Big Tuna's "Building the Dub!"

[BigTuna117 33]

So, today I finished extending the breathers for the diffs, Transfer case, and Transmission. Although I have no plans to really submerge the jeep, a little piece of mind is worth the $0.69 a foot for tubing. The 545RFE and its variant on the V8 have a dinky little breather which just dangles across the top of the transmission, so moving it up was a must. The transfer case and front diff were both lengthed moderately from the factory, but I extended them up to meet the other two. I relocated the rear diff breather to run to the front, as I had enough breather hose to do so, and the oem hose was stretched and wrecked anyways. Eventually, I'll pair all 4 breathers into a filter kit, such as ARB's Universal Breather filter.

 

Eventually, I'm gonna snorkel the old girl. Not so much because of water, but because the dust factor out here has such an impact on filter life, and many African expedition vehicles are equipped with them for just that reason. By moving your intake up, you supposedly take in less dust, at least that's the hope. And with extended breathers, if I ever do need to so a "moderate submerge" I don't need to worry about the transmission turning into a strawberry milkshake dispenser.

[BigTuna117 33]

PREPARE FOR SOME ZJ SNORKEL ON WJ ACTION!

 

 

With all of the people doing this mod, I decided that I could allow myself to spend $130 on an ebay ZJ snorkel to work with. My thoughts on the snorkel are:

 

- It feels very well made.

- it should match the lines of the WJ pretty closely.

- the a-pillar bracket will likely require modification to be used on the WJ. On a ZJ, this rivets into the A-Pillar between the windshield mount and the door seal. On the WJ, there is a gutter "bracket" that the door seal connects to here. The easiest way to make it work will likely be to connect it to that rather than the actual a-pillar.

- The inner duct will not be used, it is too long and fat for the WJ.

- The inner fender will require slight modification. I'll probably mount the snorkel on the outer fender, and then unbolt the entire outer fender from the uniframe. Inner fender reinforcement may be necessary. We'll see.

- It looks identical to the ARB/Safari ZJ snorkel, minus the ARB/Safari logo. That area is just flat textured plastic like the rest of the snorkel.

- It will cover up the ASUS in PEGASUS on one side, I'll have to order an inverted color sticker (white) to go on the snorkel.

- All of the hardware appears to be high quality, stainless steel. I am surprised with this, and this was my biggest concern regarding the ebay snorkel.

- The outlet hole on the snorkel is 4". My solution to this is a tight 90 degree 4" to 3" reducer elbow.

- I'll be using a heavy-duty PVC pipe between the inner and outer fenders. With rocks and gunk hitting it, I'm afraid that aluminum or cheaper plastic parts will tear or shatter.

[BigTuna117 33]

So, the snorkel installation is done! All and all, it was pretty straightforward. Of course, there was some modification necessary in order to run the plumbing, but, I'll go over that here in a few.

 

Aside from drilling holes and making sure you use the appropriate size hole saw, the installation of the actual snorkel is pretty straightforward. It sits really solid on the fender, and holds the lines fairly well.

 

Next, I had to remove the outer fender (I actually removed it before mounting the snorkel) in order to trim the inner fender and cut the other hole for the intake. Dropping the front outers on a WJ are very straightforward. A 5 minute job.

 

Next I had to determine where to cut.

 

 

It was really more time consuming fitting everything to make sure I cut in the right place than making the actual cuts.

 

After putting the fender back on, I could fit the 4" to 3" reduction elbow to finish the plumbing. Piece of cake!

 

 

I was weary of using the Spectre 3" flex tubing, but found that it should be thick enough to actually take any punishment headed it's way. I do need to reposition that clamp, though. I also sealed the ends of the flex tubing with Black RTV Silicone, too.

 

With everything plumbed correctly, it was onto the next challenge- Correctly seating the A-pillar mount. In order to do this, I ended up re-purposing the piece of metal used to cover the stock airbox hole, bent it, got some hardware, and made an adapter to correctly bolt the snorkel to the a-pillar.

 

 

 

This also pulls back on the snorkel just enough to keep is from moving. It does stit just a bit more forward than most, but it's seated well and doesn't obscure the view, so I think I can live with it. yes, it is visible from the Driver's seat, but not much. no complaints.

 

[blaze 0]

Nice, i like the snorkle

[BigTuna117 33]

Nice, i like the snorkle

 

Thanks!

[Number7 87]

Now you can cross deep rivers.

 

G:cool:

[BigTuna117 33]

Now you can cross deep rivers.

 

G:cool:

 

I probably wouldn't want to go too deep, at least yet, haha. My PCM is still in the engine bay. Until I can either figure out how to either relocate it ore seal it without making it get super hot, I still gotta be careful. I mostly added it so that I could move my intake up and outta the dust. This will also allow me to install a prefilter to help save my air filter from having to be cleaned as often.

[BigTuna117 33]

Last weekend I had the opportunity to run Sleeping Princess with the Bullhead 4 Wheelers!

 

No major problems, however the transfer case linkage is a wee bit loose, so I was continually popping out of 4lo. D'oh!

[BigTuna117 33]

My lazy Saturday mod.

 

I soldered in a wire after the ball switch so that I could add more lights into the engine bay. The best part? Didn't cost me a dime to do. Just used up extra bits from other projects.

[BigTuna117 33]

Well, I've spent the last two or so weeks diagnosing an injector circuit malfunction on Cylinder 4. I was finally able to get everything tested, and found the I actually had a bad injector, and that 2 others were on their way out too. Of course, simple replacement is not my style. Time for an upgrade!

These little beauties are Bosch (Gen 3 I think) Fuel Injectors. They are pretty similar to the OEM Injectors, except for the 4 Hole (instead of 1 or 2 hole) design. The 4 holes supposedly provide better fuel atomization, for a better burn of the fuel. While I was at it, I replaced spark plugs, which is something I was about 20K overdue for.

The plugs were replaced with NGK V-Power plugs. She runs and idles much smoother now.