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Case's Build Thread (06 LJ)

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote CJ7OX Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 21 August 2019 at 3:38am
Nice, Case!
~Sean
Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they made a difference in the world. But the U.S. ARMED FORCES don't have that problem. -Reagan

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote 83K10 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 21 August 2019 at 7:14am
Looking good! I think you get the award for traveling the farthest to work on your project vehicle. 

If you guys end up needing to have a custom cover machined or something of that nature, I can probably do it. We're up to 3 cnc mills in the shop now. 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote cj8lvr Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 21 August 2019 at 9:12am
Dude, that engine, that supercharger.... you'll shoot your eye out kid!

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Case Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15 October 2019 at 9:32am
This thread is rapidly approaching 10 years old ShockedShockedShocked.

Its hard to imagine being without my Jeep for so long considering how hardcore I was into rockcrawling back in the day.  I do miss it, but after a while I guess you get used to being clean from your addictions.  The Jeep went down Nov 9th 2009.  I didnt start the build until January 2010 when I attempted to repair the damage looking forward to a big snow.  Differential locked up waiting in line to get thru gate 7 2nd week of January.  Realizing that the entire rear axle was toast (see pics post 1), I decided to do the 1 ton swap and the build spiraled from there (see rest of posts previous to this one).

So what does a mothballed project that has stalled out look like?  Let me show you my shame:



DeadDeadDead

I was able to use the 3 day weekend to start my redemption.  I started by ordering new parts for the first time in many many years.  They arrived a few days ago:



Special ordered through Ben Meade at XRR.  Wider and taller to accommodate my big rear end.  Unfortunately that means Gena has to have a booster cushion or the harnesses will decapitate her.  LOL

Of course when they came in, i had to try test fitting them in my jeep.  Which required extracting it from the god awful mess it was buried under.  This was done quickly enough and then I removed the stock seats.  The seats did not fit.  Way to big.  But these are the size I need.  So time to start making room for them.  This crossmember needed to go:



Yes that is straw all over the floor....and rat turds.  It was not clean when I stored it and I guess i had freeloaders taking advantage of me Angry.  They are dead now.  The crossmember was not easy to free and the resulting damage to the floorboard will need to be addressed later, however I did get it out:



Seating was still way to tight so time to make more room:



The stock steering needed to go anyways.  So did the dash.  There is a surprising amount of space that can be recovered by getting rid of the stock dash:



Even more space can be recovered by removing the heater core assembly, but I dont care about passenger comfort and I still would like to have heat/defrost:



Still need to clean up some wiring, but next step is to get the ol girl outside in the sunshine so i can remove the stock roll cage:



1st sunshine its seen in nearly 10 years.  This is a view of it that I have not seen in years and years.  Trapped in the garage it was just a convenient way to store junk and I completely lost site of the overall vision I had for this thing.  I am not going to lie to yall, after I got it out I just sat down in a chair about 20 feet away from it and stared at the lines and realized how much I missed this thing and what a cool vehicle I had started to build and gave up on.  Very bittersweet.

I mean look at this booty:



If that dont get your blood going I dunno whats wrong with you!!

So after a few minutes of admiring it was time to get back to work and removing the silly putty that Jeep uses to hold the stock roll cages down.  Finally busted it loose after an hour of cussing at it:



So now the seats fit, but I didnt have the right cribbing to get their position just right.  I will need to be pretty precise with this as I must get the seats as low as possible so that my head will clear the roll cage.  Hopefully with some creative seat positioning I'll get the 3-4" of headroom I want to protect my noggin.  I've banged my head on 4580s cage many times during races, and even with a good helmet it still was not pleasant.  I am hoping to eek out a little more room than I had in the race jeep.

A lot of time will go into seat positioning as the entirety of the cage and dash work will be built around the driver's seat.  I'll be grabbing some more lumber from Lowes and trying to feel out the best positioning over the course of the week.  

That's all for now, but the fire is lit for real this time.  I'm really excited about working on this thing again.  Clap
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote cj8lvr Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15 October 2019 at 1:11pm
Dood!
I'm so proud of you.  Seriously.  I know what this means and am so happy to see it happening.
If you need a hand, let me know.  I've made a few withdrawals from the Case time bank and owe you a deposit of my own time whenever I can.

Are you planning to build a cage in it that the seats will "float" in or mounting them to the floorboards somehow.  What's the plan there.
Good choice on the PRPs.  I love the ones we have in the Scrambler.  Have put a lot of miles on them now and am still happy.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Case Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15 October 2019 at 1:17pm
thanks Jake.

The plan is for the seats to mount to the cage.  I don't trust the sheet metal.  

Only problem I have with the PRP seats right now is their definition of navy blue is pretty wrong considering the back vinyl is just "blue".  oh well, i'll make it work.

oh and besides sending me two oversized seats instead of one and one normal seat...packing that into the jeep will be a challenge.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote cj8lvr Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15 October 2019 at 1:19pm
Have you had any conversations with PRP since you got what you got?
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Case Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15 October 2019 at 1:40pm
nope.  I dont have time to wait on them to ship me a correct seat.  I'm fixing to hammer down on this thing.  I'm just glad the seats i got were oversized so I can fit.  
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote 83K10 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15 October 2019 at 10:10pm
Glad to see you really working on this again. Stick with it! 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote 50Willys Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16 October 2019 at 5:04am
Keep up the good work Case!
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote unlblkrubi Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16 October 2019 at 7:51am
Still following.....10 years later
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote CJ7OX Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06 November 2019 at 9:31am
Wow, Case! Loving that you finally got that ol' girl out from under all that stuff! Your lucky the stuff didn't completely consume your rig!
 
 
Glad to see the fires have been lit!
~Sean
Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they made a difference in the world. But the U.S. ARMED FORCES don't have that problem. -Reagan

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote scoutman Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 08 November 2019 at 2:10pm
Had to dust off the ol RCRC password to come check in on progress.  Wink

Looking forward to more updates.  


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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Case Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 11 November 2019 at 12:12pm
So progress has been slowed because I have been traveling for work quite a bit in the last few months.  I did 2 weeks in Alaska and 3 weeks in Tacoma, WA and finally they are sending me out again the entire month of November.  Can you believe that?  What hell hole could they be sending me to now?
 
Oh, right...Ft. Carson....In Colorado....across the street from the race shop....how convenient. 
 
So lets take the jeep with us and make some progress.
 
Day 1:
 
 
The poor frame on this jeep had been hacked and beaten and sawed and welded on so much it really needed to get cleaned up, get all those welds on top of the frame that we couldn't not reach before done, and some paint on all the bare metal.  So after lots of welding and grinding later I got it all cleaned up and painted.
 
 
But Case, you say, why would you paint on your trailer it looks horrible now...  Well, I'll tell you that's the most primer that trailer has ever seen so the paint comes off just by looking at it.  So i'm sure  overall this is good for the trailer.  You may notice some areas of the frame did not get paint.  That's because there are planned changes in those areas.  Stock motor mounts need to be cut off.  I dislike the old shock mounts and will have to do something about them.  
 
Next it was time to work on the cage.  I have always wanted to do a fastback style of cage on this LJ because I think it looks pretty sick.  But no LJ I have seen has been done the way I wanted it.  Considering that I don't intend to have a back seat I can be a bit more extreme.  So the first hoops go in and will kind of show you the lines I'm going for:
 
 
Now of course ya'll know me.  I'm a good ol southern redneck at heart which means you cannot possibly have just one B pillar.  That just ain't right.  So a few more tubes gotta go in:
 
 
Now its time to figure out where I'm going to sit and have enough clearance for my head and still be able to see out the tiny windshield this thing has.  Its a delicate balancing act safety vs comfort vs visibility.  I really need the engine/trans in place so that I can figure out where I can run seat bars.  I may need to take out some foam in my seat so I sit lower into it.  This will be what I work on this week. 
 
 
 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote 50Willys Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 11 November 2019 at 7:59pm
Awesome progress!! Thumbs Up
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote CJ7OX Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 12 November 2019 at 7:48am
Nice, Case! Looks like it's coming together!
 
 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Case Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18 November 2019 at 10:45am
Week 2 update:

Engine Mounted, trans, and tcase mounted.  Entire drivetrain slid in using advanced adapters motor mount kit, no cutting of the firewall needed.  Plenty of room to get behind the motor/top of the trans from the engine bay:



I wanted a flat belly, or as close to flat as I could get.  This was difficult because the transfer case that came with this power train is huge.  I don't even know what this tcase is, but its super beefy.  I think its an NV245, but thats just a guess.  One issue encountered is that there are so many electronic inputs into the tcase that it will be really hard to control.  It requires inputs about transmission position, ABS sensors, Speed, traction, etc before the motor will shift it into 4wheel drive.  Thats gonna be a challenge to do, so I just manually engaged 4hi and left it that way.  Selectable hubs will let me drive on the street in 2wd.  

Due to the size of the tcase I had to really tuck the drivetrain up into the body:



I also had to achieve mall crawler status and very reluctantly installed a 1 inch body lift:



But this yielded a pretty flat belly:



Pretty happy with that.  Now while the engine fit in the frame and under the body pretty well, the accessories did not comply as much.  The alternator was hitting the frame, so the frame had to be modified:



Now it fits just fine (Just need correct hardware):



Headers fit real nice.  These are stock 6.1 headers which flow really well.  We did try and fit a set of longtubes, but the passenger side was going to require a complete rebuild that would be to time consuming.  So shorties it is:



The upper link for the front 3 link needed to be moved to make room for driveshaft and exhaust clearance.  An unusual solution is to outboard the front upper link. So now my upper link is outisde the frame:



Oh wait, is that fenders and a hood and stuff????  Check this out!:







This is ride height.  What a beast!!

Still dont have a seat mount finalized.  This has been really frustrating.  I'm to big to fit inside the cab lol.  This week I'll continue to finalize the seat location.  Fuel and exhaust work will start as soon as the parts arrive.  One frustrating thing I just ran into is that Dodge physically locks down the PCM from being modified.  I have to send it off to get it resoldered so we can tune it.  Very frustrating but we have other things to work on until the unlocked PCM gets back to me.


06 Jeep Wrangler Rubicon Unlimited all torn apart.



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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote CJ7OX Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18 November 2019 at 11:30am
Looking good, Case! So, when you get the PCM reflashed, are you also going to be able to tune the T-case so you get all gears? Or are you just going to rock it full time in 4hi?
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Case Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18 November 2019 at 11:34am
nah i'll just rock this one in 4hi until i find a suitable replacement.
06 Jeep Wrangler Rubicon Unlimited all torn apart.



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Thumbs Up
~Sean
Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they made a difference in the world. But the U.S. ARMED FORCES don't have that problem. -Reagan

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote cj8lvr Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18 November 2019 at 12:26pm
I've been talking with Shawn Rants about a Fast Fuel system on my Scrambler.  It's what they run.  Tuneable PCM.  (I'm running a stock PCM now with zero control on fuel delivery, nothing)  You might consider that, too.  Does away with factory PCM.  
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote unlblkrubi Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 19 November 2019 at 8:00am
Wow, great job, looking like a jeep again.
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