Ah memories...

Hey interwebs!  So it's been, what, 4 years?  haha  Things have moved quite along since I started this thread.  I happened back upon this ol' blog and read through it, my how things have changed.  I really wish I'd kept up more. 

Just got a new driveshaft, fixed a ton of leaks in the engine (wear and tear I guess), and replaced the clockspring (it went bad or something, couldn't honk my horn or use steering wheel controls).  Total bill was... more than I'm going to type, but rhymes with "In The Fousands".  Other than that... not sure what else I've done in the last 4 years that's major.  Still have the same lift, shoot still on the same tires...  I did do a lot of lighting and fender area mods.  I got some Poison Spyder wheel well inserts and the cheapest flat fenders you can buy.  I put colored lights in the wheels wells and in the grill, white rock lights on the undercarriage, purple light strips in the cab, cube lights on the pillars, light bar on the bumper, cube lights on the rear, pod device to wire it all... ok so I have done a few things.  haha

I'm sitting here imagining describing in any detail my installation processes and posting pics and links, and... don't want to.  Maybe a later post, one on each or something.  For now though I will leave you with a pic of the Colonel.  (oh, also got a new soft top and prob a lot of other things I'm not remembering at the moment).

Tire size re-calibration, gearing re-cal, FlashCal, etc.

If you read my last post you'll see I got screwed by a Jeep dealership.  What I've learned since then is that the dealership can't re-calibrate for tires over 32" (or somesuch).  I expect the dealer, you know, understands this.  I have 35s, a fact made clear to the dealership as we discussed re-calibration of the speedo.  I wasn't born knowing they couldn't do it.  They should have told me they couldn't do 35s.  But they were all "Ok, sure, we'll do that for you."  When I picked it up a day later and paid them $120, they said they calibrated it for "the largest tires they could".  I'm repeating myself now, but suffice it to say I think they should have told me they couldn't accommodate 35s and saved me the $120 I gave them to essentially do NOTHING to my Jeep.

So my advice for the 2 people in the world that don't already know that the dealership isn't the best place to service your mods, research first how to do these darn things yourself.

I recently got turned on to the FlashCal by Superchips.  The more robust product, the FlashPaq, isn't available for 2015s yet, so I got the Cal.  It plugs into your Jeep via a remarkably accessible port under the steering wheel.  With this device you can set the tire size up to 42" and re-cal your gearing.  I'm learning new stuff every day, I'll try to keep this blog up to date with what I'm learning now that there's actually something happening in my Jeep world. 

Tah for now, got someone waiting on me.

Dealer service, really guys?

Since I got the new tires (35") my speedometer was about 10mph off.  I took it to a Jeep dealer to get...

• The  speedometer recalibrated
• 20k mile service (can't believe I'm already there)
• The trailer hitch wiring fixed (doesn't work)
• My clutch checked out (it was creaking)

They said they calibrated the speedometer to accept the largest tires possible that the computer would accomodate.  The hitch wiring will need "further diagnostics" (I was told this after spending $3 on a new fuse they thought would fix that problem).  The clutch had a service advisory for it to grease a particular part.

The speedometer, after $120, reads 7mph slow instead of 10.  :-/

The hitch wiring still doesn't work.  :-/

The clutch still creaks.  :-/

Not real happy, I feel like I spent $140 (total out the door) on the 20k mile service alone, which is really just a bunch of inspections (all of which apparently passed so there was nothing "fixed").

I'm looking into second opinions on the tire size thing, seems weird that of all vehicles a JEEP wouldn't be capable of correctly reading 35s.  Shoot, people are commonly known to put 40" tires on Jeeps.

I feel cheated.  I called the service guy and let him know.  Maybe I'll hear back.

Riding High!

News!  So I got the lift and the tires.  In all I got...

• Lift
• Teraflex 2.5" coil lift, no shocks
• Rancho RS9000XL shocks
• Rancho Control Arm Correction Bracket
• Tires/Wheels
• BFG All Terrain TA KO2 35" tires
  Fuel JM2 wheels
• Spare carrier
  • Teraflex Hinged Carrier
  • Teraflex Adjustable Spare Tire Mounting Kit

The result:

 

My thoughts:

Lift-  I got the lift before the tires, so I can talk about JUST the lift.  The ride improved GREATLY.  We felt like we were on a carnival ride at times with the stock suspension.  The lift provided a lot of ride stability over, for instance, speed bumps.  We'd rock back and forth on stock, after the lift it felt more like, well, a normal car.  haha

Tires-  The tires came later.  The ride stiffened up.  The shop that installed them inflated them to the max PSI, so that might have something to do with it.  Speed bumps aren't rocky like they used to be, but they're harsher than with just the lift.  The tires could be deflated a bit, and the shocks themselves can actually be (easily) adjusted to make the ride softer.  I just haven't played with it yet because its really not that big a deal to me.

Tire carrier-  The tire carrier is burning my biscuits.  I decided to install it myself because it would save me $550.  The general consensus was it should take 1 hour.  It took me about 4 hours.  I'm completely inept.  Once it was finished I was ready to be done with it.  Then I realized, after I had installed it, that I needed to prime some bare metal left under the old factory hinges, now under my new Teraflex hinges.  My own fault.  I took the thing off, primed it with Rustoleum, and let it sit to dry for 24 hours.

Then I put it all back together - this time in an hour!  haha

But, the darn thing squeaks!  I think I just need to adjust it to hold the tire closer, but it's already pretty dang close (touching quite a bit).  I'll still have to fiddle with it, but I'm getting pretty sick of it.  I have to take off the spare, loosen some bolts, re-adjust it, tighten the bolts, remount the spare, drive around, rinse and repeat (about 3 times so far).  Maybe it's my ineptitude.

But it LOOKS good.  I even got a custom printed spare cover for ol' Colonel Mustard.  :)

Next time... the bad news.

Hello Void! And an uplifting experience...

Sorry people who don't exist (or I don't know, who knows, maybe I've got a million followers and don't realize it).  I got a new job, moved to a new city, started and try to maintain said job, etc.  I haven't posted in forever.  I don't know if I'll be able to too often going forward, it's not like anything's really changing in my current life (and that's ok!), but just so you know because I know you're worried, I'm alive and well as is the Colonel.

And about the Colonel!  Nothing's really changed since I posted last.  Moving is expensive and it wiped me out.  Recently I've been spending on other hobbies and haven't put anything new on the Jeep.  But all that changed today!

I bit the bullet.  I put some money down on a lift!  2.5" Teraflex lift with Rancho RS9000xl shocks and a Rancho control arm.  I'm having it installed, so beaucoup bucks.  But if I tried to install it myself?  Well, that would be impossible.  If I enlisted the help of a friend I don't have, I don't even know enough to know if we would be doing it right.  So heck with it, I'll pay for convenience on this (although I think it would have been a lot of fun to learn how to do it myself).

Just getting the lift at this point.  Later I'll put some BFG All Terrain 35s on that bad boy and I'll have a tank.  Until then I'll be cruising 2.5 inches higher on factory wheels and tires.  :-/

Anyway, I'll try to get on again and post pics.  Finally something to talk about!  And if you'd like to help me out with tires, just send all of your money to Discount Tire on my behalf.  haha

Mountain Trip Forthcoming! Supply run...

My dad and I are going to take a trip to the Arkansas mountains this weekend (that's the current plan anyway).  I decided to take this opportunity to stock up on some things I'd been meaning to get.  I got some towel seat covers (these guys) (in yellow of course) that I wished I'd had a couple weeks ago while at the beach.  I also got some other little things: a flashlight, a fire starter thingy, fire tinder thingies, a tow strap cuz you never know, a rain poncho to make the single one I currently carry around an official set of two, and a "space blanket" (glorified thermal blanket that doubles as a tarp, seat cover, tons of stuff) to also make the one I have a set of two.  I had an REI gift card and I also got an emergency medical kit with it.  I hope I have a place to put all this stuff!  These are things I've been wanting to have available to me, the type of things I'd know I'd kick myself for not having if I got stuck out somewhere while adventurin'.  I'm planning on taking "the good camera" on our trip as well (maybe, "Jeep security" being what it is - non-existent - I might not) so maybe I'll get some good shots.  To Adventure!

Grille and Insert

Since going to Topless Day I've had a couple (quite a few...) projects I've wanted to do with the Jeep.  "The Jeep" is officially a.k.a. "The Colonel" now by the way, his name being Colonel Mustard.  One such project was bed lining the grille with truck bed liner and painting a mesh insert to match the yellow body.

First of all, I'm inept at these sorts of things so I didn't really know what to look for.  I bought a grille from CARiD.com (this guy) (I didn't want to screw up my factory grille) and a mesh insert (this guy).  After I ordered I thought to myself... how am I going to paint these things?  I started looking for info on how best to do it myself, specifically for the insert, and found that people actually HATE this particular mesh insert.  Oh well.  That's what I get.


The grille was pretty perfect.  It came as just a big ol' piece of black plastic totally unfinished and a little scratched up but I didn't care, I was going to bed line it anyway.  The mesh insert came powder coated black.  I started looking into where to find color-match paint and how to prep/prime the powder coat for painting.  I fell in over my head pretty quick, and perhaps I didn't look in the right places, but it seemed that for a spray kit to accomplish such a task was about $60 (this is just for painting the mesh insert).  I'd also read that it might be possible that I'd need two cans of paint, possibly of primer as well, and if I bought 2 kits that'd be $120!  I started re-thinking the whole project...

I ended up taking the mesh insert to Maaco to see if they'd paint it for me, and if so how much they'd charge.  Long story short, they charged me $80.  Then I took the grille to a bed liner company and they only charged me $50 to bed line it.  All in all I got a professional paint job of the mesh AND the bed-lined grille for the $120 I thought I might have to spend on paint for the mesh alone!  I call that a score, and my takeaway is that sometimes it's NOT cheaper to "do it yourself".  Please don't try to convince me otherwise, I'm lazy.

After I picked the stuff up and got it home, I started really looking at it as I prepared to put it all together.  The Maaco paint on the mesh was already chipping.  I'd heard Maaco isn't the best in the world, but I figured it was just a little mesh piece, not a whole bumper or something, give them a shot.  But yep, the paint was scratching off.  Mostly on the back though, so that's good.  I thought once I got it attached it would be ok unless a rock jumped up and hit it or something, and in that case I can probably just use touch-up paint.  The bed-lined grille looked amazing.

Attaching the mesh to the grille was a beast of a job.  Well, kind of, I'm sure it could have been worse.  You have to bend these bars over the mesh and drill holes into the grille in a couple difficult places.  The locking nuts for the little bolts were tiny and difficult to manipulate with your fingers in some of the tight places they were supposed to go.  It took quite a while and I almost really messed it up (drilling fail), but in the end I got it done.  I did notice though that there's a plastic part on the grille that inserts into the body of the Jeep and it broke a little.  It's still attached but it was cracked.  Hopefully that won't become a problem.

The last hurdle, I didn't realize it when I took the grille in to get it bed-lined, but there is a rubber weatherstrip on a Jeep grille's top where it meets the hood.  If I'd realized it and thought about it, I would have had the bed liner guys tape off that part or something so I could get a good, flat place to stick the weather strip on.  But, oh well.  I ended up sanding the heck out of it.  I got it to stick really well actually!  Yay!

Anyway, sorry for the long post, maybe I'm just trying to make up for lost time!  Here's a bad picture of the final fruits of my labor and cash.

You can also see my name sticker on the side there.  The bubbles all worked themselves out by the way, I hadn't mentioned that to y'all yet I don't think.  It looks great!

Jeep wave count:  Still coming...