Lobo the 05 LJ Rubicon

Kuhl_Runnings

Kuhl_Runnings

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Aug 23, 2025
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Arizona
Background: I have had Wranglers the entire time my daughter has been alive. She has always wanted a Wrangler and I wanted an older Jeep to work on with her as a dad daughter project. When one popped up on Marketplace that I thought looked good, I jumped on it. We found a mostly stock Rubicon LJ with about 57,000 miles. It was a southwest Jeep so almost zero rust, but had a completely shot Rubicon Express suspension, body mounts were gone, paint that was completely destroyed, and tires that were about to disintegrate.

She fell in love with it and named it Lobo after a wolf in an old movie she liked as a kid. We have been working on it together for the past 8 months.

It's a win-win as I get to drive it and buy all the tools I need to fix it, she gets to think it is hers, even though she can't drive for another 6 months.

This is not so much a build thread as it is a way of thanking you guys for all the threads I have read to get us this far.
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Progress to date:
Metalcloak 3.5 Inch short arm lift
Rancho shocks
Rockhard 4x4 front bumper and rear bumper with tire carrier
Currie Steering
Metal Cloak Front Diff Cover
Currie Rear Diff Cover
New body mounts
Mickey Thompson Baja Boss 33" tires (on my old JL wheels)
Genright Aluminum Corner Armor
Genright Rocker Rails
Black Magic Brakes Rotors and Pads
Black Magic Brakes LED Rear Taillights and License Plate Relocation
Genright Hood Louver
Bartac Seat Covers
Hothead Headliner Sound Deadening on the floors
Sony Touchscreen Head Unit
Alpine rear camera
Speedo healer for the new tire size
All new speakers inside
Replaced all fluids
Fixed a shorted ground in the dash

The paint on the hood was almost gone. Gave us a reason to try to repaint and put a louver on.
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Still to do:
Repaint the doors
Repair the ubiquitous inner door cracks
Replace the leaking power steering pump hoses
Replace leaking crackcase vents
Fix a leaky rear main seal (not looking forward to this)
Add onboard air with a remote chuck
Fix the fuel valve overflow/cutoff issue
Get a hardtop (looking at Bulldawg)

Overall goal is a daily driver with weekend offroading/mild crawling, assuming she doesn't destroy it. All in all, it's been a fun family project and definitely crushed my bank account.
 
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Prepping this weekend for tackling some of the leaks. We're going to redo the valve cover gasket, PCV elbows, and the steering pump hoses. I'll leave the RMS and oil pan for the next 4 day I have off.

This Jeep has been pretty drama free, but at over 20 years old and barely driven in the past decade, all the little things are starting to show some brittleness. The alternator pulley sounds like it is starting to bind a little in cold morning starts. Nothing crazy, but maybe I'll add an alternator, idler pulley, tensioner, and belt for a near to mid-term project.

Any other things we should look at replacing now before they become major issues and any good brand recommendations would be much appreciated.
 
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A family emergency meant we couldn't get to any of the planned projects this weekend. But we are slowly accumulating more parts.

This will take care of some of the leaks and the alternator bearing that is failing. Still have the oil pan gasket, PCV elbows, and a Big 7 kit coming in this week.
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Tackled some wiring this weekend. Got the Big 7 kit installed to replace the corroded stuff that was there.
Here is the old.
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Then here is the new.
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Then I got the alternator, pulley, and serpentine belt replaced. Pretty drama free install except the old alternator was wedged into place and did not want to move. About 30 minutes with various pry tools and a dead blow hammer finally freed it. Now that everything is in place, no more weird noses on starting up in the morning.
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Kuhl_Runnings said:
Then I got the alternator, pulley, and serpentine belt replaced. Pretty drama free install except the old alternator was wedged into place and did not want to move. About 30 minutes with various pry tools and a dead blow hammer finally freed it. Now that everything is in place, no more weird noses on starting up in the morning.
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Cool story! Nice to hear a dad getting out and wrenching with his daughter!

Nice work. The paint looks good from where I’m sitting. Good job! That’s got some nice parts on it. A real keeper! She’s going to love it. A 16yr old? driving a unicorn Lobo!
 
JMT said:
Cool story! Nice to hear a dad getting out and wrenching with his daughter!

Nice work. The paint looks good from where I’m sitting. Good job! That’s got some nice parts on it. A real keeper! She’s going to love it. A 16yr old? driving a unicorn Lobo!
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Thanks! It's been a good learning experience for her, but as we get further along I am more and more tempted to keep this one for myself and give her my 2018 JL Rubicon. I could stand to see that one smashed into a light pole, but this one being totaled would hurt my soul.

And the hood turned out decently for a well prepped rattle can job. I forgot to mention it had a lot of hail damage on the hood area so it made sense to just add the Genright louver instead of trying to fix it all. The doors and cowl area though are fully spider cracked and have some Arizona pinstripes. From a distance it looks fine, but my perfectionist side wants to fix that once it gets a little warmer.
 
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Kuhl_Runnings said:
more and more tempted to keep this one for myself and give her my 2018 JL Rubicon. I could stand to see that one smashed into a light pole, but this one being totaled would hurt my soul.
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So true. You’ve got a lot of you in that LJR now. Would be really difficult to let it go or see it get smashed. I have the same problem with mine. All the more reason to make sure your daughter is ready to be on the road! My top rule for my kids after driving school is stay away from cars. You can’t always do that, but with the rule in mind you make different decisions.
 
Today was beautiful and it gave us a chance to open our top end. The back half of the valve cover gasket was leaking, as were both gaskets around the PCV elbows. We replaced the gasket, cleaned all of the gunk that accumulated around the engine, and swapped out the PCV gaskets/elbows. We also replaced the old dry rotted heat shield with a new one.

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Fingers crossed it doesn't start leaking again. Next weekend we will try to get the oil pan gasket and rear main seal done.
 
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Finally did the rear main seal and the oil pan gasket. There was soooooo much oil gunked up around the oil pan that it took forever to clean. I spent the better part of 2 days alternating between being under the Jeep, scrubbing the pan, and reading how to threads on here. The only bad part was getting the exhaust out of the way to drop the oil pan. I used a Fel-Pro gasket for the oil pan and a Mopar Rear Main Seal. Today I'm going to clean up the bell housing a little more and pray the small drop of oil I see there is residual oil from behind the cover. Otherwise I am going to go with the cardboard fix.

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Kuhl_Runnings said:
Finally did the rear main seal and the oil pan gasket. There was soooooo much oil gunked up around the oil pan that it took forever to clean. I spent the better part of 2 days alternating between being under the Jeep, scrubbing the pan, and reading how to threads on here. The only bad part was getting the exhaust out of the way to drop the oil pan. I used a Fel-Pro gasket for the oil pan and a Mopar Rear Main Seal. Today I'm going to clean up the bell housing a little more and pray the small drop of oil I see there is residual oil from behind the cover. Otherwise I am going to go with the cardboard fix.

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This is on my list also. All my freaking vehicles leak oil and it drives me crazy. I’ve heard leaking after a new MS isn’t all that uncommon.
 
Decided to try to get the onboard air situation resolved. I mounted an ARB single compressor to the ABS tray. I am still waiting on some parts for the compressor and a fuse tap for the switch. I thought I was going to mount the coupler to the bumper, but now I think I'm going to route it through the grille. It looks cleaner that way and leaves room for a winch if we add that. If I decide to mount it in the grille, I'll need to fab up some spacers to allow the bracket to fit straight. More to follow....

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