Greetings,
I started my car interest in the Import scene. Never really was in to 4x4’s until I borrowed my dads Jeep in 2021 after I hit a deer in my car. I immediately fell in love with driving the TJ. Fast forward a little bit, my father passed away in May of 2022. His Jeep was his dream car and he had talked about a few things he wanted to do to it, but never got around to them. So I decided to start a few small mods. The idea was to just make it a very very mild build. Picked up some Steel simulated Beadlocks on 31” Milestar’s. Then decided to do a 2in lift.
This is unlifted…
After the lift. Here’s where the bug bit me. I had only done a couple of appearance mods at this point. I wanted to off-road it more and had been doing a lot of research and knew I had quite a few limits. It had the Dana 30 front and 44 rear. I just watched online on market place and other websites for deals and started collecting parts.
Did some maintenance upgrades - MSD coil rail, replaced the fuel injectors, did the DEi heat blankets, replaced all the fuel evap system (constantly chasing a evap leak CEL). Installed an Odyssey battery.
Collected a plethora of parts… found an sPod Bantam system for $300. During this point, along with the help of my mechanic and here, I developed a plan for my drivetrain build. Should I swap in JK axles? Maybe. Should I do 1 tons? Maybe. But, I decided to keep the stock axles. Decided to do the following upgrades:
4.56 gears, chromoly axles shafts, air lockers, SYE and a double cardon rear shaft. Also decided to go ahead and truss the front axle (even though @jjvw said it wasn’t needed).
Began collecting parts and watching for deals. It finally aligned where I had collected all the parts and was about to go out of town on vacation, so I dropped the TJ off at the shop to have the build begin. I don’t feel comfortable with doing gear installs and don’t have experience welding, so i left it in the safe hands of Chris at Mountain Adventure Outfitters.
Chris kept me apprised of everything that was going on. Found out the rear 44 apparently had an LSD, but it was about to implode and had almost damaged the housing beyond repair. Luckily he caught it and was able to fix it. Here’s pics from the drive train build:
Prior to this I had removed the interior to repair some surface rust. I decided to go ahead and raptor line the interior as well. I also installed a smittybilt bolt in cage add-on.
Installed the Savvy Cable shifter as well. Installed sPod and 67 designs mounting solutions and Jeep Cable big 7 upgrade.
I had already installed a poison spyder front bumper, steering skid, smittybilt x20 winch, and KC cubes. I wired the cubes to the stock fog light switch.
Next upgrades were two parts. I installed Motobilt Boatsides and… the part I know will be controversial… my waterpump started failing, so I upgraded the entire cooling system. I installed a Mishimoto aluminum radiator I scored as a deal on marketplace new, a Flowkooler high flow water pump, a Robert Shaw thermostat, and a DeRale aluminum fan shroud with electric fan. The fan is wired to automatically engage when the temp reaches the appropriate threshold. I know that an electric fan will not push the same as the mechanical fan. I’m 1500 miles in with the set up and no overheating or any issues thus far.
Once everything at this point was completed, I was able to take it out for a shake down run at Beasley Knob. It performed fantastic! We didn’t do 93b, but did all other trails. Didn’t have to winch any and learned a lot about its capabilities. I just did the Motobilt rear bumper and have corner armor and flares to install next.
Next on the list, but not in the immediate future:
Suspension - Looking at doing a mid-arm kit. Been looking at Savvy’s, but kind of want to do a custom kit as well. Was looking at using Artec’s brackets for a 3 link front, 4 link rear. Doing 7075 aluminum arms. Would like to stretch the rear about 4ish inches and the front about 2 inches. I’d like to be close to the 100” wheel base that seems to be like a good number. Haven’t decided on which route I’ll go with. Also debating on springs/shocks. I kind of wanted to do CO’s, but understand the limitations with the stock TJ axle width. Will probably go with 3.5” or 4” lift max. Still researching and looking all the options… any input would be appreciated.
I’ll also eventually either do a 4.7 stroker or a V8 swap. That’s way down the road though.
Anyways, if you took the time to read through all this, thanks! Any advice or input is appreciated as well. I’m always learning and looking to expand my knowledge.
I started my car interest in the Import scene. Never really was in to 4x4’s until I borrowed my dads Jeep in 2021 after I hit a deer in my car. I immediately fell in love with driving the TJ. Fast forward a little bit, my father passed away in May of 2022. His Jeep was his dream car and he had talked about a few things he wanted to do to it, but never got around to them. So I decided to start a few small mods. The idea was to just make it a very very mild build. Picked up some Steel simulated Beadlocks on 31” Milestar’s. Then decided to do a 2in lift.
This is unlifted…
After the lift. Here’s where the bug bit me. I had only done a couple of appearance mods at this point. I wanted to off-road it more and had been doing a lot of research and knew I had quite a few limits. It had the Dana 30 front and 44 rear. I just watched online on market place and other websites for deals and started collecting parts.
Did some maintenance upgrades - MSD coil rail, replaced the fuel injectors, did the DEi heat blankets, replaced all the fuel evap system (constantly chasing a evap leak CEL). Installed an Odyssey battery.
Collected a plethora of parts… found an sPod Bantam system for $300. During this point, along with the help of my mechanic and here, I developed a plan for my drivetrain build. Should I swap in JK axles? Maybe. Should I do 1 tons? Maybe. But, I decided to keep the stock axles. Decided to do the following upgrades:
4.56 gears, chromoly axles shafts, air lockers, SYE and a double cardon rear shaft. Also decided to go ahead and truss the front axle (even though @jjvw said it wasn’t needed).
Began collecting parts and watching for deals. It finally aligned where I had collected all the parts and was about to go out of town on vacation, so I dropped the TJ off at the shop to have the build begin. I don’t feel comfortable with doing gear installs and don’t have experience welding, so i left it in the safe hands of Chris at Mountain Adventure Outfitters.
Chris kept me apprised of everything that was going on. Found out the rear 44 apparently had an LSD, but it was about to implode and had almost damaged the housing beyond repair. Luckily he caught it and was able to fix it. Here’s pics from the drive train build:
Prior to this I had removed the interior to repair some surface rust. I decided to go ahead and raptor line the interior as well. I also installed a smittybilt bolt in cage add-on.
Installed the Savvy Cable shifter as well. Installed sPod and 67 designs mounting solutions and Jeep Cable big 7 upgrade.
I had already installed a poison spyder front bumper, steering skid, smittybilt x20 winch, and KC cubes. I wired the cubes to the stock fog light switch.
Next upgrades were two parts. I installed Motobilt Boatsides and… the part I know will be controversial… my waterpump started failing, so I upgraded the entire cooling system. I installed a Mishimoto aluminum radiator I scored as a deal on marketplace new, a Flowkooler high flow water pump, a Robert Shaw thermostat, and a DeRale aluminum fan shroud with electric fan. The fan is wired to automatically engage when the temp reaches the appropriate threshold. I know that an electric fan will not push the same as the mechanical fan. I’m 1500 miles in with the set up and no overheating or any issues thus far.
Once everything at this point was completed, I was able to take it out for a shake down run at Beasley Knob. It performed fantastic! We didn’t do 93b, but did all other trails. Didn’t have to winch any and learned a lot about its capabilities. I just did the Motobilt rear bumper and have corner armor and flares to install next.
Next on the list, but not in the immediate future:
Suspension - Looking at doing a mid-arm kit. Been looking at Savvy’s, but kind of want to do a custom kit as well. Was looking at using Artec’s brackets for a 3 link front, 4 link rear. Doing 7075 aluminum arms. Would like to stretch the rear about 4ish inches and the front about 2 inches. I’d like to be close to the 100” wheel base that seems to be like a good number. Haven’t decided on which route I’ll go with. Also debating on springs/shocks. I kind of wanted to do CO’s, but understand the limitations with the stock TJ axle width. Will probably go with 3.5” or 4” lift max. Still researching and looking all the options… any input would be appreciated.
I’ll also eventually either do a 4.7 stroker or a V8 swap. That’s way down the road though.
Anyways, if you took the time to read through all this, thanks! Any advice or input is appreciated as well. I’m always learning and looking to expand my knowledge.
Nice build so far. I'm local to you in North Georgia.