Westtown Willy's 2004 Jeep Wrangler X

[Westtown Willy]

What about your poor wheels? When do they get some love...?

Looking great so far!

haha thanks, you know there was a time I scrubbed the tires and shot the rims with touch up paint after every excursion but it wore me out, every time I go off road I hammer them all over & I'm back down to bare aluminum so my plan is to keep grinding these into dust & eventually when I get tired of going off road & uglying it up I'll retire it to street only convertible status & throw some brand new shiny ones & be done with it, probably steel because I like the way they look the most along with some good ATs. If/when that happens I'm going to spend a good amount of time underneath hand cleaning/polishing every part, replacing some no doubt, & painting others so it sparkles from every angle. For now it's a filthy animal under there

 

[Westtown Willy]

Ok now it’s 'done'

It's the "TRE 3/4" Soft Shackle - 10" Inside Diameter - 30,000lbs" in electric pimp daddy green

Kicking myself in the ass for not ordering this at the same time as the thimble, coulda saved myself 9 bucks in shipping

Think I’ll have any trouble finding it in my crap bag?

 

[Westtown Willy]

*Warning* - the following modification is not approved by the general TJ forum guru consortium, should not be duplicated by anyone at any time for any reason :-O; proceed viewing the below at your own peril, knowing that bad things could happen:

To date my lift has been 3 inch coils with a 1.25 inch spacer up front to offset additional aftermarket part weight and factory rake which altogether yielded a level appearance. For a variety of reasons* I wanted to lower my TJ an inch. As such, I pulled the spacers up front and reinserted the 3 inch coils, then pulled the 3 inch rear coils & swapped in 2 inch coils which lowed all 4 corners an inch & kept everything level. I’m aware this amount of lift is insufficient for my 33 inch tires for certain purposes but I believe I have the appropriate bumpstops to prevent fender contact. Importantly, the loss of performance is not a concern to me, given my uses.

Started by pulling the front springs, always a joy because one of my bottom pad bump stop extension bolts is stripped so I’ve got to not only account for that but the spacer up top which makes getting the 3 inch coil out a mother fucker. Nothing that can’t be done with the help of a borrowed Auto Zone spring compressor death tool:

one of the offending spacers

After yanking them, back in went the springs and I moved to the rear. This was the first time I’ve ever removed rear springs. Comparatively, 10 times easier, they popped right out with no special effort, just unbolted the shocks & track bar & lowered the axle enough with a floor jack to pull them out. Took the opportunity to paint both top and bottom. I did this last weekend then let it sit all week to cure before popping the new springs in this morning.

I put new 3 inch Teraflex coils up front not long ago so I went with Taraflex 2 inch coils for the rear. Sliding the first one in:

Adam 12 break

Bolted everything back together & took her out for a test drive & experienced an unexpected phenomenon. I didn't bother checking the pinion angle or anything else for that matter before the test drive but still it drives beautifully, feels tighter, feels better, less creaky, & I feel as though the driveline vibe temperamentalositude factor has improved. For example, when I recently put on a new front bumper I think I lost about 20lbs up front, that tiny alternation was enough to introduce a new vibration which had to be addressed. I'm hoping that's now a thing of the past. I've got a lot more test driving to do both on & off road before I can determine if this was indeed a good move.

* This isn’t some weird COG thing, it’s simply aesthetics, I just like the squattier look of lower-ish riding Wranglers. The loss of up-travel caused by the bump stops is irrelevant to me as my interest in the types of ‘wheeling’ that require maximum performance is/has been waning as time moves forward, rather than growing. Any contemporaneous negative impact on the road should be offset by the improvements. I’m quite short at 5’7", probably headed towards 5’6" as I’m approaching my mid 50s, getting in isn’t the easiest thing for me so every inch counts. It’s not so bad when I take it out for a Sunday drive but when I’m in the mountains & I’m in & out of it 100 times for various reasons it wears on me. On the trajectory I’m on I believe in the not too distant future she may be relegated to street queen status anyway & when that happens I may revisit my tire size in favor of smaller also. Perhaps a 32 inch AT, we'll see.

 

[Sj's TJ]

Although I don’t generally approve of lowering her back down a bit, your disclaimer eased my worry

She’s looks great and you love it and that’s all that matters. I’m sure I get you on some hill climbs brother!!

Sarkis

 

[2001slvrstntj]

Love the look, stance, all of it. Very clean being a "saltopia" rig, does it see much winter roads? Wondering how you have kept it so clean/rust free? I stay away from salt and keep mine in the garage, not a daily driver. Tough to not play in the snow but so far (8 years ownership) have avoided it.

 

[Westtown Willy]

Although I don’t generally approve of lowering her back down a bit, your disclaimer eased my worry

She’s looks great and you love it and that’s all that matters. I’m sure I get you on some hill climbs brother!!

Sarkis

thanks man, and yea I'll still do the things I enjoy off road, top of that list is staying away from those large lumpy jagged-edged mineral blobs

Love the look, stance, all of it. Very clean being a "saltopia" rig, does it see much winter roads? Wondering how you have kept it so clean/rust free? I stay away from salt and keep mine in the garage, not a daily driver. Tough to not play in the snow but so far (8 years ownership) have avoided it.

thank you, this move has been on my mind for at least a year, took me that much time to convince myself I oughta do it...

As for the rest, I got lucky when I bought it, the prior owner took good care of it & I'm thinking must have garaged it during the winter because it's been here in the rustbelt its whole life but doesn't look like it. I bought it in 2016 & I've carried on that tradition. It doesn't come out of the garage unless the roads are bone dry, I don't even drive it in the rain; just a toy. The number of times it's been wet is exactly equal to the number of times I've wheeled it because I cross a lot of water when off road & then I hit the do-it-yourself car wash on the way home & blast the crud off. I think if I stay with that approach this thing will outlast me

 

[scottgraham]

Awesome build!
Again, the wheels... a deck of playing cards works great! (Google)
I did my BMW in under an hour for all four (it's just a PoS Z3 I got for much cheaper than my TJ).
Touch ups are super quick.

NO paint on the tires!
Use the Rustoleum appliance paint...long cure time but it's tough stuff. I've used it when powdercoat (which sucks anyway) fails, and it will outlast it.

 

[Westtown Willy]

Awesome build!
Again, the wheels... a deck of playing cards works great! (Google)
I did my BMW in under an hour for all four (it's just a PoS Z3 I got for much cheaper than my TJ).
Touch ups are super quick.View attachment 135468

View attachment 135469
NO paint on the tires!
Use the Rustoleum appliance paint...long cure time but it's tough stuff. I've used it when powdercoat (which sucks anyway) fails, and it will outlast it.

thanks, & those wheels look fantastic, I like the flat black much better than the super hi-gloss powder coat that's on there now, which is falling off in big chunks around each lug nut in addition to all the rock rash. My center caps are also all smashed & either cracked or fully broken. If I could commit to staying out of the rocks I'd clean the wheels up & paint them, get new caps & have a whole new good look happening. We'll see how this upcoming season shapes up

 

[Westtown Willy]

Finally gave the wheels some love. I like black wheels but not the high gloss finish these came with, & when I started grinding powder coating off in chunks they looked even worse. For the first couple years I tried to touch them up after every off road hammering but that got old. It was time to paint over them with a uniform color, & everything I’ve painted thus far has been with Rustoleum black satin, a nice finish between gloss & flat so I went with that.

First step was to pull them off & give them a good scrubbing, shot the wheels with wheel cleaner & the tires with tire cleaner & let it all soak for a while then hit them with hot soapy water & a brush:

The center caps were cracked with some big hunks of paint missing so the shiny silver plastic underneath was showing in spots plus they were beyond filthy so they went into the soapy bucket for an overnight soak:

Next day when everything was dry I scuffed them up with 220 sandpaper then cleaned thoroughly with denatured alcohol, then let that all dry out overnight.

Next day I played the card trick I learned from @scottgraham & sprayed a coat of primer then two topcoats of paint, then let that dry overnight

Next day (yesterday) a cold/rain front rolled through & I figured this wasn’t going to help the curing process so I brought them inside & cranked up the pellet stove in the family room & rotated them one at a time onto the chair of drying, each one got a blast of fan forced stove heat for an hour or so, then I continued to let them all hang overnight.

the blast zone

Center caps too, they look like 4 oil filters, you can see the glow of the pellet stove

Today was the moment of truth, the before:

and the after:

it was also the moment of truth for the new lower riding suspension. We had a nasty 1.5 inch downpour yesterday which I figured washed away any residual salt that may have been on the roads so I took the beast out for an extended test drive following the spring rearrangement.

All is well, feels beautiful, sounds beautiful, feels better. No rubbing up front, but to be determined is whether or not my bumpstops are adequate. I think they are, they were before I removed the spacer up front & dropped an inch in the rear, so in my mind I know the tires are all an inch closer to the danger zones but the bump stops are also all an inch closer to full bump so I believe it was a lateral move. I’m not going to cycle the suspension, at least not in the traditional sense, rather I’ll ‘cycle’ it by driving up the ramp next time I’m in the mountains & make sure they’re sufficient.

Took a nice long ride through Chester County horse country, varied speeds, tight/fast curves, lot of bumps, was awesome. Pulled over & took a few shots of the wheel project, gotta say I'm in this whole thing for nine bucks (1 can of spray paint & a two pack of playing cards, I had the sandpaper & primer already) & I can't think of another nine bucks that gave me this much of an impact. Maybe my redneck tire carrier but that's about it.

It was a little overcast so I don't think these shots do real justice to how nice they look in person, but here it is:

 

[bobthetj03]

Well done on the wheels! The black and red just go well together. The lower stance looks good!

 

[scottgraham]

Nice work!
Easy Peasy, huh?!
I think my "JEEP" center decals were like 5 bucks for four on EBAY, I siliconed them on.

 

[chino1969]

Finally gave the wheels some love. I like black wheels but not the high gloss finish these came with, & when I started grinding powder coating off in chunks they looked even worse. For the first couple years I tried to touch them up after every off road hammering but that got old. It was time to paint over them with a uniform color, & everything I’ve painted thus far has been with Rustoleum black satin, a nice finish between gloss & flat so I went with that.

First step was to pull them off & give them a good scrubbing, shot the wheels with wheel cleaner & the tires with tire cleaner & let it all soak for a while then hit them with hot soapy water & a brush:

View attachment 136692

The center caps were cracked with some big hunks of paint missing so the shiny silver plastic underneath was showing in spots plus they were beyond filthy so they went into the soapy bucket for an overnight soak:

View attachment 136693

Next day when everything was dry I scuffed them up with 220 sandpaper then cleaned thoroughly with denatured alcohol, then let that all dry out overnight.

View attachment 136694

Next day I played the card trick I learned from @scottgraham & sprayed a coat of primer then two topcoats of paint, then let that dry overnight

View attachment 136695View attachment 136696View attachment 136698

Next day (yesterday) a cold/rain front rolled through & I figured this wasn’t going to help the curing process so I brought them inside & cranked up the pellet stove in the family room & rotated them one at a time onto the chair of drying, each one got a blast of fan forced stove heat for an hour or so, then I continued to let them all hang overnight.

View attachment 136699

the blast zone

View attachment 136700View attachment 136701

Center caps too, they look like 4 oil filters, you can see the glow of the pellet stove

View attachment 136702View attachment 136703

Today was the moment of truth, the before:

View attachment 136705

and the after:

View attachment 136709

it was also the moment of truth for the new lower riding suspension. We had a nasty 1.5 inch downpour yesterday which I figured washed away any residual salt that may have been on the roads so I took the beast out for an extended test drive following the spring rearrangement.

All is well, feels beautiful, sounds beautiful, feels better. No rubbing up front, but to be determined is whether or not my bumpstops are adequate. I think they are, they were before I removed the spacer up front & dropped an inch in the rear, so in my mind I know the tires are all an inch closer to the danger zones but the bump stops are also all an inch closer to full bump so I believe it was a lateral move. I’m not going to cycle the suspension, at least not in the traditional sense, rather I’ll ‘cycle’ it by driving up the ramp next time I’m in the mountains & make sure they’re sufficient.

Took a nice long ride through Chester County horse country, varied speeds, tight/fast curves, lot of bumps, was awesome. Pulled over & took a few shots of the wheel project, gotta say I'm in this whole thing for nine bucks (1 can of spray paint & a two pack of playing cards, I had the sandpaper & primer already) & I can't think of another nine bucks that gave me this much of an impact. Maybe my redneck tire carrier but that's about it.

It was a little overcast so I don't think these shots do real justice to how nice they look in person, but here it is:

View attachment 136710View attachment 136711View attachment 136713View attachment 136714View attachment 136715View attachment 136716View attachment 136717

Looks good Willy. Is that a bridge over the Brandywine? If so which one?

 

[Westtown Willy]

Well done on the wheels! The black and red just go well together. The lower stance looks good!

thanks, it was a nice twofer, I was going to address the wheels when the weather got nicer but you know how these things go, once you start tinkering & get an idea it's tough to wait, especially in the winter when there's not much else to do...

Nice work!
Easy Peasy, huh?!
I think my "JEEP" center decals were like 5 bucks for four on EBAY, I siliconed them on.

yea man, thanks again that was a huge help. I made a quick attempt in vain to tape it before I began the project just to see how much of a pain in the ass that would be. Huge pain in the ass, I did about a 10 inch section before ripping it off & resigning myself to getting the cards, truly a no-brainer. Opted out of the appliance paint however, I wanted the uniformity of color since I've already painted my bumpers with Rustoleum black satin & eventually I'll probably do the sliders too. One color everywhere, makes touch ups a breeze...

Looks good Willy. Is that a bridge over the Brandywine? If so which one?

sure is, good eye; it's a couple miles west of the Four Dog in Marshallton on 162, one of my favorite areas to take Sunday drives

 

[chino1969]

thanks, it was a nice twofer, I was going to address the wheels when the weather got nicer but you know how these things go, once you start tinkering & get an idea it's tough to wait, especially in the winter when there's not much else to do...



yea man, thanks again that was a huge help. I made a quick attempt in vain to tape it before I began the project just to see how much of a pain in the ass that would be. Huge pain in the ass, I did about a 10 inch section before ripping it off & resigning myself to getting the cards, truly a no-brainer. Opted out of the appliance paint however, I wanted the uniformity of color since I've already painted my bumpers with Rustoleum black satin & eventually I'll probably do the sliders too. One color everywhere, makes touch ups a breeze...



sure is, good eye; it's a couple miles west of the Four Dog in Marshallton on 162, one of my favorite areas to take Sunday drives

I was leaning toward Marshallton or the Romansville area. Spent alot of time driving those roads in my TR4 in the early 70's. We would have road rallies that would take us all around ChesCo.. Know the area well. Used to 4 wheel on McKorkle's Rock Rd. that went through the King Ranch property from Rt. 82 to Brandywine Creek Rd.. It is now part of The Highlands Preserve and vehicle travel is no longer allowed. Hey, we'll have to get together this spring. Have been dealing with a plate full of shit I hope to have resolved soon. Good tip for the JP shop. Very happy with the quality of service.

 

[Westtown Willy]

Did something today I never thought I’d do but I’m so freakin bored with this lock down it came to this; took the time to cycle my front axle to properly check my bump stops, up until now I’ve relied on the redneck version of driving up the ramp or a large rock & checking for tire contact at full bump. With my recent suspension lowering I suspected I was still good but wanted to be sure.

Everything is good, in fact I’m substantially over-bumped & could remove some. I’ve got a 2 inch puck on the bottom pad plus a 1.5 inch spacer under the jounce cup & it works without plucking the coil (best guess is because it’s only a 3 inch coil so there's not a lot of twisting). At full bump I’ve got a ton of clearance between the tire & any part of the fender and flare, turned the wheel and it’s all clear. Pretty happy with this, I don’t think I’ll remove any bump stop, another inch or so of stuffing room isn’t gonna change my life or make any difference in what I do off road.

tire isn't even close to the fender at full bump, I think some of this has to do with KM3s running small, I think if I put some true 33s on here they'd be a bit more up in there.

As far as shock up-travel I’m not sure I measured that correctly, it’s 4 inches from the jounce cup to the lower bump stop pad but when I measured the pad to the bottom of the shock tower it was 15 inches at full bump and 20 inches when fully reassembled suggesting there’s 5 inches of movement there… either way I think I’m good.

This picture is with everything back together, looks like 5 inches of potential travel, and if you follow the tape measure down it's 20 inches to the bottom.

This is the 15 inch measurement from the shock tower to the pad at full bump.

Again had trouble getting a good shot but the rim of the jounce cup to the pad measures 4 inches

One last thing I noticed was the diff cover at full bump, I couldn’t get a good angle on it with the iPhone to demonstrate the clearance but the track bar joint is over an inch higher than the closest part of the cover and a tiny bit forward, nowhere near close enough for contact. I think if I removed one inch of bump stop the two components would be really close but still not touching.

 

[Camdenst]

Looking good

 

[Westtown Willy]

Looking good

thanks. After yesterday's successful venture with the front axle I decided to do the rear today. The rear is different as it has a 2 inch coil lift and less bump stop with a total of 3 inches, but it too turned out to be more than sufficient to prevent contact between the tire and any part of the metal or flare.

Here are the final numbers for both axles on 33/12.5 inch tires:

Lift: front 3 inch/coil only, rear 2 inch/coil only

Added bump stop: front 3.5 inches, rear 3 inches

Shock up-travel measured cup to pad: front 4 inches, rear 5 inches

Shock shaft exposed: front 5 inches, rear 6 inches

Here are some pictures of the rear, like the front I could remove some of the bump stop and still not see contact:

 

[matkal]

I’m looking to do something similar in the future, thanks for the info.

I feel your pain with the fluid film, I had to take one of my fenders right after I FF’d the crap out it, installed it and then had to take it off again. Nasty shit.

 

[Westtown Willy]

I picked up a set of pretty ugly but otherwise sound half doors a couple months ago for $200. These are the two photos from the Facebook Marketplace ad:

test fit at the seller's house:

The project proceeded in two sections:

First was exterior paint. The sheet metal was in nearly perfect condition & no rust so it was a good canvass to start with. When I removed the weather stripping I did find a patch of rust about 4 inches long & ½ an inch wide on the interior metal at the bottom though it didn’t extend to the exterior skin. I grinded it down, soaked it in rust reforming gel then painted it. At the end of the entire job before affixing the interior panels I fluid filmed inside the panel (opposite side of where I grinded the rust) to be sure that was good. Not too concerned, these doors will never see H2O except when I wash it, I’ll wheel it through water with my cloth half doors.

Second was repairing and painting the interior plastic panels, one had a large-ish hole on the top & the other had a two inch long crack & they were filthy as hell but otherwise in good shape.

Over the course of a couple weeks I stripped, repaired, prepped, & painted everything.

For the doors I picked up factory flame red paint from automotivetouchup.com & for the interior I went with factory slate gray flexible coating from SEM.

Here’s the tale in pictures:

First I removed the interior panels and hinges then stripped the paint off with some 80 grit sandpaper:

This is the rust spot midway through remediation:

Got hungry & baked a loaf of Italian bread, came out real nice:

By the time I was ready for paint it was too cold out so I needed an alternative, but where to find a stable, wind free, 70 degree spot to paint everything? It occurred to me my wife wouldn’t object to using the family room because she’s objecting to her new husband’s shenanigans somewhere else , so I built a makeshift paint booth in the family room & hung those fuckers from the ceiling all proper like – side story, the hooks I hung them from hold the chains that my chin up bar hangs from in my prehistoric home gym:

This bar has been in continuous use since 1978 when my dad got me a 120lb weight set from K-Mart for my 12th birthday, anyone remember those, $20 all in for the set including bench. I started using it then & never stopped. The plastic covered concrete weights & old bench are long, long gone, but the weight bar itself has remained in continuous use & transitioned to my chin up bar in the early 90’s when I bought my first house & hung it from the ceiling in the basement for my gym. Since then it has moved to my new house where it first hung in my shed for about 10 years, got tired of walking all the way out there to work out so I moved it into the garage for a few more years then also grew tired of working out out there & moved it inside & hung it where you see it in 2011, probably about 10 minutes after the ex-wife packed her shit & rolled. That fucker has history & has now figured into my TJ project.

Anyway I had a pretty good system down for painting, I’ve got an enormous whole house fan upstairs so for each coat I’d open the windows to the family room, spray a coat on then turn the fan on for 10 minutes sucking all the nastiness out, worked pretty good for all 16 coats :O

Did 2 coats of gray primer, 4 red primer, 5 basecoat & 5 clear coat.

Just before beginning this project I wrapped up a home improvement project, re-did both my kid’s rooms turning my son’s room into a yoga studio for Kimberly & my daughter’s room into a legitimate guest room. The mattress in these photos was her old one I was tossing & figured I’d position it under the doors in case somehow one fell I’d avoid catastrophe. Though in all likelihood if one fell it would’ve just bounced off the mattress & catapulted into my shin on its way to crashing on the tile floor so who’s kidding who. Nevertheless it remained.

The finished product:

 

[Westtown Willy]

Once the exterior paint was done I began the interior panels. After considering multiple methods of repair I settled on the following plan. The piece of plastic that was missing wasn’t flat, it was curved and also had some contour to it as it was adjacent to the surround mount for the upper window post, so finding a piece of plastic that I could somehow graft in there was pretty much impossible unless I had a donor door panel to cut it out of so it seemed easier to make a piece to the exact shape. It was built using two JB Weld products.

First I needed a backer to hold the new piece in place, I went with a section of drywall sanding screen cut to a size far overlapping the hole for stability, the screen is pretty strong material but thin & really flexible so it worked perfectly:

Once cut to size I cemented it down with JB Weld Original. I thought about using JB Weld Plastic Weld but after watching a video review it actually didn’t hold to plastic as well as their Original toxic sludge. Years ago I repaired a massive crack in one of my ceramic smokers with that stuff which was a much heavier project & it proved indestructible even after subjected to countless high heat cycles. One package was plenty to cover the entire section of mesh plus the smaller section I used to repair the little crack on the other panel:

Once that was rock solid I filled in the cavity with JB Weld Plastic Putty & shaped it as best I could to match the exact contour of the missing piece, went a little heavy as it’s sandable:

Next, sanded it down:

I then drilled out the post hole with my Dremel:

Once I was satisfied with the appearance I hosed both panels down in Simple Green then scrubbed with soap & water & let dry, then went over it all with acetone. The next day I hit the panels with SEM Plastic Adhesive Promoter then the Flexible Coating. It had warmed up for this phase of the job so I moved the operation back out into the garage:

my handywork shows up more than I'd like but it's all good

all together:

What a super fun project this turned out to be and the end result is most dramatic in terms of before/after so the gratification quotient is way high.