My '05 Rubicon Project

DaveH

DaveH

New Member
Lifetime Supporting Member
Joined
Jun 27, 2021
Messages
14
Location
High Point NC
I'm just going to post a bunch of pictures for now. I live in NC but found this Rubicon at a Lincoln Mercury dealer up in PA. I bought a 2006 silver Rubicon off of the showroom floor at a dealer down here back in '06. When my son turned 16 in 2016, I handed it down to him and bought a 2016 JK Rubicon Hard Rock edition from a dealer up in Michigan. It's the only one I could find in the country that was equipped the way I wanted.

After driving the 2016 for a couple of years, I decided I wanted another TJ. So I found this '05 which is virtually identical to my son's TJ. Since it was a Pennsylvania ride, I knew up front that there would rust underneath. But I was quite surprised when I took a close look at it that the rust wasn't all that bad. It was a one owner TJ and the guy that had it must have hosed it off good underneath whenever he drove it up there in the winter on salty roads.

There are too many things I replaced new to list right here. It does have a 2-inch Teraflex lift (new coil springs), and 32x11.5x15 BFG KM3 tires with 15 inch Mammoth Boulder Wheels. All of the control arms are Teraflex adjustable arms. I installed cam bolt eliminator bolts in the front. I took both differentials and housings and sent them off to be remanufactured. I had 4.56 gears put in them both.

If anyone has any questions about something they see in any of the pictures, feel free to ask it here. I'm a new member but have been a long time forum member of a firearms forum down here in the Carolinas. I'll watch this thread for any questions. I posted all of these pictures with text on the firearms forum I'm a member of but didn't want to copy and paste all of that at once.

Here we go:

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It took a little over a year to finish mainly because I did most of the work outside and only worked on it in my spare time.

After putting it on the road I discovered some issues with various leaks. The infamous rear main seal was one and even though the valve cover was new, it didn't have a Fel-Pro gasket so I decided to install a new Fel-Pro gasket under the valve cover for peace of mind.

When I replaced the rear main seal, I decided to go ahead and replace the head pipe and all four oxygen sensors while I had it all tore down. I also installed a new starter while the oil pan was down.

The other leak I had was a very bad driver's side rear axle leak. It was bad enough to make driving it dangerous. The axle shafts are new therefore the bearing, retainer, and seal were new. However, after reading some horror stories from people that had trouble getting the leak stopped, I decided I didn't want to have that experience.

I bought new axle hardware, including a speedi sleeve from NAPA, .035 I believe was the size, and took the shaft and the new hardware over to a local machine shop to get the new stuff pressed on. Hasn't leaked a drip since.

After all of that, the check engine light came on and was throwing the notorious P0304 code. I pulled the #4 spark plug and it looked perfectly fine. Took a chance and went and picked up a new coil pack. Installed that, started it up, and the light was off and the engine was idling like a purring kitten. Didn't even have to clear the code to get the light off. That was a couple of weeks ago and it's been fine since.
 
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