4x4tographer

Hi Mick, the shelf and water carriers are American Adventure Labs. The carrier for my portable battery is custom made. I designed it in Affinity Designer and then sent the file to Send-Cut-Send, who CNC'd the aluminum and performed the bends. https://sendcutsend.com I used them in the past to create the aluminum tray that my fridge sits in.

Welcome back to Part 2 of my catch-up post 😁. This chapter begins with my shaft. It's seen some miles and had some wear and tear. However, we're also going to look at my rear storage deck and some electrical stuff. The boot over the slip portion of the shaft was a little torn and bulging, but wasn't throwing any grease at this point. This is the OEM driveshaft, so again it has 90,000 miles on it and a number of wheeling trips. In all, it wasn't giving me any issues at all. My decision to upgrade was based on: A desire for a more "bomb-proof" driveline Better droop in the front suspension. In the future I'd like to go to longer shocks for more down-travel. I have about 1-1.5" of unused up-travel with my current set up. However, IMHO, going to longer sticks will set off a chain of upgrades, including a front driveshaft with better angles, longer front brakelines (which I have in my garage, waiting to install). So - since I've been looking to upgrade both my front and rear to a stronger but "smaller profile". My choice ended up being for a pair of Adam's driveshafts - 1310 in the front, 1350 in the rear. Here's a series of shots from the install. My first time seeing green locktite. Rear yoke on the transfer case Flange on the rear differential. Rear diff flange removed Back side of the transfer case The white marker was my attempt to get the pinion nut precisely back to where it was from the factory. However, I couldn't get the pre-load measurement to work out. Instead, torqued it to 140 ft/lbs per Tom Woods' directions and common advice found out there for the install. The rear, all buttoned up. Here's a shot of my red locktite'd pinion nut through the new yoke. The front was a lot faster of a job for some reason. The other project I've tackled recently was a "slimming down" of my rear storage deck. Since I have an AAL rear shelf, and the top of my deck was pretty tall, I had pretty limited leg room when sleeping in the rear of the Jeep. I measured it around about 12" of vertical space which made me feel a little claustrophobic sometimes, depending how much I inflated by air mattress and the bedding I'm using (like my trust 30" thick Coleman sleeping bag). 😄 I basically ended up removing the top with my oscillating multitool and a circular saw. Then took off 3" from the overall height of the walls, and then re-glued and screwed the top back on. Consequently I needed to trim the drawer as well to accommodate the new, shorter profile. Here's the box reinstalled, and a little dirty. My next project was to fix my wiring situation in the rear of the Jeep. I was having some issues with my Bluetti Charger One DC-DC charger running into a voltage issue. The relay would trigger, charge my Bluetti power station, and then the voltage would collapse and the unit would re-cycle. It'd charge the battery, but it took forever as the relay would cycle every 60 seconds or so. Theories ranges from a bad ground to damaged wires to some other constraint along the wiring from the main battery/alternator. It didn't take long to find the culprit. Talk about a minor heart attack finding that. The 100A fuse took a dump, but never disconnected. It became what looks like a superheated mass of melted glass and plastic. The fuse sat at a connection between an 4AWG wire from the main better, terminated into an 8AWG wire that led to the rear. At @theksmith's advise, I upgraded the wiring to the rear to a large 4AWG wire, and ditched the crappy Chinesium fuses for a MIDI fuse holder from Blue Sea Systems. I also re-installed my ground - upgrading it to 4AWG as well, with a shorter cable and a more solid ground mount in the rear tub. Additionally, I make a small tweak to my connector for the Bluetti Elite 100 v2 with a right-angle connector to help protect the connector from things flying around the rear deck. I also designed and "built" this cradle out of aluminum via Send-Cut-Send to hold the power station so I could bolt it down to the rear shelf and run a strap over it to keep it in place. In the below shot you can also see my half-baked Starlink Mini mount, which is a Frankenstein of my hi-lift c-pillar mount and some RAM mount stuff. I relocated my double water jug set-up and moved my 6gal of water capacity to the passenger side, away from my electronics. Whewwww....... that's a lot of work these last few months, especially when it's 110 out! My garage swamp cooler went through about 2,000 gallons of water. Last upgrade - a new mattress inflator! It's from Flextail and is a 5 kpa unit that is smaller than my key fob and includes a built-in lantern. It's 3x faster than my current inflator that is 5x the size!

Work, life, and family have had me pretty busy lately - so I've been neglecting signing on to the forum! Over the last few months I've been getting more focused on the Jeep and prepping ahead of the upcoming Dusy Ershim trail trip this September 2026. I've also been chasing down a nagging "shimmy" around 50-55mph in the front end. Since the last update: New Dynatrac HD balljoints for the front end Replacement Clayton offroad bushings in the front UCAs and trackbar Replacement of the tie rod ends for both the drag link and the tie rod itself Replacement of a broken Fox ATS steering dampener bracket New/replacement Metalcloak bushings in the front axle UCA bushing locations A visit to our friends over at @OnPointOffroad for new front brakes and service, differential service, transfer case service, and an overall inspection for "Dusy-Worthiness" New front and rear Adams driveshafts (1310 and 1350, respectively) Re-wiring of my entire rear aux electrical system while trying to figure out a voltage collapse issue when my DC-DC charger is running A "chop job" on my storage/sleeping platform in the rear Design/ordering/fab/install of a new bracket to keep my Bluetti power station safe during trips Install of a like-new American Adventure Labs overhead front molle panel from our good friends @J2DXPLR New hood-mounted Hi-LIft jack mount New Yaesu FTM-150R ham radio with the MARS communication mod (GMRS) Starlink satellite dish install Here's the new Dynatrac BJs - @theksmith was kind enough to stop by and help with the install. Overall, the job was easier than I originally anticipated. The lower BJs (formerly Teraflex) were shot and pretty sloppy. They didn't last as long as I'd originally hoped they would. The removal of the steering knuckles was the biggest pain during the process - requiring a sledge and a 2x4 to knock them out. A combo of WD40, PB Blaster, and a little heat also helped coax them out. My new ICON balljoint press has been invaluable these past few months during the BJ install and when tackling the various suspension bushings around the Jeep. Each BJ came right out after about 20 seconds with this beast of a tool. The reinstall was just as fast. Did the job over 2 evenings - and now I know how to do it! (This was my first time). Next up was an install of an AAL overhead molle panel. I have their seat and door panels in the Rubicon dash red, so I jumped on this when I saw Jacq & Jermey offering it up. THANKS GUYS!!! There was some squeaking when flexing the Jeep on the rocks that was livable. but I think I might have solved it by installing a few rubber washers where the molle panel makes contact with the Jeep's sport bar. Time will tell :) Additionally, I've upgraded my radio comms to a new unit from Yaesu. The base station tucks nicely into the overhead molle niche. A little fiddling with my 67Designs (RIP) platform on the dash, and I've got the head unit and mic nicely within reach. Next up - I tackled my front suspension bushings - but have only gotten as far as the UCAs and trackbar at this point. I'll need more time to replace the rest of the bushings throughout the suspension. Again, the ICON balljoint press made quick work of this. These bushings were replaced with new ones from Clayton. I picked up an optional bushing press tool from Clayton to keep the job simple. New trackbar bushing Here's the ICON BJ press. While I had the UCAs removed, I took a look at the axle-side bushings and saw they were chewed up pretty badly. These are the OEM factory bushings with 90,000 miles on them. About 1/4 of their life they've had 35s and 37s and a longer-travel suspension stressing them out. Again - the ICON BJ press came back out for another jam session in the Arizona heat. Unfortunately I didn't have the "right" adapter in the kit, but the 32mm socket I keep around for removing front axle shafts was juuuuuuuust right. New Metalcloak "duroflex" bushings installed. More to come in PT 2!

Great route for sure! I’d give it a 2/10. It’s pretty much a graded road. Gets bumpy for a few sections, and fast paced boogie in some other spots. Most of the first part of the trail is shelf roads and switchbacks. Extremely scenic, and a solid climb from ~2K feet to over ~5-6k feet in a few short miles. You might not see see another soul on the trail, it’s pretty remote. We only saw a pair of adventure bikers once until we got up to the rim.

If you're interested, we have a number of in-depth threads on GMRS. GMRS for Beginners GMRS on a Budget General GMRS Discussion Midland is a widely used brand - decent stuff. I've run my MXT275 for about 5 years. I've recently moved to a Yaesu set-up. For antennas, I've been happy with Midland's MicroMobile 6DB high gain antenna. I also use the "ghost" antenna on occasion, but it certainly has its limitations, depending on where you mount it. It's always best to mount it as high as possible for direct line-of-sight to other transmitters/receivers. You could look into a magnetic mount for the ghost antenna. However, it's worth noting that almost every Midland GMRS radio comes with a magnetic antenna, right out of the box. I'd recommend using that for a few trips, playing with antenna placement to see how different locations impact your RX/TX quality. In terms of external speakers, I've never found it necessary - depending on the Midland radio you get, the mic and head unit will both have speakers. I'd also plug the importance of getting your GMRS license, just to keep you on the up and up. It's $35-ish, covers everyone in your household for 10 years. Easy to get.

A few favs from our recent Lake-to-Rim Overland Route. A rare personal appearance, thanks to @johnpa

Posting up some photos from our recent "Lake-to-Rim" overland round from a few weeks back. This was an exploratory trip on some trails none of us had been on before. It was a nice weekend on some easy-going trails (though bumpy in a few spots) on a sunny weekend! @theksmith @johnpa @Liz @Adventure F150 The trail begins at Lake Roosevelt and (in the routes we took) spans 163 miles, ultimately ending on top of the Mogollon Rim. The route quickly climbs from 2,100 ft to 5,000+ ft inside of a few hours. we topped out at almost 8,000 ft. The primary route is called "Rock House Road" and splits off from Cherry Creek Road about 17 miles into the route. From here you're winding your way through canyons and over mountains as you drive deeper into the Tonto NF. Much of the route skirts along the edge of the Ft Apache Reservation and is extremely scenic and remote. We only saw one other group of people, 2 adventure bike riders coming down the opposite direction. We didn't see another soul until we arrived in Rim Country. We met up at 2pm on a Friday and made quick work of the route, reaching our campsite by 5:30pm on Middleton Mesa - a wide open grassy mesa at about 5,600 ft. Some nice views of the surrounding mountains. On Day 2 we made quick work of the route, arriving at the Rim around 11am, and hitting camp around 4:00pm. We found a fantastic campsite, isolated, in some deep pines for plenty of shade. We ended our trip in Clint's Well - topping off our tanks with some sweet sweet dino juice at the local Sinclair fuel station. If you're interested in downloading this route and waypoints along the way - check it out here. Camp night 1 on Middleton Mesa Along the way we dipped through the mountain town of Young - a few people topped off their fuel - others grabbed bacon and ice cream at the local general store ;) On our way out of town we took the "Boulder Bypass", which is a narrow, windy trail that takes you past a pretty remarkable field of boulders that must have been deposited by a glacier a millennia ago. The rocks are like nothing else along the entire rim - most are the size of a house. There are a few shady campsites nearby. Later we popped by a few overlooks along the rim. Here's the 260 from the Military Viewpoint. Campsite night 2 My 4-wheeled sauna Here's a look at the 2024 Horton Fire burn scar. We popped over to check out some unique camping opportunities at Myrtle Point - 4x4 high clearance needed. There are 2-3 great site down this short trail right on the rim. We also stopped along a few other view points along the way to check out the sights.

A fav from the recent Rug Road trip!

Photo dump! Hide your wives! A sleeping legend. Also, the creepy horse. Remember kids: Your chance of being murdered by a horse in the wild is low, but never zero. Mood lighting.

Holding up some rocks for @Ladybug! One was blue, one was green!

No, it’s dead weight. I was too lazy to remove mine, but I will next time I have my fender liner removed on that side. It’s much easier to remove through the wheel well than it is removing the fuse box and the PDC items/connectors below the fuse box just to get to the battery.

Totally! There a so many different engine/battery variations on the JL it’s a little tough to remember them all!

Was your Jeep starting up BEFORE you disconnected the Aux and pulled the fuse F42? If “no”, then the bad Aux battery killed your main. You’ll need to replace it. A bad aux battery eats main batteries for lunch since they’re connected in parallel at all times EXCEPT during an ESS event (electronic start stop). If “yes” it might be something else - but could still be the main battery was damaged by the aux going bad. On the 3.6L the aux bypass procedure is to - disconnect the negative terminal on the aux - pull fuse F42 - start the Jeep. It WILL fail to start the first time. - The computer disconnects the relay that connects the Aux and Main in parallel (they’ll now operate as independent batteries). by pulling F42 the Jeep can’t reconnect them via the relay. - Turn off the Jeep - Try starting the Jeep a 2nd time. It should fire up off of the main. NOTE: When the Aux is bypassed, You will need to be religious about turning off the ESS feature on your Jeep every time you start it. The main isn’t designed to handle the load an ESS event will place on it and it will quickly kill your main. A workaround is to use a Tazer or ESS killer to disable the feature. Some people plug a wireless dongle into the trailer wiring socket, since the Jeep disables ESS when something is being towed. If you followed these procedures and the Jeep won’t start, you’ll need to replace the main. Will bypassing the Aux prevent the Jeep from passing emissions? No. However, you will need to drive the Jeep a few times for the computer to clear the fact you had a dead battery. I don’t know the number of starts for the JL to clear that “warning”, but if you replace a battery and go straight to Emissions, the Jeep will fail. Same with a jump. They’ll ask you to leave if the Jeep can’t start on its own.

Hey Marcus! Good question. Yes - the Bluetti Elite 100 v2, which I suppose I neglected to post a photo of, is a portable power pack (DC and AC, including a charge controller, inverter, and solar generator). The fridge plugs into the power pack. The power pack is charged while I drive from the Bluetti Charger 1 DC-DC charger. Alternator/Main >>> DC-DC Charger >>> Power Pack >>> Fridge (or any other DC or AC accessories). I got to test it out this weekend on our annual Crown King Run. The below is a look at the fridge running off of the battery only over night. Fired up the fridge in my Jeep, plugged into the battery (fully charged), at about 8pm. The fridge was full of garage temperature water bottles and the ambient temp was 78 degrees. I set a target temperature of 28 degrees. The fridge was in "full power mode" (my SetPower RV45 fridge has both "power" and "eco" modes) By the time I checked in the next morning it was a frosty 28 degrees and I still had about 55% battery left. After a quick 30 min drive to the trailhead, my battery was back up to 72%. Side note: In my "warm 78 degree garage test", my RV45 fridge pulled about 56 watts of power in "full power" mode. Switching it to eco mode dropped it to 26 watts. I'll have to test this in a more controlled environment to see how much power it draws once it hits the target temperature in both modes. Below is a screen grab from the mobile app when I remembered to grab one before I left to hit the trail. You can see how the fridge compressor cycles became less and less frequent/long as the fridge chilled. Unfortunately, on the trail, I ran into a little snafu. I noticed the battery wasn't charging. In my troubleshooting I checked: My 100 amp breaker under the hood (that feeds the 4AWG wire that runs from the main battery to the rear of the Jeep) My 60 amp breaker at the DC-DC charger A 40 amp fuse under the passenger seat (note to self: I should probably up this to a 60 amp) When checking the 40 amp fuse, I must have tugged a little too hard and pulled the wiring out of the crimped barrel connector - completely severing power to the rear. Doh!!! At this point, I simply range the fridge off of the battery pack all day without the ability to charge it (and unable to run the fridge off the main battery since I severed my connection to the rear). It ran from 7:00 AM to 7:00 PM, kept the fridge running at 28 degrees, including ~45 minutes pushing 90-120 watts to my RoadPro portable oven (reheating a burrito for lunch). By the time I got home, I still had 45% charge left (down from a starting 72% charge) on the battery pack. Not too shabby. in my opinion! So - some next steps for me: Repair the wiring (probably going to install a bus bar) Update the 40amp under seat fuse Design/order a battery pack "cradle" for the Bluetti from SendCutSend

Welp, I recently pulled the trigger on something I’ve been eyeing for a while — a Bluetti Elite 100 V2 and their DC-DC charger, the Charger 1, to go with it. The 100 V2 is essentially a 1024Wh LiFePO4 battery and pure sine wave inverter. It puts out a solid 1800W continuous (2700W surge) of juice, and has a bunch of ports (4× AC, USB-A and USB-C, 12V DC, etc.). The whole thing is surprisingly compact, weighing in at 25 lbs and fits nicely on my AAL cargo shelf in the rear. A game-changer is the Charger 1. I've tapped into a 4GA wire I already had running to the rear of the Jeep. The Charge 1 pulls up to 560W while driving and can fully recharge the Bluetti in about 2 hours drive-time, which is perfect for our multi-day overland trips. To get everything wired up, I picked up American Adventure Labs "side molle" panels, which bolt directly into the same mount points as the hardtop. Originally, I'd directly wired a PDC from Blue Sea into the 4GA I'm running from my main battery. The panels have a ton of convenient mounting holes for adding a bunch of different accessories. I've been running it in this config for a few months now until I could get around to this project. Below is a shot where I've installed the Bluetti Charger 1 and the Blue Sea PDC. Additionally, I added a pair of Blue Sea bus bars rated to handle 100 amps each. These now serve as common power/ground terminals for me to hook up various bits of equipment, such as the DC-DC charger and the PDC. The Bluetti Charger also requires a 60 amp breaker - it comes with one, but I opted to go with a more robust marine unit from Blue Sea - it should be more vibration resistant and has more robust mounting points. At the bottom of the top panel, I added a 1/4" strip of aluminum since the bolt points didn't mount up precisely with the Charger 1. Here's the panel all mounted in the rear. Main power and ground all connected to the bus bars. The Charger 1 can detect when the alternator is running - which is nice - so you only need to hook up the positive and negative leads to the unit. Here's a test run. I was running my fridge on full-power mode using one of the 12v DC connections while the engine was running. The DC-DC charger was outputting around 500-550w of juice to the battery. Both the Bluetti 100 v2 and the Charger 1 connect my phone via bluetooth for monitoring and control. Pretty nice! Out of the box, the Charger defaults to 26v output. With the output settings tweaked to the specifics for the Bluetti 100 v2 it outputs 56v. Here's the DC-DC charge screen: Here's the power station's screen: Some more photos of the install:

Some new tools to help with a new project/repair. A "pickle fork" set from Harbor Freight. Over the last year I've developed a bit of a "shimmy" or axle tramp at around 50-55mph. It's minor to moderate, depending on the road and speed, occurring about 50% of the time. It feels like it's gotten worse over time. Once you get up to 60mph+ it disappears entirely. The HD Fox ATS dampener helps with shimmy, but it's still present. In terms of my steering setup, I have a complete aftermarket system: Metalcloak HD chromoly tie rod with 1-ton TREs (62K miles) Metalcloak HD chromoly drag link with 1-ton TREs (62K miles) Steersmarts sector shaft/trackbar brace (17K miles) Teraflex HD balljoints (25K miles) Factory steering box (upgraded cast iron box, replaced under a TSB from the original aluminum box - 70K miles) Fox ATS adjustable dampener (17K miles) Since the TREs are the oldest component in the mix here, I decided to swap them out with the brand new spares I have, leftover from preparing for the Rubicon Trail back in 2023. These are Metalcloak TREs with heavy duty 1-ton forged ends. In all, the job was pretty straightforward. Started with jacking up the Jeep, removing the wheels, and disconnecting my swaybar end links to gain a little extra room to work. I also needed to disconnect my heavy-duty Fox ATS steering dampener so the tie rod could be removed entirely. The Metalcloak steering components are all locked into place with jam nuts. Previously, I'd had a lot of trouble getting these loose to make adjustments as they'd seized on and my crow foot wrenches kept flexing/slipping and rounding off the nuts. I invested in a huge 15" crescent wrench which helped out tremendously - however the driver side nut was seized on pretty good. I used some PB Blaster and a torch to help loosen it up. You can see previous attacks on the drag link jam nuts from my last adjustment. Here's the removed drag link with attached dampener. The old and new TREs. The pickle forks were picked up to make it easier to pop the pitman arm-side of the drag link off. There's next to zero room to work on that end of the Jeep. Here you can see the old TRE, oozing 5-6 years of grease. Once it "popped" with the pickle fork. It squished a ton of old grease out all over the place. The removed drag link. Shiny new ends installed. Granted, I'm no mechanical expert, but I think the boots on the TREs are interesting. The tie rod TREs both have "vented" boots, with a weep hole for extra grease to flow out when you're filling them up. The drag link boots, however, do NOT have any sort of weep hole. No clue why. This was true with the original TREs installed 5-6 years ago, so the design hasn't changed. After getting everything reinstalled, I had to set my toe. I ended up going 1/8 toe in (which I had it at previously) using some 24" alignment bars. That said - the damn shimmy persists. Next up, I'll try reducing the toe in to 1/16 or less to see if that makes a difference. If that doesn't fix it, my "order of operations" will be to: Rotate tires / balance. Inspect the trackbar bushings and mounting holes. The bushings are 6 years old and have just as many miles as the TREs (62,000 miles), though I did replace the axle side Johnny Joint with a new duroflex end joint from Clayton just a year ago. It's possible the axle-side mount hole is wallowed/ovaled. Adjust ball joint pre-load. The BJs themselves are the newest component in the system and I don't exactly wheel all of the time, so I'm thinking they're probably OK. Inspect upper/lower control arm bushings. Front shocks (62,000 miles on them)

Another quickie-mod. Picked up some molle panels from AAL a few months back and finally got around to installing them. It's about a 20-min job, leveraging the existing hard top mounts on the JL. The panels are pre-cut with a standard molle pattern and have numerous mounting holes. The panels are aluminum and are "buttressed" with some little arms for added strength/rigidity. On the passenger side, I plan to add a larger molle storage pouch. Looking to see if I can find a "deep" pouch that might run the length of the panel and open from the side. We'll see if it pans out. Because I have the factory Alpine subwoofer in my JL, you only get the top panel here. On the driver side, you get a little more space to play. Ignore the slopping wiring, but my current power distribution panel is over here. This runs power direct from my main battery to the rear of the Jeep with a bunch of Anderson connectors to run my fridge, tailgate lighting, and a portable RoadPro oven. Ultimately, I plan to install a new Bluetti Charger 1 DC-DC charger on the top panel to perform quick charges of a portable lithium battery system I recently picked up.

Santa Claus brought some shiny new rear inner fenders to match the fronts that I put on shortly before running the Rubicon Trail in 2024. These are a 4-piece design from Motobilt. I wanted to clean up the look of my MacGuyver'd rear fender liners that I sliced up to work with the KBD fender flares and maybe get just a touch more clearance for the 37s in the rear. The install was pretty straightforward. The 4 part design mated up easily, once you figure out where each piece goes. 3mm allen head screws all around. Had to remove the KBD fenders for the final install, which takes about 2 minutes with a screwdriver. Did a little wipe-down of the paint where the fenders have trapped some debris. You'll need to supply your own washers, Motobilt skimped there. I'm using a large washers on the rearward hole as it's larger than the head of the supplied bolts. The instructions recommend you bolt up the two bottom attachment points, but it's an exceedingly TIGHT fit to get a wrench back there to hold a nut (and they don't give you any fridge washers), so I used some push-in panel "Christmas trees". The fender liner is SOLID with the overall attachment points, so figure the trees are OK. Fender reinstalled - the body is jacked up for easier access to work on the install. Ride height: Took a little spin to let the suspension settle back down again. Overall, pretty happy with the look, clearance, and match-up with the front fender liners.

HnnnnnNNNGGgGggggggg $1,500! Holy crap!

Nice photos! Reminds me a little of Red Canyon Trail just north of the Bradshaw Trail.

What ORP trip haven't you been able to take it on? There are several ORP members that run offroad trailers. There are (generally) a number of commonly run trips that are offroad trailer friendly, like the Bradshaw Trail, Mogollon Rim, Mojave Road, KOFA, etc... However it's also up to trail leader discretion, generally. I wouldn't want to be responsible for a trailer recovery out on trails like the Rubicon, Terminator, Smasher Canyon, Hackberry Creek, etc.

Hey there folks! Had a thought during tonight's virtual 2026 planning meeting - would any of you be interested in a sort of standing "social hour"? Thinking something along the lines of the "first Wednesday" of the month or whatever. Virtual, online meeting - just to shoot the breeze. Share a drink, talk off-roading, etc... Keeping those connections alive. Let me know! If there is enough interest, I can set something up!