[JeepHeap]

Not much to update from the past few weeks, I have mostly just been driving it and enjoying it. No major problems and only a few minor problems that have come up so far so that’s been nice.

I ended up buying 2.0x14” Fox coilovers from Accutune at the end of April. Fox had a predicted 6-8 week lead time before Accutune would get them so I’ll probably still be waiting a while for those.

On my way to a car show tonight I passed 1,000 miles on it so that was a pretty awesome milestone.

I started getting really motivated to work on it more and finish it up this past week. I’m done with high school after this week and have had more free time lately.

On Saturday I had a couple hours and was able to finally cut holes for and mount my cup holders. No pictures of that, unfortunately.

Yesterday I spend the day after school doing some more work on the front fenders. I still need to add the side plates but they already look a lot better with the top plates on.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

 

[greygoose]

1,000 miles already?! Congrats! That's awesome!

 

[Plato2k5]

Jeeps lookin good! I ordered my King COs just as Covid hit. I had to wait a few months. I'm sure its horrible now!!! At least you are able to still drive as you wait though.

 

[JeepHeap]

Not much to update lately. My shocks have officially shipped and should be here later this week so we should be making a couple trips to go wheeling in the next month before I move away for college.

After taking the top off there was nothing to support the windshield so I made up some mounts off of the top of the A pillar.

And then one day on the way home from work I was doing a pull and the flex plate decided it had taken enough abuse and let go. We knew that it was cracked and only a matter of time before it would break since the noise it made got worse after every pull. Luckily I was less than a mile away from home and my dad was able to come flat tow me back.

Replacing it went very well. I think I had a total of around 7 hours into it.

The carnage:

Tonight I finally got the transmission gauge mounted and it just needs to be wired up now.

Now that there is something over on the passenger side of the dash I think it needs some sort of a decal to make it look less odd.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

 

[greygoose]

Nice work!!

Where are you going to college?

 

[JeepHeap]

Nice work!!

Where are you going to college?

Thank you.

I’m going to Western Michigan for mechanical engineering.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

 

[roll-bar Bob]

The nice thing about WMU is you don't need a back up plan, they will give anyone willing to pay for it a Engineering Degree.



RBB

 

[JeepHeap]

This thread is overdue for an update.

Shortly after the last update, my coilovers for the rear came in. When I installed those I also swapped out springs up front to raise the ride height about 2" for more uptravel.

After those were installed, we took a final trip up to Silver Lake before I moved down to school.

The new shocks exceeded my expectations. I could comfortably go 30 mph through the whoops before I ran out of travel.

After a month and a half or so of being down at school, I made a couple day trips back home to work on the skidplates.

Once those were completed, we eventually got it out to go rock crawling. Since it was November and Rocks and Valleys was closed, we decided to take it over to check out Holly Oaks ORV Park. It was a good shakedown run for the Jeep's first time rock crawling.

The Jeep performed very well. It felt stable through everything we did and I am very happy with how it worked.

There are some things that got added to the to-do list after this trip, though. The easiest issue to solve is that the power steering started to make some noise by the end of the day and needs to be addressed. The next issue is that we noticed the driver's side rear tire contacted the shock coils slightly under full articulation. The largest of the issues is that we noticed as we were driving out to the trailer at the end of the day that the sway bar linkage bolt, where it connects to the sway bar arm, was rubbing on the frame. After further inspection, we noticed that both sway bar arms had bent inward and the driver's side had also twisted slightly.

Pictured is the driver's side.

Causes of this issue likely include:

1. The linkages being mounted on an angle

2. The 40" universal Rockjock sway bar kit only comes with a 1" diameter bar, which results in a very high spring rate. After talking to them, I learned that Rockjock only recommends this kit to be used in applications with less than 12" of travel.

To solve these issues, I need to get longer arms so that the axle has more leverage on the bar. With the way that it is currently set up, there is no way to get a longer bar in there. The current plan is, when I move back home in the beginning of May, to move the shocks to mount on top of the axle and mount on the cage for the upper mounts. This will allow me to be able to flip the sway bar so that it is in front of the axle instead of behind.

I'm hoping to be able to have this rebuild done by the beginning of June so that we can still take it out plenty of times over the summer.

 

[roll-bar Bob]

Very impressive rig build with a project of this caliber you will find a couple things to tweak the fact that you don't have a long list is proof of your hard work. Keep us updated !!!


RBB

 

[SHARPMACHINE]

Looking good, very sweet rig! I have been researching the addition of a rear swaybar on mine. One thing I found was that is advised to add the rear swaybar behind the rear axle, not sure how I will do that yet?

 

[JeepHeap]

It’s been a while.


Picking up where I left off, I ended up deciding against rebuilding the rear end to fix the sway bar issues. Had other priorities last summer and the final decision was to simply disconnect the sway bar before rock crawling. A lot cheaper and easier. This also allows me to still have it very stiff for the dunes and on-road. This will work good enough until I do a full rebuild with a new frame after college.


Messing around in the snow in the yard sometime around February 2022, it got some pretty nasty wheelhop which ended in a broken weld on the axle side of the front upper link.

Very unsurprising break with how long that bracket is and after looking at it, it appears there was supposed to be a cover at the bottom of the backside which never got welded in. Nothing else was damaged. No big loss.

Knocked out a repair and did some quick and dirty strengthening to it when I moved home in the summer and it was ready to rip again.

I also finally closed out the rear of my front fenders.

Before.

After. So much better.

Then, for the first time, me and my dad got both jeeps up to the dunes together. He trailered his and so I drove mine. It made the hour and a half drive up flawlessly.

Then we finally got it out to Rocks and Valleys. It performed great and had no breakage. Extremely pleased with it.

We did a couple more trips to the dunes the rest of the summer but August hit and I went back down to school and that was pretty much it for wheeling.


At some point in the fall I came back home and made up some new mounts for the top of the windshield. The last ones made the windshield not line up with the angle of the door.

A little overhead tig welding action. I was pretty pleased with the result.

After that, it just sat until this summer.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

 

[JeepHeap]

The reason the Jeep sat all winter is because this past year I took a position as the suspension sub-team lead for the WMU FSAE racing team. It’s a collegiate competition and each year we build a new car and compete against ~120 other schools in a combination of static and dynamic tests.

I also got a lot more comfortable behind the lathe and mill down at the school. Between being the subteam lead, being 1 of 2 welders on the team, and 1 of 2 “machinists” on the team, I ended up being very busy.

The team ended up with our best relative finish this year at 21st out of 120 teams.

Back to my Jeep. It’s already been out to the dunes twice this year, performed flawlessly both times.

Im living down at school full-time now so I don’t have too much time to mess around with this, although I did begin a spare tire mount.

It still needs braces up to the X on the B pillar but it’s getting there.


Around a month ago, I also noticed that the passenger high steer arm had come loose. One of the studs had snapped off but I was able to weld a nut on it and back it out.

Ordered a new one, and replaced it just in time to realize that one of the others had also snapped off. Ended up just ordering 3 more and replacing them all figuring the shock loads they all saw were enough to fatigue them at the very least.

It took a month and a couple trips home but it’s all back together now and ready to rip again. We’ve got a trip to Rocks and Valleys planned for the beginning of August and a trip to the dunes in the middle of August. Looking forward to driving it some more.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

 

[whiterhino]

Looking good.

 

[SHARPMACHINE]

Great work!!!

 

[roll-bar Bob]

Congratulations on the racing season this year back in my college days I worked on the ASCE concrete canoe, and one of my buddies worked on the Steel Bridge, most people do not under stand what kind of time commitment these projects are. Enjoy every minute 20 years from now you will look back and still remember all the trials and tribulations.





RBB

 

[greygoose]

Jeep looks great!!

 

[JeepHeap]

Thanks for all the kind words.



Took the Jeep out to Rocks and Valleys yesterday. This was by far the hardest it’s been beat on and had zero mechanical issues. Lost a good bit of paint, especially on the bottom side, and dinged up the tailpipe a bit.

I’m absolutely thrilled with this trip and am looking forward to the next.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

 

[JeepHeap]

Bringing this one back from the dead for a couple updates. Will be pretty picture heavy.

Been a crazy busy 1.5 years of school and work for me since the last update so there hasn't been much to post about. One more semester left for my degree so I should gain some more time to enjoy the jeep starting this summer.

Finished off the summer of 2023 with a trip to the dunes. Ended up having an issue with the rear shocks bottoming out before the bump stops. Believe that the frame ended up bending up at the bump mounts when rock crawling and led to this issue. Some changes were obviously in store and I made some upgrades while in the area.

Over Christmas break of 2023, we got the frame (mostly) straightened out using a combination of many jacks with the jeep strapped to the trailer before I started cutting things apart and adding structure. The frame still isn't perfect but I know that I'll be building a new chassis for this once I get my own shop so I'm not overly concerned. Just needed it back together enough to continue enjoying the rig in the years before the new chassis.

Braced up the unsupported bump stop location above the axle with some tubes up to the B pillar.

While I was adding tubes, I finished up the spare tire mount I had started 10 months prior...

Very snug fit with the tire but will be nice insurance for any longer drives.

Mounted up the high lift jack as well. Tucked nicely behind the tire.

Cut out the old bump stops and made room for the new ones. Upgraded from progressive poly bumps to air bumps. New bump stops didn't end up mounting where the old ones did so the load transfer still isn't perfect from the bump to the rest of the chassis but it is far better than it was and I don't think it will cause issues. For some reason I don't have any finished pictures of the bump mounts but they were gusseted up pretty heavily.

New bump pad turned out pretty nice.

And wrapped up the job with a couple closeout boxes for the bumps.

More to come...

 

[JeepHeap]

That brings us up to roughly midway through this past July.

I ended up taking nearly a full semester of classes in the first half of the summer along with work which left me absolutely zero time. The summer semester ended in the beginning of July and I was finally able to finish up the updates / repairs.

Then it was back together and on the road. It was great to be able to use it again.

In July, I picked up a new daily / tow rig after a few months of repetitive breakdowns with my old car. Just a beat up work truck but its a GMT800 with a 6.0 so its reliable and easy to work on. Used it to go for a trip to the dunes the first weekend in August. It was a nice step toward having a setup of my own.

The jeep ended up shutting off on the literal last lap of the day. Had no fuel pressure at the rail so I had to get a tow back to the parking lot.

This is about the time when things started sucking...

Replaced the fuel pump, still wouldn't work. Found that the in-tank soft line between the pump and the fuel hat had ripped so any fuel was spraying back into the tank. Replaced the line and then one mile into the test drive I blew the head gasket at the top of a pull.

Got the head gasket replaced. Started up flawlessly and without hesitation. The second time I started it, there was a very loud clunk through the whole chassis and then the engine was knocking pretty bad.

Found that I had an injector stick open, fill the cylinder with gas as I primed the fuel pump, and bend a rod pretty good on the compression stroke.

Got a new (used) injector and a new (used) rod off of eBay and rebuilt the engine this past week. Back to running well. The worst part of it all was junking the brand new torque-to-yield head bolts that were replaced with the head gasket.

Between summer classes and this series of issues, I only ended up getting the jeep out once this year which is pretty stupid. Really hoping for better luck in 2025.

 

[JeepHeap]

After rebuilding the engine and fixing up the daily, I still had a few more free days at my parents before I was going to return to my apartment.

Took the time to continue building the hard half doors I started in September of 2023. I really like the look of hard half doors over the soft doors. I bought some YJ hard half doors but it ended up that my seats are mounted too wide for the door strikers and I can't used them with my current set up.

I left off 15 months ago with both door skins cut out and the drivers side hinges welded on. Its been a long time so I don't quite remember but I think the doors are 16 gauge. Definitely needed some bracing to keep them from moving with the wind.

Used some round stock on the upper edge to keep it smooth for an arm rest. The majority of the bracing is 1/4" steel dowels from Ace Hardware. Just what was available.

Blended in the hinge welds to keep them from being too ugly stuck on the side of the door.

Overall extremely happy with how the doors turned out.

Since the half doors will be getting painted this spring, I figured it was time to finally finish welding up my fenders from 3.5 years ago. The sheet metal was only ever tacked on which I think would look pretty bad under paint. Easiest / best looking thing to do was just fully weld them.

I think they turned out pretty good.

Also picked up a couple broken windshields a few months back for the frames. The black frame is completely rust free. The red frame has a little bit of rust but could be a nice spare. Both are far less rusty than my current windshield frame. I only ever rattle canned my windshield frame (very poorly) because I knew I needed a new one and it wasn't worth the wasted paint.

With the half doors, fenders, and windshield frame all painted blue, this jeep should be looking better than ever. Very excited to finally finish some of this stuff and see it all one color.


And since my previous "annual" updates usually contain something I did at school in my free time, here is a wagon I built. Probably spent way too much time on it (especially the front axle mount) but it was fun to build, even if it's pointless. Made entirely with metal out of the scrap bin at school.