Redux

I was just talking about that with Mrs Tox. My Jeep with 86k of very hard miles over 8ish years had the heater resister pack go out once, the fog light switch stuck on, radiator leaked 3 times, front calipers seized twice (I blame once on a shop that likely didn't bleed them before removing), transmission got a weird hole in the case, shifter rod broke, but that's about it as far as problems that weren't self made problems. Yes, I had a very rusty frame, but it still had 1/2 of it's thickness remaining and wasn't a safety concern at all. Maybe I'm just choosing to remember the good times. Lol.



Correct, and there are a lot of toes to step on here that I don't want to step on, so let's see if I can navigate these waters without derailing the thread... One of the reasons why I avoided even starting this thread for so long...

The shop that did the work didn't install the outboarded rear shocks or the front raised towers with the Jeep on the ground at ride height. You can start to see this being mentioned at the end of Chris' build thread. The result was 1.5" of up travel in the rear and limit strapped to maybe 4" of down travel, so 5.5" of total travel on a 12" shock. The fronts were better but not perfect. For those not in the know, the ideal numbers to shoot for with this setup would be around 50% up travel, 50% down travel — or 6" up, 6" down.

After meeting Chris and buying the Jeep we decided to go the long way home back to WI and say hi to Blaine and spend the week at King of the Hammers. After a few miles we met up with another forum member in Corvallis to remove the front driveshaft which was clearly not happy with life. Mrs Tox started the driving down very excited about her new Jeep but it quickly became apparent that something was majorly wrong with the steering and probably other suspension parts. I've had more experience driving things that don't drive well than she does so I took over for the rest of the 900ish miles and barely kept it between the lines. What was going to be a quick visit at Blaine's turned into 4 days of 3 of us working on it and replacing parts. Ranging from replacing the steering gear to tightening jam nuts that were backed off by an inch to remounting the exhaust so it wasn't hard mounted to the body. We also threw on a stock rear sway bar and ordered a new front driveshaft. The Jeep transformed from being unable to control to giving Mrs Tox confidence to drive and from being unable to hold a conversation yelling at 55mph to being able to talk normally. Once we got back to Blaine's again from KOH the new front DS had arrived and we went off on our way home. If anyone has any specific questions about that feel free to ask.

During that time we came up with a plan for dealing with the horrible ride quality from the shocks. I was neck deep in my own build and had wanted this Jeep to be ready to drive and not be it's own project so we measured an 11" shock to replace the 12" shock in the rear and we learned that it'd give a livable amount of travel both up and down. Everything about it is a compromise so I didn't have to cut the towers out of the frame to redo them. Why I don't talk about this much is because THERE IS NOTHING ABOUT THIS THAT I'D PURPOSELY DO, and I know how the internet works and if there's pictures of it people will share it and say that it can be done and not understand why it shouldn't be done. I would like to redo them eventually and set up the travel to be perfect.

The other thing is that the shock tuning wasn't to my liking. It felt extremely harsh going over small things and would bottom out going over large things. Just going down the highway, would leave you fatigued. I posted a full review someplace else on this forum that I'm sure somebody can find after searching. Needless to say, all 4 shocks have been retuned by someone else and now give very predictable handling to the Jeep on the street and offroad.

I probably missed something so feel free to ask for clarification.

Even not being as technical as you, I know enough of the prior work to get the gist. Without trying to be too pointed, my hesitation in some comments seems clarified.

It’s great that @Mrs Tox didn’t chop up her gut feeling to it being “a Jeep thing”, more of us need to hone that feeling and question what we are experiencing.
 
RJ’s did the gear install and you had problems then too?

They didn't install the Rubicon locker switch correctly which is why I had issues. They fixed it though, and I never had an issue with the gears since. Maybe @toximus or @Mrs Tox can chime in as to whether the gears have given them any grief?
 
Even not being as technical as you, I know enough of the prior work to get the gist. Without trying to be too pointed, my hesitation in some comments seems clarified.

It’s great that @Mrs Tox didn’t chop up her gut feeling to it being “a Jeep thing”, more of us need to hone that feeling and question what we are experiencing.

I've just been reading and not commenting (something I've been doing for years on this forum) but... thanks for thinking the best of me. I'm not Mr. Tox and I don't profess to be but he has instilled in me the confidence to know that offroading can and should feel like you're going on a Sunday drive. I remember us being at Drummond Island in my jeep and a man approaching us to say that he wanted to bring his TJ but it was too rough of a ride to bring all the way on the island so they brought his newer JK instead and I was disheartened by that. It's like the boiling frog syndrome where because you drive your jeep everyday, you don't realize that twenty years later your suspension has degraded and parts have just plain worn out. An old TJ can and should drive better than a new vehicle off the lot if it's been modified and paid mind to.
 
RJ’s did the gear install and you had problems then too?

They didn't install the Rubicon locker switch correctly which is why I had issues. They fixed it though, and I never had an issue with the gears since. Maybe @toximus or @Mrs Tox can chime in as to whether the gears have given them any grief?

The gears are great! No complaints there aside from the covers leaking. 5.38s, quiet, good wear pattern, and a consistent 14mpg. If I remember correctly they're thick cut from RGA? I wouldn't change anything about the gears. Of course we used the leaks as an excuse to upgrade the covers to Currie ramped covers instead of just getting the 10 minute fix over with. I previously had one of those covers on my LJ and absolutely nailed it into a underwater boulder, aside from the gash it was ready for more action.
 
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The gears are great! No complaints there aside from the covers leaking. 5.38s, quiet, good wear pattern, and a consistent 14mpg. If I remember correctly they're thick cut from RGA? I wouldn't change anything about the gears. Of course we used the leaks as an excuse to upgrade the covers to Currie ramped covers instead of just getting the 10 minute fix over with. I previously had one of those covers on my LJ and absolutely nailed it into a underwater boulder, aside from the gash it was ready for more action.

Yes, the gears are indeed RGA 5.38 thick cut gears.

Well, it's nice to know that they installed the gears right.

If I had to guess, the two guys who own the shop are older and more experienced. They were the ones doing the welding and the gears. The ones putting on the bolt-on parts (i.e. track bar) was a kid who was in his mid twenties I would guess.

My thought is he was the one probably doing a lot of the stupid shit.

The owner certainly knew his stuff to some degree. He had a V8 swapped TJ he did his self, a number of custom built rock buggies, etc. I'm guessing the hired help messed some stuff up.
 
All of this said, my list of what currently needs to be worked on was in no way intended to be a complaint, rather picking up the build thread from where it has been left off. What's a build thread if there's no building happening, right?

The Khaki TJ is a great Jeep that we're proud to have in our stable and we've enjoyed many adventures with her already!
 
One thing I've been aware of for about a year now is that it seems somebody used leak stop in the cooling system and it's coming apart as flakes in the coolant. I flushed it last summer putting about 20 gallons through it along with chemicals and the heater core started leaking (maybe what they were trying to fix originally?). I've also noticed coolant drips out of the AC drain and can be smelled inside when the Jeep gets to temp. This is going to be a larger project to fix and I'd like to get it done soon before we start seeing freezing temps at night. Before replacing the heater core I'm flushing the system again to get all of the flakes of leak stop out.

So that no junk goes through the new heater core I am flushing the old system out. Because I'm not sure which chemical flush works best and based on the color of what comes out it seems that both treat different things. I like to drain the coolant first, then I run a bottle of Prestone Radiator Flush + Cleaner through, flush again with distilled water, run a bottle of Thermocure Cooling System Rust Remover and Flush through, flush with distilled water until it comes out as clear as possible, finally put in Zerex G05 HOAT coolant. This time I'll be holding off on the coolant until I'm done with the heater core repair.

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Since the battery was out to replace the heater core I cleaned it up and topped off the battery with water. I don't know how old the battery is (I think the date code is 2013?) but it's still cranking good, in our climate batteries tend to last a long time so long as you don't drain them and let them freeze, so I'd bet it has a few more years left before we switch it to a nice AGM battery. If we were doing extreme offroading I would change the battery now so there'd be no chance of it leaking.

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Haha! Definitely not my plastic knives. I wonder who put those in there? :ROFLMAO:

You know the vacuum trick too? Funny, I thought I was the one that made that up! I always used my shop vac to do it.
 
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Haha! Definitely not my plastic knives. I wonder who put those in there? :ROFLMAO:

You know the vacuum trick too? Funny, I thought I was the one that made that up! I always used my shop vac to do it.

I never saw anyone mention it before. Ha! Maybe it's more common than I thought.
 
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Wait, what? We went from flushing the cooling system to gutting the interior? I gather you don't trust the heater core and will be replacing it?
 
Wait, what? We went from flushing the cooling system to gutting the interior? I gather you don't trust the heater core and will be replacing it?

A good runner. Ran great when parked. I know what I have. No low balls. Don't waste my time.
 
Wait, what? We went from flushing the cooling system to gutting the interior? I gather you don't trust the heater core and will be replacing it?

Just kidding! The heater core has been leaking for the last year and I haven't had time to repair it until now.
 
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phew.png

I thought I was sleeping at the wheel and missed something important. Tearing the dash out is one of my lesser favorite things to do on a Jeep. Based on what you have undertaken so far, a walk in the park for you.