4x4tographer

Ok - a few weeks later, more progress! I'm now considering the front end 100% finished! Font bumper is buttoned up, fogs lights installed. Went with some round SAE drop-in replacements from Diode Dynamics. Installed a front skid plate from Rusty's Offroad which sits nice, high, and tight against the frame horns. The install required just a little grinding of the winch mount to get it to fit. Met up with @theksmith for a little flex test over by Lake Pleasant at "the flex spot" - a super secret proving grounds for suspension tests. One of my concerns was clearance with the front wheels at full flex and turned full lock. The juuuuuuuuuuuuuuust clear the back side of the new fender liners. So no worries there! However that'll be something that would need to change if I ever jump up a tire size. Beyond that, both the front and rear have 2-3" of clearance at full stuff. While I can adjust the rears for another inch of up-travel, the fronts will have to stay where they're at due to the clearance with the back side of the inner fender.

When are you two just going to take care of this for the rest of the country? I know you have the means

I'm happy with my 4 tire inflator set-up on the same Smittybilt 5.56 CFM compressor. Saves some time and my back from going and crouching tire to tire and lets me socialize while the Jeep does it's thing without needing to babysit the compressor. I'd estimate my total inflate time on 35s from 15psi to 35psi to be about 6-7 minutes, though I've never actually timed it.

Thats MASSIVE news! Happy for you two and your future adventures. I certainly hope we still see you for all of the fun on the trails!

Nice videos man! I need to make it out there for one of your Bulldog Runs. It's pretty rare I see an oncoming SxS doing less than 30-40mph. I've almost been creamed more times than I can count. Your dash cam is a darn good idea!

NEXT PROJECT - about 90% complete. Working on replacing my GoRhino Rockline bumper with a new steel bumper from Next Venture Motorsports. Their Adventure series steel bumper comes as a 2 piece with a winch cradle and an outer bumper skin. Everything is made with 1/4" steel with 1" recovery tabs. As a bonus - this bumper is flat-towable (the GoRhino bumper can't handle flat towing). I'm also digging the sunken winch mount for a cleaner look up front. Test fitting everything before bolting up the winch cradle. Side profile with the bumper skin in place. I'll need to pick up some fog light adapters for my Rigid Industries SAE fogs. The bumper comes with provisions for you to use your factory fogs.

New mini project completed: Granite-Series aluminum inner fender liners from Bestop. The overall install was very easy and would probably only take about 30-45 minutes if you've already gutted the wheel well. There are 3 brackets you install into existing body holes (no drilling at all). The inner fender comes with rivet nuts pre-installed. You just need a 10mm socket and a 4mm allen wrench. My install took a little bit longer (2 hours) as the rearward portion of the inner liner shares 2 common bolt holes with the KBD fender flares I installed last week. I had to remove the flares to remove 1 plastic screw liner plug and then drill a new hole in the KBD fenders near the bottom where the liners use a body hole. I then reinstalled the flares and inners using the inner fender fasteners at those two points and the flare fasteners to button it all up. I like the new inners, the vents look nice. I'm not a huge fan of the "B" logo, but pretty much every inner fender on the market has some stupid logo on it. I'm telling myself it matches my last name and the "Balrog" theme we're going with. The material is aluminum and weights about the same as the plastic factory liners i removed. Powdercoat is a nice quality, and the liners are pre-drilled/rivetnut'd for rock lights if I ever fancy going there. The inner is also trimmed to work with some of the common reservoir shocks that are out there. My only potential concern is clearance at full flex and steering at full lock. On level ground I have 3.5" of clearance at full lock. There is 5.5" with the wheel straight. I'll have to test it out on the trail. Even if it does clear my 35s, I seriously doubt I'd be able to run 37s without either increasing my lift height/bumps or going with different inners. EDIT: Worth noting that I have a little bit of unused up-travel left on the front axle - about 1-1.5" of travel left on the front shocks. Here's a photo with the wheel at full lock driver. More to come!

Some fancy looking rotors you got there!

Always listen to your spotter, or else!

Great information and testing, Marty! I didn’t know that about the pass through testing. Glad to hear you found something that is going to work for you. I’ll have to give the Jackery a look when I start going down that path later this year. The fridge is def nice. I got to use mine for the first time at the ORP Holiday Party and it was really nice not digging through ice to find what we brought. 😆

No worries! Looks like Sarah got some nice videos of that washed-out area. It was a fun little obstacle - very tight little turns throughout it.

Great photos and videos Sarah! ❤️ Thanks for sharing!

From the 2023 ORP Holiday Party!

Was great seeing you all yesterday! Here's a few photos I grabbed throughout the day:

Looks like you’ve got space for some overlanders to stop over Whata view!

Connected with @Scott and Kim Miller today. Their Jeep is having some death wobble issues and won’t make it. We met up and Scott let me grab his buns. Hamburger buns, that is! 🍔 Sorry you guys won’t be there! Hope you can get your rig sorted out soon!!!

Is that like.... train horn train horn? or some higher-pitched sound? 🤔 Intriguing!

Alright alright alright! Bit of a visual and clearance mod today. New fender flares! These are the polyurethane fender flares made by KBD Body Kits. They make a range of flares for a range of Jeeps, in addition to a bunch of Fast & The Furious racer-boi type stuff. Dead easy to install both front and rears. Probably about a 2 hour job. There isn't much holding the flares onto the JL to begin with - just a handful of "Christmas tree" body clips and some white plastic fender clips. All you need to take them off is a body panel pry-tool and some muscle to yank off the flare. The front requires the removal of one 8mm bolt and four 10mm bolts in addition to the body clips. It's a little amazing how much paint damage you find under some of these parts. I have several areas where bits and bobs on the Jeep have rubbed through the clear coat and paint, down to the primer. One of the selling points to me for this kit was that it requires ZERO drilling and ZERO nutserts. All you need to do is push in these plastic fittings into the factory body panel holes and use the supplied screws and washers for the install. One of the reasons I went with plastic/poly flares is for their durability, but also for their ability to flex if hit by something. The fender panels on the JL are aluminum and will get completely wrecked if hit by an object if you were using metal flares held on with nutserts and bolts. As an example of how flimsy the mounting surface is - I had to jam a piece of scrap lumber between the body panels to prevent the panel from bending as I pushed in the plastic screw fittings. Flare attached: Passenger side: Rears: In an attempt to try to save some money, I'm reusing the factory inner fender liners where I can. The rears were pretty easy to trim up and remount without any drama. There are 2 convenient "dog ears" on the top of the inners that you and press against the body - then using a grease marker you can draw a line along the body where to cut. Re-mounting it took 6 panel clips. It doesn't look terribly pretty in this photo. There are some gaps I'm not very happy with. One you put on the flares, it helps to conceal it, and I bet most people wouldn't notice the gaps - but I know they're there. Not too bad when you're standing and looking at them. The front inner panels are going to take some creative engineering and a heat gun to get trimmed and re-installed. I'm not entirely confident they're going to look aesthetically pleasing, but we'll see. I may end up picking up some aftermarket inners if I can't get it to work out. Stay tuned! This and many more projects coming up in the near future!

If you don't mind about a 50-60min drive, I think the sunsets at Saddle Mountain (just south of Tonopah) are gorgeous. The trails around there are very light and easy (if you don't do the full loop like we have in the past). For something much closer to home - South Mountain Preserve would be a super easy drive for ya! You can drive all the way to the peaks. Skyline Regional Park in Buckeye is also very very pretty and mountainous. There is a nice paved road that takes you into a nice area with some walking trails. **EDIT** Just thought of another - how about the Desert Botanical Gardens in Scottsdale? They also light the area up at night and generally serve adult beverages and have live music (depending on the night and the event). You get good views of Camelback Mt. and the red rocks around Papago Park.

Found a JL specific video for trimming and reusing the inner liners.

Thanks man! I checked the JL instructions they seem to have omitted that nicety. I'm not sure if it was just to encourage sales of their inners, or maybe because the JL high-line fender liners can't be salvaged. Guess I'll find out soon enough! I'm still scrounging around to find a JL-specific example of reusing the liners. Shockingly little information out there on it.

Saving for later: Hopefully get to this this week. I’m sure the JL will be a similar process.

From my past research into them, the ICECOs are an excellent (much most cost effective) alternative to Dometic and ARB. Uses the same German SEACOP compressor and has the same warranty level as well. I don’t think you can go wrong with it man. Cant help on the battery stuff, but I’m in the same boat. Looking and considering. Got a good look at the EcoFlow that @Bradywgn71 has and I’m pretty much sold. Especially since it can full charge my DJI Phantom 4Pro batteries. It has a pure sine inverter which plays nice with more sensitive electronics. (The Jeep inverter is not “pure” and won’t charge my drone up.)

Happy New Year!!! Looking forward to '23 with you all!