rockcrawler73

Just ran across your build thread. Very nicely done. Looking forward to seeing the fenders on your rig

rock

Limitless

These past 48 hours have been very eventful. So eventful that I wish I took more pictures but it seemed like we never stopped working and if we did my hands were so full of grease and grim that I couldn't pull out my phone and snap a few shots. Lets get the story started:

These showed up a couple days ago along with the Artec Gussets:



Arrived at my buddies house last night around 6PM (he has a shop we did all the work at), went to pull the Jeep out of his home garage to go to his shop and as I was backing out he hit the garage door button "by habit" (don't recall how many beers he was in). I rammed my Jeep into his garage door and completely destroyed the bottom panel of the door and put a nice hole in the back side of the top right above the glass:



Laughed about that for a while and then cruised over to his shop where we tore the Jeeps down for the sleeves and gussets.

Got them both in the air:



Discovered a seized brake caliper earlier in the week and got that all squared away. Pulled everything apart:







Now I discovered seized U-Joints on both sides!!:



We tried pressing them, air hammering, hammering, and crying and none of it was working so we decided to cut them out:



Victory:



After tearing everything down and getting those U-Joints out we called it a night. Next day (today) we had a buddy come over who knows how to weld. He gets everything prepped for the gussets:







Mocked the fitment up and if you noticed my coils are out because we realized we had to remove all that to be able to slide the upper gusset where it needed to be so that took some time to drop the axle enough to slide those coils out. Ended up taking off the shock, coil, bump-stop, track bar, and skid because the driveshaft was in contact with it:



Gussets welded in:







Buddies Jeep getting gussets welded in:



Thank god I had a set of these because I obviously needed them :



Replaced:



Built a tool to clean the axles out, it was a really long attachment to an air drill and we wire wheeled the inside of the housing :



So this is where I'm kicking myself for not taking more pics. We got the sleeves in but holy hell. My buddies Jeep was a pain in the ***. Luckily mine went in a bit easier. We used a race bearing installation tool (44.5mm) and a air hammer, a bunch of anti seize / WD-40 and we gave it hell. Installed:




Started putting things back together...By the way, I need new hub assemblies. My driver's side was shot and the passenger side didn't look much better:





Pieced the Jeep back together. Painted the gussets, changed the diff fluid, and relaxed a bit. Obviously didn't have time for the fenders today lol.

Limitless

A couple updates. Took my hardtop off permanently for the summer. I run the freedom panels/doors when it rains and completely naked on the nice days:





Got my rear bumper from Crawler Conceptz and headed over to my buddies to help with their jeeps. Need to get ready for Go Topless day this next weekend:



Made sure my rear bumper fit before painting:



Painted and on!:









This hole under the spare is actually for the Baja Series backup light 2160 lumens but I didn't drop the extra $90 on it, I'll most likely get it in the future.



Fenders should be this week and my hi-lift jack mounted to the accessory mount on the Teraflex carrier and then wheeling pics!

Limitless

Ok so you’ll all finally be happy. I GOT THE FENDERS ON!!!! My hands are raw from installing them with a tiny allen wrench but I quickly got over the pain as I got to stare at the fenders. I went with the Poison Spyder narrow steel fenders if anyone remembers my post from 5 + months ago. Here’s the pics and it’s going to make it look a lot easier than it was, we had about 8-9 hours of install time on these:

Ripped those stock fenders off:



Drilled out the holes for the huge bolts and lots of them, maybe that’s why they’re so strong:





Mocked up the fitment and drooled a little:



Now this is the front fender, driver’s side, it has a lower brace that keeps the fender from folding in, great design:



There’s also an upper brace that attaches and strengthens it…here’s the underside view:



Picture of both braces installed:



Now for the passenger side….Obviously you can see why I cannot run the lower brace….There’s a Rugged Ridge Snorkel there so this is a huge heads-up for anyone interested in these fenders with an RR snorkel, as a solution I just skipped the lower brace for now but still installed the upper ones and the fender still feels pretty solid:



Onto the rear fender….First off I hate nutserts…..





Mocked up fitment:




Now to show you the rear fender braces. This one is right on the back of the pinch seam to strengthen it:





This one is on the backside of the jeep just behind the taillight that attaches to the outside fender, the rear of wall with the taillight on the backside, and inside the tub:




After it was all said and done I took a picture immediately:



Also snapped some this morning…and came to the realization that I needed to paint the rear tub of the fender:





















Got home from work today and immediately painted that rear tub and it looks a lot better:









All I need to do now is mount that hi-lift jack and I’m ready for wheeling this weekend so stay tuned for wheeling pics!

Limitless

Got my hi-lift jack mounted to the Teraflex accessory mount and also tossed my CB antenna on. Jeep is ready to go for tomorrow, just need to pack:



Hi-Lift just barely clears the taillight when the gate is fully opened:

Limitless

Waiting for more people to put photos/videos up so hopefully I'll have more for you soon. Unfortunately the guy that usually rides passenger and takes photos didn't come this year :(





Realized I need to remove a decent amount of bumpstop now! Thanks Dirtman



































Didn't blow a bead
















Damage: Broke my license plate holder off in the rear and having issues with wheel sensors (ABS, BAS, Traction Control dash lights on)

Limitless

Limitless

Buddy had these, some might be reposts: