Rocky Mountain Billy Goat Build

i've given up on fancy, maybe once it's all done i'll have the whole tub re shot. but flat black is my best friend. it's cheap, easy to touch up and doesn't hide much if it starts to get ugly again.

for the windshield i just got 2 color matched spray cans and some clear coat.
 
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Today something occurred to me.. if I can drop my CB I can leverage the remote-able face plate + mic of the ICOM I ordered. I am killing off the idea of the ARR rip-off (if anyone local wants a 60" C channel of aluminum 2"x1", let me know). Instead, I am going to put the new face between the visors and mount the box where @NashvilleTJ did his in the driver kick panel.

That ICOM is ordered, however like most things these days - it's backordered. Hopefully I will see it this season and can convince the others to ditch CB....
 
Coming from the guys who had them on top of their Jeeps in Moab ...
It's funny, there's an FJ Cruiser I see by me daily and it has a giant CB antenna. I've never understood why (it's at least 8'), as the thing isn't lifted nor look offroaded.
 
I’m not quite ready to swap my motor, but I am actively keeping tabs on options. My current winner is the R2.8 due to size, weight, torque, and efficiency. However there’s some awesome options that a buddy told me about that float through here, mostly recycled drive trains from modern performance vehicles:

https://www.clevelandpap.com/
 
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@jjvw and I installed my sliders yesterday. One big gripe about the kit is that it’s a generic set of screws, washers, spacers, nutserts, etc. We needed to get a lot more hardware and had a ton of waste.

With that annoyance out of the way we got everything set very snug. In the end I gained about 1.75” over the rubicon sliders, which Josh told me are already as snug as sliders usually get - so these may be about 2” more clearance than others.

A few initial observations:

* the steps are massive, I haven’t measured vs my old mopar ones but they may be 2x further out. They might be getting cut off in favor of a rub rail, probably depends on my kids’ needs for now.
* if I didn’t get these for a good deal, it’s hard to argue their price is appropriate. I suppose there’s so few options similar to this design that maybe they are.
* don’t buy aluminum for the slider (it’s fine for backer plates)
* Jeep didn’t get the unlimited logo the same height on both sides, so I had to peel it off on the passenger side).
* I’d expect another fastener in the front fender. However thinking on it more, maybe they don’t do that since it’s built to work with their high lines which bring the fender back a few inches.

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that is a nice little rise on that outside edge.

they got them panel bending pliers, maybe modified to jump the lip they could be used to get that edge and bend it clean. seen um for like 12-15$ at HF if anybody else does this.
 
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Tell them about the rotabroach
Oh yeah, this was a huge change in how smoothly the passenger side went vs the driver side.

A mythical bunny told Josh to get a rotabroach for drilling the holes in the sheet metal. I ordered it Thursday and it came mid-day Saturday.

We’ve always been “fine” working around step bits and standard bits, however when the latter catches in sheet metal you can often either get hung up or break your bits. We had a few not-so-pretty holes on the driver side because of this (the step bit worked for most, but not all due to the depth between the outer body and an inner support).

Once the rotabroach arrived we were cutting very clean holes right off the bat only with a center punch set.

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Thanks for sharing this. Does the rotobroach require a pilot hole?
 
Thanks for sharing this. Does the rotobroach require a pilot hole?
Not typically, a good center punch shot was enough for most. I think the one we needed a pilot hole for I was using too high a speed too quickly, so it did walk on me once. Instead I should have started slower to get a few good grooves cut before elevating more.

@jjvw did a good number of the holes, so he can probably expand on anything he noticed.
 
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One last thought is based on some rough measurements - the GenRight high line fender is going to sit where this MCE does, so you’ll notice how much the rear fender wall moves and how much I’ll need to trim these sliders.

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Thanks for sharing this. Does the rotobroach require a pilot hole?
A good hit with a center punch should be enough. The guide pin on the broach arbor is spring loaded and fully retracts while cutting. After one walked on us, I went through and drilled a small pilot on the rest just to better secure the pin. Likely not needed if the punches are good.