Grand_Seltzer

Been a minute since the last update. Only a few new things going on, A month or two ago I did apply to be a trail guide for On X offroad and was approved so I'm very happy to be able to contribute to their software and help more people like me feel confident in the trails they're hitting. Got all LED lighting replaced on the interior, I haven't replaced the selectable map lights yet due to my overhead console screw being nearly stripped. However, once removed I intend to replace those 2 with Red LEDs. I also Picked up a nice little cargo box for the back, I do intend to mount my new fridge to it but I keep going back and forth with the loadout in the rear so I maintain having a spare with me as much as I feel i need to and until I have a rear mounted tire carrier. I was doing some research on all these dual piston high cfm compressors. Seems its mostly all the same compressor with different branding, maxi tracs, morrflate(although this does come with a pressure switch, stop and go, trickflate... ect. I got the stop and go compressor from amazon and did mod it for a QD and pressure switch. I did also piece together and assemble a 4 way tire inflation kit, however I used Plastic PTC hoses and fittings. The only down fall seems to be it prefers to stayed in its coiled position and has just been a handful. So I have some flexzilla hose on its way to switch over to. I would like to hard mount this in the future with an air tank. I did also Find ICECO sells 'Second Hand' portable fridges on their ebay website so I decided for 230 it was worth finally pulling the trigger on a 12v fridge. This one is the JP40 and it seems to be working fairly well, however it is making me look into solar solutions to keep an adequate recharge on my battery when I'm not driving for a few days at a time. As I mentioned before, I have had a notable rattle in the rear of my jeep pretty much since the long arm kit was installed, I did find a leaky shock not long ago and after talking with IRO about getting it replaced under warranty(I found warranty was 90 days from time of purchase) even though the shock wasn't installed until late January and been installed for approx. 60 days, it was not able to be warrantied. I did finally pull the shock and found it to be bottoming out with about 4" of extension still left. Now that the shock is replaced, it still unfortunately did not fix my rattle. I do have a Warn Winch and new front bumper to go on in the near future. I have a trip to kentucky this weekend, should be fairly easy run and a few 'more difficult trails' but doesn't sound like anything a long arm v8 wj with varilocks can't handle. I will try to get as many shots as I can this weekend, hopefully all goes smoothly.

All work and no play makes for a dull jeeper. Since the baby has been born and I work from home 75% of the time, I'm usually pretty tied down inside the house, at least until the baby is napping or until the mother unit comes home. And while I have been working on some small jobs on the jeep, I've been getting a bit anxious to get out on a trail. Looking at photos from here and other wj's, I've been watching a lot of dirt lifestyle and listening to budget overland on spotify.. Lets say, I finally had a bit of a break down today and as soon as Mother unit came home, I needed to hit a trail! I've been eyeballing this run on on X off-road for some time now. It was rated pretty tame, some technical sections but 75-90% doable in stock form. I ended up making my own trail of it that would be a little longer. I didn't have much time today but I was able to successfully run about half of it. I was pretty cautious overall because I still feel I'm fairly untested and I really went up alone, obviously I don't recommend this, but once I was in the area I was more relaxed to see another rig passing by every 30min-1hr, plus listening to local GMRS traffic I didn't feel so alone. I Definitely still have some kinks to work out, rear end really needs some attention, still quite clunky... Maybe next time I'll have a friend with to grab a few more action shots rather than the occasional scenic pose.

It would have been fine if I was still 18. Back in the day, exhaust can never be too loud. I distinctly remember my old TJ, cutting the muffler off then running it for weeks open cat just dumped under the skid plate. I followed that up with a glasspack that was so long it basically was a joke. My last wj was still a full through exhaust but no muffler, honestly that sounded pretty decent from what I remember. My JKU went 1 year with a muffler before it was removed.. (I've never had to do emissions testing in my life btw lol) When the jeep was about a week from done, they called to let me know basically the muffler that was on the jeep wasn't going to work. We went back and forth a bit but I ultimately told them, hey let's not waste time on it, Ill order something up and just put a pipe in it for now to get to dump in the right spot so I can get home. Last weekend I finally got the magnaflow I ordered welded up and I'm quite pleased with the result. It has a nice deep idle tone that reminds you a V8 is under the hood but it doesn't scream down the road to remind you, your family and your neighbors of it. Before and after clips Before: https://i.imgur.com/g6RgmVl.mp4 After: https://i.imgur.com/KQrK7qG.mp4

Forgot to post a good shot of the new steering.

Well the WJ is back home after being built on in Virginia for a couple weeks. A few things changed as it was being built, I had to get slightly wider wheel spacers to clear the new steering. We decided to go to a 4.5" lift height vs 5.5" to save on additional drivetrain upgrades.. In the meanwhile I did pickup a np231 transfer case I plan to swap the 247 out with. Ultimately, the 231 is a simpler and more convent case until I've got enough time and patience to do a 241or as I was planning for in my last build. But the 231 has a plethora of upgrades like SYE kits and 6 pinion planetary, wide chain, it will be suitable enough for the interim. For now, the jeep is on its own weight but still needs a few things worked out. Biggest thing right now is it needs to be strung out and squared up and aligned. I found after my 4hr drive home the rear springs were very unhappy. I have already made a small adjustment to the rear arms, and it's better, but I decided not to do much else until I can have it fully aligned. I don't have any concrete to even set it all out on so I'm going to farm this job out locally to an actual 4x4 shop who has an alignment rack sometime this week. The list of goodies I am working with now to satisfy some curiosity; Trail Forged Long arm front and rear Trail forged ultimate steering kit with 1 ton Tie Rod ends and Raised trackbar Metalcloak TJ 3.5(4.5 for wj) dual rate spring front and rear Bilstein 5125s 11" shocks Front JKS quick discos A couple of things on the shelf that are on the to do list; New THOR intake New muffler(currently straight piped and dumped under the rear passenger seat, sounds fantastic if I was still 18) Auxbeam switch Panel 231 case as mentioned before ZJ washer bottle A grinder to start hacking up the front bumper Yeah that spring is not so happy!

Final update of the year. Hope you all had a fantastic holiday (s)! My wj spend close to 2 weeks at the local shop but finally got the fuel filter, fuel pump, the new 12 hole injectors and the oil change done before we had to boogie up to my parents house in Illinois. The shop ended up attempting to lift my jeep from the reach rocker and folded the pinch weld over and I'm pretty ticked about that since these are some of the cleanest rockers on a wj as you can find. Still working with them on this issue,but they did agree it wasn't right and will work with me on it. I did pick up a superchips f5 programmer while it was in the shop too. Yesterday I drove the wj from eastern tn to western Virginia for 4hours to a shop that will be handling the new suspension install. The drive there I actually got 19mpg while sustaining 70-75 and while I had probably 300-500lbs worth of parts loaded up in the back. I still really wish I could be doing this install myself but it just isn't plausible this time around. My garage,if I haven't noted, is a long small 1 car garage with no power. Even if I had power, I really couldn't get the jeep in with any comfortable working room let alone get it back out once it was done. I'm planning this next year to at least pave our driveways in, at least then I can have some more level space to handle maintenance. I'll post up some pictures later today. Everything on my phone is over 4mb

Quick update, been accumulating all the parts for the lift and should have everything at this point. The long arm kit is pretty much done and ready, but I I've since decided to let the shop that built the long arms handle the install. The wj is currently at a local shop for new fuel filter, oil change, and since my new injectors arrived, probably those too. I dropped off to also do new stainless hard lines but the flex lines were so corroded they're holding off until I get my new flex lines in too. They did also manage to break a fuel line to the filter so it's sitting there until parts come in for that. Dropping off the wj on the 29 and won't be picking up until it's done early next month and is likely when I'll post the next update.

Hey Everyone, Still in prepping phase for the lift. Been doing some maintenance in the meanwhile. I found out my oil pressure was dropping was because I was about 4qts low on oil... That'll do it. Found my valve cover gaskets were leaking, I never noticed a spot on the driveway because they conveniently leak onto the exhaust manifolds and just burn off. Got that taken care of. My new Yellow top, Alternator, and cables all came in and got installed. Was sitting on a set of spark plugs and knocked that out last weekend. The positive was that all the, likely original, old plugs seemed pretty even. Nothing really stood out with one over another. I'm currently sitting on a new fuel filter and a full set of pre-bent stainless brake lines I need to get installed in the next few weeks. I also ordered a set of new 12 hole injectors from Ksuspension. There's no rush on this though, I dont have really any major engine issues but I just wanted to take some time to make sure this engine is as healthy as it can be. I wouldn't be shocked if I drop a valve one day, it's a 4.7, it's not an if but when. As far as the lift is concerned, I believe everything is officially ordered now if I don't already have it. I am going back to Illinois for Christmas with the family, plan is to drive up, Enjoy christmas, But the week of the 26-30th is going to be a thrash week. Full long arm kit installed in 5 days to run and drive.

I've been inactive on the jeep for a little bit. On September 2nd my son Barrett was born. There were some issues we were somewhat expecting based on the ultrasounds and we spend about a week in the NICU every night with him. Everything is good now and finally getting back to normal.. with little amounts of sleep... 😅 Finally getting back into the mood of things on the jeep, have quite a few things ordered. I noticed my oil pressure gauge was intermittently dropping a few days ago. Today I noticed it again but I was also noticing my voltage read on my radar detector dropping to 12.7-13.2 area. So new 2g cables from jeepcables are ordered, optima yellow top, and a 160amp Dakota alternator were all ordered tonight. I may add on a new belt and tensioner just as a 'since I'm here' effect. And a bigger order was made for the suspension. I originally bought some 3.5" tj springs and shocks from iro, I'm deciding against this and going a little bigger. 😉 Stay tuned.

It is a very fast boot. sub 5 seconds.. I had a 12" android radio in my 2013 ford fusion, I loved the size but it was a ~30sec boot up and it was awful. My experience, at least of these last two tells me all android radios have their nuances.. This one is working out swimmingly, having a plug-n-play solution along with a new radio trim bezel is just a few reasons to look at this one.

Sorry about the bad photo link there. Here's the new radio with its former rb1 above.

Even a factory rb1 gets old. NEW radio went in. I was really torn on what I wanted. There are a LOT of android radios on the market today. And a ton of reasons to get one. I was initially looking at insane audios radios which were direct plug and play replacements but for the price to what it would do with a 4" screen, I really wasn't sold. I looked at a dozen android radios,figured I'd probably do a single din conversion and find something to fit. Ultimately that option led down the fact that most of them would cover the vent and wjs already have terrible air flow so let's not make it worse.. I settled on the t'eyes cc3 after some you tubing 'best android radios today'. The cc3 offers a lot of features including the ability to not only have a backup camera but a 360 camera. I did opt for the backup camera but not the 360 camera. They make this model specially for the wj so a new radio and vent panel are included. Also opted for the canbus reader which kept my steering wheel controls working without any problem. Install was pretty straight forward and so far it's been pretty snappy. It has 6gb of ram and 128gb of rom which should run on x offroad well. I need to make a run to tmobile soon and find out the cost on a tablet Sim card so I don't have to constantly run a Hotspot from my phone.

I really liked them on my last wj.

Gmrs time Finally got my gmrs mostly installed. I still need to run dedicated power and I have a cb that I will mount exactly the same but on the other side. But I'm quite pleased with how clean this turned out.

Finally did the brakes today. Went with Power Stop Z17 Evolution Plus Stock Replacement Brake Kits KOE2149 through summit racingj. It's just a ceramic pad and standard rotor kit. Pretty cost effective. I do regret not getting a kit with new calipers, I found my drivers side caliper pistons where a bit deformed on the faces. Looks like someone used screw drivers to pry and drive the pistons home once and it was a bad decision. At least no more brake shimmy. I did fit one of the new tires and wheels up jusssstt to see if I could get away with it on no lift... I think I'll wait until the lift it is on. It would drive straight, but turning ain't happening..