to yank the cat off and figure out what flanges / adapters I need. The Savvy skid system should make it a little easier to do. Too bad I just had the cat replaced 3 days ago... Didn't realize I could just delete it.

One of my buddies had a Borla exhaust and I thought it sounded great. I bought the only one that Borla makes so they must have discontinued the louder version. I'm not sure if the Borla is quieter than stock because I'm so used to the Banks (which is one of the loudest you can buy I think), but it is a definite change. I can't even hear it until 4000 and it is still underwhelming then. I don't take many highway trips so droning isn't too annoying to me, although I'd like to avoid it if I can. The banks didn't drone but I could hear it loud and clear when I stepped on the pedal.

That being said, I'm 20, so a louder exhaust isn't the end of the world. I have a few more years where I'm allowed to be irresponsible and annoying to the general public I guess...
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That's the main reason I removed my third cat. I saw how much more space it would clear up for the belly-up skid, and I decided to do it at the same time.

But anyways, yes, you can indeed delete it, and I'm pretty confident it will give you the sound you're looking for and clear up space as previously mentioned. With that Borla exhaust being so quiet, I think the removal of the cat may actually make it sound exactly the way you want it.

Yes, the age does have something to do with it. When I was 20 I too remember being quite fond of louder exhaust. At 36, I can tell you that now I want the vehicle to be as quiet as possible (at least on the inside). I'm not sure why that is to be honest... maybe it just happens as you get older, but it started happening for me in my late twenties I feel like.
 
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