oleskool

Ok well first the background:

My first ride home was in a Jeep, I grew up in a jeep family and we still have 5 on the property now. My first vehicle was a 83' CJ7 who just got retired to weekend duty after 12 years of proud service and 250,000 miles

I purchased my first new anything in August 2011 and this will document Phase I of the build I have planned for this little jeep over the next couple years and I might throw in some restoration clips for the CJ as well just for fun!

As stated before, I daily drove a 83' CJ for 12 years and its a bitter sweet feeling retiring her to weekend duty/restoration but it had to be done. That poor I6 is starting to get a little tired with all those miles on her. So when I set out to buy a new Jeep I had one thing in mind....do a tribute to my road companion for those 12 years. The 83' is Copper Brown Metallic so naturally I had to find a close color to match it, so the search for the Mango Tango Rubi began! Searched for months before I found what I was looking for and it just so happened to appear 5 miles from my house! Funny how that works out sometimes.

Here is the day I brought her home:


Of Course I had to introduce the new Jeep to her playmates as well:


Now onto the fun part....tearing her apart and building her back up! I am still collecting parts for Phase II but this covers Phase I except for a few minor parts like my rims that I am still waiting on haha: First piece added to the jeep was PS Evap Skid and is it ever sexy!



I love coming home and finding boxes at the door step haha. Now that I had that installed I could actually take her out and wheel it a little so I did. I had to get a base line on what the new Rubi could do before I made it into the jeep I have dreamed about for the past 12 years or so! I have to say it did really well except for smashing into every rock out there with the skids etc!

Once I had my baseline I ordered some more goodies:
Rock Krawler 3.5" X-Factor Suspension
35" Coopers
Evo C-Gussets and LCA Skids
Rugged Ridge XHD Front Bumper from the FS forum
ARB Covers from the FS forum
Walker Evans 17x9 Beadlocks
Currie Johnny Joint kit for the Upper Control Arms
Ballistic DS's
LockPick V4 and Cameras
Vision X LED Rock Lights
XRC 8k Winch I had on the shop floor
IPF Headlight Upgrade
and alot more odds and ends like huskey floor liners, grab handles, tailgate gear bags, etc!

First thing was to pull the front end apart and burn in those C-Gussets and LCA skids:





I have to say that the Gussets are dam nice and fit like a glove!

oleskool

Here they are burned in:




They should be good to go now and off to the LCA Skids we go:



I am really impressed with the skids as well. I took some time and modded the a little but they fit great straight from EVO. I can show you the damage the can handle just from a little winter wheeling I did a few weeks ago. These things are strong!

I don't have pics of the rest of the work I did that day but I burned in the rear truss for the RK 3 link in the rear along with the cross member plate. I figured I might as well since we had all the equipment out anyway. I was planning on installing the lift the next weekend anyway and this definately saved a ton of time on the install. It did take a few tack welds before I was satisfied with the position and angle etc but in the end it turned out very nice. *Warning to anyone thinking of installing the 3 Link Truss before the lift: You will bottom it out if you are not careful on the exhaust and the tub of the jeep so be for warned and please take it easy going over speed bumps haha*

While taking a break I was looking on craigslist and just happened to find a brand new Nitto 35 for $100 bucks and figured wth so I picked that up the next day! I just had to throw it up beside my VW




I couldn't resist!

oleskool

After going to pick up the tire I noticed the UPS man had dropped off some more goodies at the door:





Several members of my local Jeep club run these and beat the hell out of them so I figured they were good enough for me too Very nice shafts for the money and I have seen them withstand some hellacious wheeling! Hoping these treat me as well as they have my buddies!

Well the week finally came to a close so it was almost lift installation time....T minus 12hrs or so!

The last time she will ever be stock:



Well D day finally came and its bright and early. I had 8 boxes of lift in the back of my jeep and a welded in truss on the axle....needless to say any bump in the road caused a loud noise in the back haha.

So the fun begins:





The front end was fairly easy, just put it in full droop on jack stands and pull off the sway bar links/shocks and it was good to go. The help of a few people and a couple jacks really make a difference too. I want to say thank you to all the Lake Norman Crawlers for their help in the build up of Phase I on that cold Saturday!

RedOffRoad

lookin really good!! Im jealous, wish I was able to do a big build like this.

CALIJK

Subscribed - I've got a lot of respect for a guy who has owned Jeeps as long as you have. Looking forward to your build!

oleskool

Thanks guys! This is my first new jeep...as you can see I am used to working on old equipment haha. It s a whole new world with coil springs, control arms, trackbars etc

I go side tracked with the thread, I had to help a buddy pull a engine out of his TDI this afternoon and it ran into a couple issues that took me longer than expected....so on with the lift kit install pictures!











Here we can basically see the front springs are in the control arms are in place and trackbar as well. There are also spring retainers that use a self tapping screw and require you to drill a small pilot hole in the spring cup itself. Overall I have to say the front went in smoothly in a couple hours. The brake lines front and rear were also disassembled, new line extensions were installed and allowed to gravity bleed while the rest of the kit was installed. This did help the brake bleeding time when it was time to re-install the lines. The brunt of the work was involved in the back installation and driveshafts as you have to remove the stock flanges from the pinions and install the provided flanges that come with the new shafts. In theory this is easy but not have a thin walled socket to re-install the new flanges meant a die grinder and a flap wheel was needed haha. I had to physically open the center of the yolks up so my impact socket would be able to get to the nut. I know this probably isn't the best solution but we had done this before and knew it would work!

oleskool

I wish I had some pictures of the DS installs but I was feeling under the weather that day and it slipped my mind...Now on to the rear installation. This required putting the rear axle i n fool droop as well so the springs can slide out etc. We had to take out the swaybar links, shocks, etc and with a little prying the springs will come right out or at least they should haha. This is where the installation begins to get a little tricky. The shocks get relocated up about an inch for better clearance since Jeep decided to make the hangers sit down so close to the ground. I can tell you mine were dominated and I only wheeled it a couple times before tearing it apart. In theory this is stupid simple but cutting those factory welds off proved to be a b!tch to say the least. Its that unobtainium they use for their welding rods I guess . Using a cut off wheel, a 4 inch sanding disc and a ton of patients they finally came off...oh I think a forgot about the BFH too . Once those are out of the way then it is time to burn the new ones in provided in the kit. They line up just like they should using an exsisting hole. The rear trackbar mount also gets a new home as well and needs to be burned in before any wheeling is done. This peice does bolt in but please be sure to weld it solid before trying to see what the new kit can do haha, you will thank yourself later! As you can see this sounds very trivial in theory but takes a ton of time to do. We spent a good 12 hours installing this and I had several hands helping my sick self out. I would personally say leave the driveshafts stock until the kit is finished becuase that does bring in a whole new set of issues, especially with a new kit that needs to be tested first! The new shafts will require alot of adjusting and measuring of angles to get them right and after a 12 hour day you just don't feel like doing this haha.

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After a fresh coat of black paint to protect the new welds/bare metal I personally went through everything and checked the torques on every nut and bolt in the kit. I cannot stress this enough, the bolts need to be torques correctly or you have all types of issues. Please if nothing else make sure those trackbars are torqued and adjusted correctly to begin with! My rear trackbar needed adjustment due to the axle being off center. This is extremely easy to fix just using a plumb bob, a sharpie and a tape measure so please double check any and everything new under the jeep! Even with doing this I still strung the jeep and double checked to make sure the rear axle was running true and found it to be shifted a 1/16th or so off. One tire was running ahead of the other one basically. Now this is not enough to cause any issues but even when you have double checked all measurements they can still be off!

With the lift install finished and stitting on the ground with the stock Rubi 32's I netted about 5" in the front and 4.6" or so in the rear. This should be a great platform for the future 37's or 40's depending on how the spring goes haha.

oleskool

The first test run was done at night with me feeling like crap and incredibly tired. All was good up to 55mph and then the dreaded vibrations decided to show its ugly head! Like I said before I would suggest installing the new drive shafts at a different time than the lift kit just to help keep track of anything odd feeling when you are test driving it. This helps you narrow down any potential issues faster! I am not going to go into my ordeals with driveline vibrations but I had to pull the front shaft out (I only want to deal with one vibration issue at a time) and kept fine tuning the rear pinion angle for about 3 weeks before I go it to smooth out for me. It was a pain in the arse but worth all the effort! Then I went to the front....to my surprise no vibrations so I must of done something right there haha. Oh I forgot to mention that I did take the Jeep to be aligned by a professional as well. I was not throwing any ESP lights and I centered the wheel myself but I still wanted to double check it just to be sure. My alignment was dead on and I figured as much but its worth the peace of mind it gave me.

Now while all this was going on a member on the forum had some ARB diff covers for sale...lightly used of course and I just couldn't let them pass me up. I love the look of these covers and figured wth. My plan from the beginning was to strip them down and paint them Mango Tango to match the jeep. This proved to be a bigger challenge than the lift kit install ever thought about being. I can work with nuts and bolts but freaking powdercoat was my kryptonite . I worked on these covers for two weeks stripping them down. Tried to blast them...nothing, had my friend throw them in their dip tank...softened up some but still no good, torch....a little better, finally I found some aircraft rubber/plastic remover and used a can on them....clean diff covers woo hoo. Now this took alot of elbow grease but in the end it was worth it and I am very pleased on how these turned out.







The pics consist of the semi-finished product the night before I went back and cleaned off the ARB surface to bring them back to their orginal look so to speak. I didnt clean off the the other machined surfaces however, I liked the look of them painted. These were easy to install and with lube lockers there was virtually no mess. This is my first experience with the lube lockers but so far so good. I am not against RTV at all but if I can make something easier to clean up etc I am all for it and the lockers really should help this out. My only qualm with the lube lockers is the 35ftlbs of torque they spec on the sheet. With the ARB cap screws that is to much in my opinion so I did the hand torque method haha to make sure I did not strip any of them out.

More pics to come with the finished product and how they look on the jeep! They have about 15 coats of color and 10-11 coats of clear on them so hopefully they hold up decent.

I wish I had taken pictures of the front and rear camera installs but it was cold and rainy that day and I did most of that outside the shop. I will take some pics of how they work and where I mounted them hopefully tomorrow sometime. The next piece of the puzzle will be the rock lights and the mounting of them and hopefully walker evans will ship rims out this week or early next week, my jeep looks funny on 32's!

jfleur91

Those diff covers are gonna look sweet post up some pics when complete

WestTNJK

Great thread, sweet build.