Rocket's TJ

Hi guys, please let me introduce you to my little TJ. (Still looking for a name for it, it'll come eventually). I've had a few 4bys and have usually built them from the ground up at great expense, stress and time. Well this time I just bought one already done. Can't stick a "Built not bought" sticker on this one.

Anyway it's not going to win a show and shine medal but it will go most places I point it.

Long arms, twin locked, 35's, regeared, etc. etc. etc.

http://i1083.photobucket.com/albums/...ps1lmofdyw.jpg

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It's currently getting a new clutch in it, then I will need to get some new rubber for it.

It's currently running internal bead locks on the black "D" rims (1 inner tube is buggered though) but I also got a full set of brand new 15x8 Soft 8's with the purchase, so not sure which rims to put the new rubber on.

http://i1083.photobucket.com/albums/...psseqjc7jm.png

This little TJ is just a weekend rig as the heavy lifting and caravan towing duties are taken care of by our LC200, and for that, it does a mighty job.

I will source a set of chromolly rear axles to match the front, then just enjoy driving it :smile-new:

Well got the TJ back with a nice new HD Extreme Outback clutch in it, feels really nice now and a much nicer rig to drive. It did have a brass button clutch in it which explains why the clutch was so touchy. Think I need to find a new mechanic though as he hit me pretty hard for a clutch supply and install.

Also found out they didn't replace the rear pinion seal as the yoke has groves worn it. So I'll get an upgraded U bolt yoke kit out of the States and put that in, adjust the pinion angle and go from there.

Looking good mate. What lift is in that? Would like to go long arms in mine, but need to re-gear and lock the diffs first. There's always something

It's a Rubicon Express 4.5" plus a 1 or 1.25" body lift.

Installed a hand throttle the other day, very successful little project

[IMG]http://i1083.photobucket.com/albums/...psuz7wyigq.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i1083.photobucket.com/albums/...psngmil3kp.jpg[/IMG]

So much easier to drive off road now :smile-new:

Went for a drive yesterday with Dieselcon aka Jose, you know the guy who invented the "Jose line", which is generally the path less travelled, or for those who prefer "you're going where?..." :eagerness:


http://i1083.photobucket.com/albums/...pswvzd2wj3.jpg


well, we had a blast. Got my new to me TJ all twisted up and started to explore some of its capabilities. Looking forward to more trips.


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This line made for a good pic.....


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Looking good, Rod! Watch those Jose lines, though. They're for a special kind of person - somewhere between "slightly deranged" and "fully certifiable". :eagerness:

[Love you Jose!]

Dru'n'Kerry

You got that right Dru :-)

We got a bit lucky with Jose's rig as he busted a ball joint on the end of his panhard rod, luckily there was a wrecked TJ over a cliff that we could raid a part off to get him home.

Here's a vid of the day that Jose produced.

https://youtu.be/fG540xrBOLM

Was a weapon on the tracks Rod.
I think you'll have to go give 6 stages a run to find a challenge!

Thanks Greg, I'm pretty happy with how it went, still need to tidy a few things up on it to tune it up a bit better, but all in good time.

Jose and the crew are going up 6 stage this weekend but I can't get there, besides I think a rear Uni packed it in on the way home on Saturday so I have to fix that.

Bugger. At least it held together till you got back home. Uni change on the tracks is never fun...

Hmm, got my claws coming. Lets play again after that. Awesome Jeep btw!

:drunk:

How far away are they Dru? Happy to go for a spin when you get them, might see what Jose's doing also, could turn into an interesting day.... :eagerness:

Possibly this week. Wahoo! Definitely next. :highly_amused:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Rocket55

How far away are they Dru? Happy to go for a spin when you get them, might see what Jose's doing also, could turn into an interesting day.... :eagerness:

---

awesome looks like we're wheeling mid December ��.. hopefully the weather is nice to us ��Or not....

Hmm bugger, went to replace my two super flex joints in my front arms and found this...

https://youtu.be/I_k0LkBCs9Y

So additional parts enroute thanks to Bill at Double Black Off Road.

So while I wait for the parts to arrive I started installing my new lights, look better already.

http://i1083.photobucket.com/albums/...ps9qow0xez.jpg

http://i1083.photobucket.com/albums/...pshcphbtnj.jpg

Love these lights .. ����

Painted the surrounds and finished off the install today. Pretty happy with the result. Just need to put the front suspension back under it so I can go for a drive and test them out.


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Well this fixing the suspension business is taking time. First issue was identifying what bits I needed, that's now done and now we play the waiting game while it turns up from the States. So while my Jeep sits in the garage on stands with no front end in it, I decided to tackle a few nice to do jobs like painting the faded fenders and giving the ratty looking sliders a tidy up.


First up, whip the fenders off, it is now in "6 Stage" mode.


http://i1083.photobucket.com/albums/...ps90anb3j2.jpg


Then off come the sliders, now it looks naked


http://i1083.photobucket.com/albums/...psvjopey8y.jpg


I used a clear flexible adhesion promoting primer on the fenders then a few coats of Dupli Colour Armor Bed


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The sliders just coped some Rustguard Etching primer and a number of coats of my "go to" Saturn black Rustguard


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Now just to put it all back together


Fenders on


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Look good (now) in my opinion, it has a bit of texture to it and has a bit of a rubbery feel to it, time will tell how it looks once it's been covered in mud and how well it washes clean.


Sliders back on and the finished product


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I'm pretty happy with the end result, now to tidy up the mirrors, door handles and rear window hinges.

Busy man Rod........ Looking nice.....

How do you like the rock sliders? I'm thinking of making some and yours look pretty straight forward. Is the other bracket part bolt under the chassis?


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They are reasonably light duty, I wouldn't want to land heavily on them, but for general bumps and grinds they are perfectly fine. They just butt up against the chassis and there's another plate that goes on the inside of the chassis then just bolted through above and below the chassis. You can see the 4 other plates leaning against each other in the photo. They seem to do the job effectively.

These arrived today, and I'm glad to see them. Means I can put my TJ back together again and get it on the road, just in time too as I have a few trips set up for the next couple of weeks.


Can't thank Brett in Jeep City Canberra enough for getting these bits out of the states and to me in record time, fantastic customer service :-)


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Bit of maintenance today, replaced a squeaky belt tensioner. Could only get a 2nd hand one at short notice. Looks like it's more worn out than the one it replaces, but it came with 12 months warranty and very easy to replace, so I'll see how it goes.


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Then my attention turned to the front wheel bearing. These things turned up today, so no time like the present to throw them in.


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Very easy and straight forward job to do. I did find the capillar very stiff to push back, I did remember seeing YouTube videos of people useing g clamps etc to push them back, so with this in mind I did find that an 18mm Kinchrome socket is the perfect spacer and made reinstalling the calliper very straight forward and quick.


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Please excuse the lack of pads, this apparently is my next job.


Finished product.


http://i1083.photobucket.com/albums/...ps7qlaw1cy.jpg


Here's a short video of the bearing that came out of it


https://youtu.be/7XXadfm0ZbU

Bit of a cosmetic update this afternoon for my little TJ.


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Old lights off and clean up the area behind them, take note of what colour wire does what. Line up your hole saw so as to cut out all the other holes.


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Take a deep breath, grab a fresh battery for the drill and rip in. No going back now.


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Wire them up and pop them in. If you look closely on the rear bar you'll see the two little Eagle Eye reverse lights on each side.


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Off eBay, about $2 each


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Nice. I wanted to fit tail lights like yours but I don't have the balls to cut two big holes into the tub lol. It was hard enough drilling four small holes when I fitted the Garvin expedition rack to it lol

Haha I get what you mean, just take a deep breath and go.

Latest update to my TJ is a Poison Spyder louvered hood to get a bit of under bonnet heat out and away from everything.


First up take the bonnet off, put on the template on, which was the best quality template I've seen on anything to date. Mark it out and start cutting some sizeable holes through the bonnet.


http://i1083.photobucket.com/albums/...ps5biaysrg.jpg


Paint up the bare metal edges and screw the louvers on. Fitted like a glove and looks pretty smart in my opinion.


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It's designed to not cut any of the structural bonnet supports, which is good, one less thing to worry about with the boys.


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Now just to get used to the new view.


http://i1083.photobucket.com/albums/...psk0eqjh4b.jpg


PS: For those wondering about water getting onto the engine when it rains, my TJ sat out the front for 2 days without the bonnet on including sitting through that big storm we just had, no problems, just turn the key and it started right up.

These turned up today
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To replace the one I broke last weekend doing this

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Bit of an update, it's been a while.


First things first I replaced my flasher unit with an LED unit to stop the fast flash caused from the LED rail lights.


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Then replace the broken bonnet hold downs, came up good.


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After this it was time to replace the front brake pads as they had under 2mm left on them, so while I was at it I thought I'd shout it a new set of rotors as well. Went with DBA slotted rotors and QFM HPX pads. They seem to get great reports and cheap to.


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So foolishly I do this on the Friday night prior to a Saturday wheelin trip. The install goes off without a hitch.


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All excited at about 10pm Friday night i back it out of the garage and commence the bedding procedure. Great initial bit and was feeling good, then they started to stick and got progressively worse. After some quick googling I find this is pretty common with the plastic pistion callipers. Ended up with the TJ parked out the front with the front brakes locked on at about 50% and me sending a message pulling out of the trip the next day. Super bummed. So jump on the net and order a set of front callipers from Rock Auto for $38US each and with freight this amount to about $200AUD landed here. 4 days later they arrive.


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Shortly after the install happens again.


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Next issue. The drivers side went as planned. The passenger side calliper had the wrong pistion installed and wouldn't retain the brake pad inside the pistion. The hole was too big. So it got put together anyway as the spring does bugger all anyway. I send RockAuto an email and pics and they respond by telling me to fill out there returns section on the web. So I do and go to bed. Next morning I wake up to an email with a new shipping tracking number for my replacement calliper. About 5 days later it's sitting on my front door step. Can't ask for much more than that, so well done RockAuto. Must install the new caliper soon.


Very happy with the performance of the rotor/pad combination, nice powerfull braking compared to what was in there before.

After this my TJ spent a while at the fabricators getting a few odd jobs done, namely. Welding up my cracked pan hard bracket on the front drivers side chassis, then bracing it across to the opposite chassis rail. Next the drivers side front upper arm diff mount was sleeved to stop the bush floating around. Finally relocated my spare to the centre by extending the swing arm on my rear bar.


While my Jeep was away I started tinkering on eBay which is never a good idea, next thing you know this stuff starts turning up.


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And a STEDI 50" 4K light bar


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After painting up all the fabrication work, rewiring my rear bar and installing a new RFI UHF antenna (my UHF actually works now) I stared working on the wiring in the cab. This began with removing the dash and finding huge amounts of redundant wiring.


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After fixing this up and modifying dash panels to house switches I started the light install. This starts with removing the 8 windscreen torx bolts. Using heat, 7 of the 8 came out no problems, but one pesky bugger gave me grief, eventually I drilled it out and used an Ezyout.


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While I was at it I ran power to the back for a car fridge and installed a camp light on the inside edge of the rear window. Also installed some rock lights under it. They are a good start but need more yet. Lifted the cowl panel and ran some wires, installed the light bar brackets, pod lights and light bar. This is the finished product.


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Took it for a spin and it lit up the world, but as expected whistled like a bastard. Having prepared for this I installed a couple of lengths of rubber edge protection from Bunnings, took it for another spin and you wouldn't even know it was up there. Super happy with the result.


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All this was completed just in time to take it down the coast and get it dirty with a bunch of other cool Jeeps.


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After putting some bigger lights on it became apparent that my eBay Chinese LED headlights were just not cutting it. I was also concerned about pulling up behind cars with them on as there was no cut off in the light beam and it just went everywhere. So an upgrade was in order and after a bit of internet trawling I found the Ignite lights and Greg at Beyond 4x4. A bit of research and a couple of calls later and a set was at my door.


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They are an impressive looking light


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Time for the install.


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I think they look ace!!


How do they work, you might ask? Well the work bloody fantastic!! Straight away without adjusting in they were so much better it wasn't funny, a bit of adjustment later and you get this, remember that the photos never do them justice.


Look at that cut off


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I could probably lift them up a tad more, but I'll see how it goes with a bit of weight in the TJ first.


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if any one is interested in these Greg at Beyond 4x4 has set up significant discount code for Sydney Jeep Club members. Simply shoot him off an inquiry through his website. Tell him I sent you.

https://www.beyond4x4.com.au/ignite-...headlight.html

wish I saw these before I purchased my Chinese JW knock offs. Still don't know what they're like as my TJ is still off the road lol, but I know the high beams are less than useless

Still off the road.... I hate researching parts, because you just don't know what you don't know. I've driven a few times at night now with these and they are really good, I'm very impressed with them.

Well look what Photobucket has gone and done :-( Hopefully they will see sense and reinstate existing photo links and restrict new ones.

Update: Well seeing as though it was starting to get a bit colder I thought I better fix my heater, especially since I'll be going down and doing 6 Stage in a couple of weeks without my hard top. Current situation is nothing works in the middle of the dash. So i bought a new HVAC controller from RockAuto and a new resister off ebay and installed these.

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This got everything working except for the fan. So back to Rockauto and a week later I now have a fan :-)

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Problem is, they obviously differ from left and right hand drive Jeeps. I know a bunch of the yanks access their fans from under the dash, really simple change, and some have to come through the firewall after first removing the battery and computer. This is how we get to them. Bottom line is the fan didn't fit :-(

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Thinking caps on..... Simply swap the housings over!!

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This sounds good in theory.

Problem 1: the new screws don't fit through the old housing holes. Its only plastic drill it out slightly bigger. Easy fix.

Problem 2: The new fan blade is a couple of mm taller than the old fan blade and now rubs on the housing. Insert a spacer between the fan motor and the housing. A couple of those left over plastic washers you get with new number plate frames worked a treat. Easy fix.

Install the fan, computer and battery. Moment of truth, yes the fan runs, but no air is coming out, WTF!! :-(.

Thinking caps on again..... Inspect closely photos of new and old fan blades. Not only are the housings reversed but so are the blades, meaning my new fan is not blowing but is actually sucking.

Remove fan from Jeep. Test fan on battery, reverse polarity and retest, yep fan now spins the other way as I hoped. Another small and vital win occurred when checking the electrical connection on the fan. Being a universal fan meant that there was no directional blockers in the coupling, meaning I could simply rotate the plug from the Jeep and plug it in backwards. Big win :-)

Install fan, install plug backwards, install computer and battery. Fire it all up and works like a dream!! happy days :-)

Now I can stay warm!

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Small upgrade to the TJ's sound system today with these parts


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Started with the ones in the sound bar.

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All reports are that 6.5" speakers fit easy as, well they do after you pull the sound bar out and chop the hole bigger with a jig saw. Anyway all done now and they look like, well, new speakers...

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Couldn't wait and tested it out, man what a difference. Must note I am running an aftermarket 4x50w head unit that has a busted screen, hence why I'm replacing the head unit.

Now onto the fronts. Google helped me with an adapter template to change the stock 4x6 speakers with some round 5.25" ones.

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...e2658a4216.jpg

Knocked one up out of a piece of marine ply I had lying around. Bit of a test fit showed up that the template needed a small tweak. Test fit again, all good, trace it out and cut out the second one.

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Screw the speakers in and job done!

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...eda826a11f.jpg

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The difference in the sound quality is amazing, very happy with the results. I'll change the head unit in time.

Wow ... looking great


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