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Ok.... So I've been a member of this forum for awhile and due to the navy, wife, college I haven't been able to post much of anything. I'm on leave for the next couple of weeks and I figured I'd put up some info of my latest project and hopefully it helps somebody out. I just bought a 2012 JK back in March to replace my 81' CJ8 project. I could afford a monthly payment but not the time and money to finish a restoration so the CJ8 had to go. I gotta say, my initial impression of the 2012's is quite good. Power and torque is seriously available. The only downside was that I could only afford the stock plain jane wrangler sport because the CJ and parts hadn't sold yet. Fast forward a few weeks and after the everything sold I had a nice little wad of cash to plunk down on some parts.
I started off by adding the 17" wheels and tires from a Rubicon because I could pick them up for cheap and they were brand new. I didn't want anything taller than that and I don't intend on lifting it much beyond stock, kinda going for a pseudo expedition style rig. Since the Tires and wheels I bought didn't have TPMS sensors and I didn't want the sensors anyway I bought an AEV procal and disabled the TPMS system and adjusted for the larger tire size. This thing worked like a charm and it has loads of features so I keep it in my glove box now all of the time. With the new tires the jeep actually looks like a jeep so I'm satisfied.
Like I said I'm going for sort of an expedition styled vehicle so the next mod on my list was to somehow increase the load carrying without seriously increasing the vehicle height and without killing the on-highway ride. Stock JK load carrying is only 1000 pounds and with a few people and aftermarket parts your squatting the jeep pretty hard. The thing about the 1000 pound limit though, I doubt very seriously that it has anything to do with the drivetrains ability to handle more weight, I just think the springs/shocks are not up to the task. The front/rear end are more than capable of handling a little more weight so I tried a frankenstein approach to increasing load carrying. I installed a new set of springs that came off of a new Rubicon unlimited. This alone should increase load carrying buy about 500 pounds because the two door JK is a good deal lighter than the four door. I paired the Rubi unlimited springs with Old Man Emu shocks all the way around. The end result exceeded my expectations. I ended up with 1" of lift in the rear and 1 and 1/4" in the front. The front end lift slightly leveled out the front end with the rear. The forward rake that is on all new JK's is still there but it is reduced so I'm not destroying gas mileage and I did get the slight lift and extra load carrying. Ride quality on highway is actually greatly improved over stock which was a bit of a surprise given that the Rubi springs are taller/stiffer than the originals. Since I didn't use the new springs with the existing shocks I can't say for sure why the ride improvement is there but I am assuming that the OME shocks are the primary cause. Either way I'm pleased.
After the suspension mod I wanted to insure that I would have the greatest amount of traction possible and lucky for me I had front and rear OX lockers left over from my CJ project. They were brand new and OX was kind enough to switch out both units for their JK equivalent. I can't say enough about how awesome OX's customer service was/is, they offered a lot of advice and help and I truly appreciated it. I didn't have the time/tools to do the install of the lockers so instead I took the Jeep to Extreme Vehicle Builders out of Danbury, CT. They installed both the front and rear lockers but they only setup the actuating lever for the rear. I wanted to try the electric actuator on the front so I installed that myself. The EVB guys chose underneath the driver seat for the manual actuator and from what I can tell it is by far the best place. You could fit the front actuating lever side by side with the rear if you're going that route and it will fit just fine, however routing a manual shift cable into the cab from the front of the vehicle presents its own series of major painintheass issues.
Ultimately I decided to use OX's electric actuating system for the front. The EVB guys were kind enough to fabricate a plug for the front end housing so that I could get it home without leaking fluid all over the place until I could get the front actuator installed. The electric actuating system uses the same actuating cable as the rear, its just a lot shorter. installing the cable into the cover without removing the cover is simple but it does help to jack the front end up and remove the front tires and wheels. OX has a video on their website that explains the cable install and it is spot on. Also, the crappy plastic, skid guard thing needs to come off so you have some room to work. Once the cable was installed I had to come up with a place to mount the electric actuator itself. I know that sounds like the cart before the horse but having the cable installed first lets you get an idea of where you actually need to place the actuator because the cable can't have any sharp bends or kinks in order for it to work properly. Ultimately the best location I could come up with was forward of the front end attached to the frame crossmember just below the front bumper. If I can somehow get my pictures uploaded the location I'm referring to will be quite clear. After A LOT of looking I'm convinced that this is the only viable location for the actuating unit. It is up and out of the way, doesn't interfere with anything, and still allows for the installation of an aftermarket front bumper.
After the install of the electric actuator I had to route the electric cable into the cab without it coming near the exhaust which was a bit of a trick. I ultimately ran the wiring in line with other existing wiring and entered the cab through the rubber boot of the transfer case actuating cable. This worked like a champ and looks like it came from the factory. Once in the cab I had to come up with two things, a switch mounting location and a hot lead to wire the switch to. I chose to wire the switch in line with the 12 volt power adapter that is on the lower dash above the transfer case lever. I did this first because there is plenty of wire and the switch position was dependent on where I was going to come up with a hot wire. This wire is only on when the ignition is on and should be more than enough for the actuator switch. Word of advice, getting the dash cover off in order to get to the back of this outlet is a painintheass and the factory wiring is incredibly short. I ended up having to splice in a few extra inches of wire just to be able to have some room to work. After I got this wired and the dash cover back in place I had to come up with a switch mounting location. In my experience it was much easier to find a mounting location prior to wiring the ground. I chose to mount the switch on the left side of the dash, next to the steering wheel and above the speaker. Again, after extensive looking this seems to me to be by far the easiest and most convenient place to mount the switch. The dash is made of soft touch material and I was able to cut the hole for the switch with a box knife. Once the whole is cut the switch just presses into place and then the wires are connected to it from the backside. In order to access this side I had to remove a dash panel that is on the side of the dash next to the door. From there the ground wire can come straight down and attach to a grounding post that is on the left side of the cab towards the bottom. This worked great and the wires look clean and are out of the way.
The switch itself does bring up an issue that has to be fixed. There is no cover for the switch. If you were driving down the road and managed to bump the switch then the front actuator would lock up at highway speeds. Thats a recipe for disaster but I did manage to find an easy fix that actually looks pretty damn cool. I used an altoids tin to cover the switch. First I pulled the switch back out because the tin has to go on first and then the switch has to be inserted into it. Then I cut a hole in the tin that is roughly the same size as the switch, this doesn't have to be exact. I then drilled/screwed the tin to the dash with some thick sheet metal screws that I had lying around and pushed the switch back through the tin and into the dash. When the lid is closed it is impossible to actuate the switch. The tin does rattle a bit but this is easily fixed with a strip of electric tape around the rim. Now the lid opens and shots with a nice pop and there is no rattle. The switch cover/switch actually looks pretty kickass on the dash like that and now I have added yet another use to the long list of altoids tin uses. Again, if I can somehow upload some pics this will all make sense because I have pictures of all of it.
So after I installed/wired the actuator/switch I realized that even though I increased the jeeps load carrying I didn't actually increase my ability to carry more stuff because the inside of a two door wrangler is pretty small. I usually run with no backseats but that still leaves precious little area for all of the crap I plan to lug around. The only solution in my mind was to install a roof rack. After a lot of searching I settled on the Garvin Industries wilderness expedition rack. I would have rather had the Gobi racks that you can buy through Shrockworks but christ almigty they are expensive. The Garvin racks have some solid reviews and they can hold 500 pounds statically and 300 pounds dynamically. That works for me. The install is pretty straight forward but it does require drilling into the body which sucks. Also, two people are required to put the rack on top unless you are freakishly strong and have freakishly long arms. The rack seems to be good quality. Its sure as hell heavy. A word of advice, DON'T try to use the tilting function in order to take the hard top off. It doesn't work, plain and simple. Its a gimmick and maybe in some alternate universe there is enough room to remove the top with that thing tilted back but from my experience it is much, much easier to just unbolt and remove the top rack and then remove the top. Either way you need two people. I tried taking the top off with the rack tilted back and all I ended up with was a scratched jeep and a cracked fiberglass hardtop. The scratch is fixed but the gouge in the top is not and if you are an anal SOB like myself this is going to infuriate you. A lot. Also, if anybody decides to buy one of these things do yourself a favor and also buy the wind deflector. This thing makes an incredible amount of road noise and it has a serious impact on fuel economy. I haven't tried the deflector yet but I plan to. Not having it doesn't make the rack a dealbreaker but it definitely needs that deflector. I also bought the hi-lift mount for the rack and it is a solid product. My hi-lift rattles like crazy but the mount is solid. Just don't try to drive into an enclosed parking garage because there is a good chance its going to hang up with the hi-lift mounted. Thats me speaking from experience. My wife looooved that mall trip.
Anyway, for now that is all I've been able to accomplish. I did have a dual battery kit that I planned to install with two diehard platinum batteries but due to the EPIC failure of benchmark designs that will not be happening. Benchmark Designs is quite possibly thee worst aftermarket accessory company that has ever existed. Do not go near them, you are actually better off setting your money on fire vice giving it to Benchmark Designs. I'm actually about to take legal action against the company and I seriously seriously would not piss on this company to put out the fire even if it was burning right in front of me and I had a just consumed a 12 pack and had the serious urge to piss. Jesus that company is worthless.
If anyone wants some pics of anything I will be more than happy to e-mail them. I'm fairly computer illiterate and I can't seem to get them to upload so let me know if you want them. Also, since I can't do the dual battery install I have an extra brand new Diehard PM2 group 34 battery. This is the same battery as an Odyssey pc1500 its just rebranded. Let me know if you want it and we can make some sort of deal.
I started off by adding the 17" wheels and tires from a Rubicon because I could pick them up for cheap and they were brand new. I didn't want anything taller than that and I don't intend on lifting it much beyond stock, kinda going for a pseudo expedition style rig. Since the Tires and wheels I bought didn't have TPMS sensors and I didn't want the sensors anyway I bought an AEV procal and disabled the TPMS system and adjusted for the larger tire size. This thing worked like a charm and it has loads of features so I keep it in my glove box now all of the time. With the new tires the jeep actually looks like a jeep so I'm satisfied.
Like I said I'm going for sort of an expedition styled vehicle so the next mod on my list was to somehow increase the load carrying without seriously increasing the vehicle height and without killing the on-highway ride. Stock JK load carrying is only 1000 pounds and with a few people and aftermarket parts your squatting the jeep pretty hard. The thing about the 1000 pound limit though, I doubt very seriously that it has anything to do with the drivetrains ability to handle more weight, I just think the springs/shocks are not up to the task. The front/rear end are more than capable of handling a little more weight so I tried a frankenstein approach to increasing load carrying. I installed a new set of springs that came off of a new Rubicon unlimited. This alone should increase load carrying buy about 500 pounds because the two door JK is a good deal lighter than the four door. I paired the Rubi unlimited springs with Old Man Emu shocks all the way around. The end result exceeded my expectations. I ended up with 1" of lift in the rear and 1 and 1/4" in the front. The front end lift slightly leveled out the front end with the rear. The forward rake that is on all new JK's is still there but it is reduced so I'm not destroying gas mileage and I did get the slight lift and extra load carrying. Ride quality on highway is actually greatly improved over stock which was a bit of a surprise given that the Rubi springs are taller/stiffer than the originals. Since I didn't use the new springs with the existing shocks I can't say for sure why the ride improvement is there but I am assuming that the OME shocks are the primary cause. Either way I'm pleased.
After the suspension mod I wanted to insure that I would have the greatest amount of traction possible and lucky for me I had front and rear OX lockers left over from my CJ project. They were brand new and OX was kind enough to switch out both units for their JK equivalent. I can't say enough about how awesome OX's customer service was/is, they offered a lot of advice and help and I truly appreciated it. I didn't have the time/tools to do the install of the lockers so instead I took the Jeep to Extreme Vehicle Builders out of Danbury, CT. They installed both the front and rear lockers but they only setup the actuating lever for the rear. I wanted to try the electric actuator on the front so I installed that myself. The EVB guys chose underneath the driver seat for the manual actuator and from what I can tell it is by far the best place. You could fit the front actuating lever side by side with the rear if you're going that route and it will fit just fine, however routing a manual shift cable into the cab from the front of the vehicle presents its own series of major painintheass issues.
Ultimately I decided to use OX's electric actuating system for the front. The EVB guys were kind enough to fabricate a plug for the front end housing so that I could get it home without leaking fluid all over the place until I could get the front actuator installed. The electric actuating system uses the same actuating cable as the rear, its just a lot shorter. installing the cable into the cover without removing the cover is simple but it does help to jack the front end up and remove the front tires and wheels. OX has a video on their website that explains the cable install and it is spot on. Also, the crappy plastic, skid guard thing needs to come off so you have some room to work. Once the cable was installed I had to come up with a place to mount the electric actuator itself. I know that sounds like the cart before the horse but having the cable installed first lets you get an idea of where you actually need to place the actuator because the cable can't have any sharp bends or kinks in order for it to work properly. Ultimately the best location I could come up with was forward of the front end attached to the frame crossmember just below the front bumper. If I can somehow get my pictures uploaded the location I'm referring to will be quite clear. After A LOT of looking I'm convinced that this is the only viable location for the actuating unit. It is up and out of the way, doesn't interfere with anything, and still allows for the installation of an aftermarket front bumper.
After the install of the electric actuator I had to route the electric cable into the cab without it coming near the exhaust which was a bit of a trick. I ultimately ran the wiring in line with other existing wiring and entered the cab through the rubber boot of the transfer case actuating cable. This worked like a champ and looks like it came from the factory. Once in the cab I had to come up with two things, a switch mounting location and a hot lead to wire the switch to. I chose to wire the switch in line with the 12 volt power adapter that is on the lower dash above the transfer case lever. I did this first because there is plenty of wire and the switch position was dependent on where I was going to come up with a hot wire. This wire is only on when the ignition is on and should be more than enough for the actuator switch. Word of advice, getting the dash cover off in order to get to the back of this outlet is a painintheass and the factory wiring is incredibly short. I ended up having to splice in a few extra inches of wire just to be able to have some room to work. After I got this wired and the dash cover back in place I had to come up with a switch mounting location. In my experience it was much easier to find a mounting location prior to wiring the ground. I chose to mount the switch on the left side of the dash, next to the steering wheel and above the speaker. Again, after extensive looking this seems to me to be by far the easiest and most convenient place to mount the switch. The dash is made of soft touch material and I was able to cut the hole for the switch with a box knife. Once the whole is cut the switch just presses into place and then the wires are connected to it from the backside. In order to access this side I had to remove a dash panel that is on the side of the dash next to the door. From there the ground wire can come straight down and attach to a grounding post that is on the left side of the cab towards the bottom. This worked great and the wires look clean and are out of the way.
The switch itself does bring up an issue that has to be fixed. There is no cover for the switch. If you were driving down the road and managed to bump the switch then the front actuator would lock up at highway speeds. Thats a recipe for disaster but I did manage to find an easy fix that actually looks pretty damn cool. I used an altoids tin to cover the switch. First I pulled the switch back out because the tin has to go on first and then the switch has to be inserted into it. Then I cut a hole in the tin that is roughly the same size as the switch, this doesn't have to be exact. I then drilled/screwed the tin to the dash with some thick sheet metal screws that I had lying around and pushed the switch back through the tin and into the dash. When the lid is closed it is impossible to actuate the switch. The tin does rattle a bit but this is easily fixed with a strip of electric tape around the rim. Now the lid opens and shots with a nice pop and there is no rattle. The switch cover/switch actually looks pretty kickass on the dash like that and now I have added yet another use to the long list of altoids tin uses. Again, if I can somehow upload some pics this will all make sense because I have pictures of all of it.
So after I installed/wired the actuator/switch I realized that even though I increased the jeeps load carrying I didn't actually increase my ability to carry more stuff because the inside of a two door wrangler is pretty small. I usually run with no backseats but that still leaves precious little area for all of the crap I plan to lug around. The only solution in my mind was to install a roof rack. After a lot of searching I settled on the Garvin Industries wilderness expedition rack. I would have rather had the Gobi racks that you can buy through Shrockworks but christ almigty they are expensive. The Garvin racks have some solid reviews and they can hold 500 pounds statically and 300 pounds dynamically. That works for me. The install is pretty straight forward but it does require drilling into the body which sucks. Also, two people are required to put the rack on top unless you are freakishly strong and have freakishly long arms. The rack seems to be good quality. Its sure as hell heavy. A word of advice, DON'T try to use the tilting function in order to take the hard top off. It doesn't work, plain and simple. Its a gimmick and maybe in some alternate universe there is enough room to remove the top with that thing tilted back but from my experience it is much, much easier to just unbolt and remove the top rack and then remove the top. Either way you need two people. I tried taking the top off with the rack tilted back and all I ended up with was a scratched jeep and a cracked fiberglass hardtop. The scratch is fixed but the gouge in the top is not and if you are an anal SOB like myself this is going to infuriate you. A lot. Also, if anybody decides to buy one of these things do yourself a favor and also buy the wind deflector. This thing makes an incredible amount of road noise and it has a serious impact on fuel economy. I haven't tried the deflector yet but I plan to. Not having it doesn't make the rack a dealbreaker but it definitely needs that deflector. I also bought the hi-lift mount for the rack and it is a solid product. My hi-lift rattles like crazy but the mount is solid. Just don't try to drive into an enclosed parking garage because there is a good chance its going to hang up with the hi-lift mounted. Thats me speaking from experience. My wife looooved that mall trip.
Anyway, for now that is all I've been able to accomplish. I did have a dual battery kit that I planned to install with two diehard platinum batteries but due to the EPIC failure of benchmark designs that will not be happening. Benchmark Designs is quite possibly thee worst aftermarket accessory company that has ever existed. Do not go near them, you are actually better off setting your money on fire vice giving it to Benchmark Designs. I'm actually about to take legal action against the company and I seriously seriously would not piss on this company to put out the fire even if it was burning right in front of me and I had a just consumed a 12 pack and had the serious urge to piss. Jesus that company is worthless.
If anyone wants some pics of anything I will be more than happy to e-mail them. I'm fairly computer illiterate and I can't seem to get them to upload so let me know if you want them. Also, since I can't do the dual battery install I have an extra brand new Diehard PM2 group 34 battery. This is the same battery as an Odyssey pc1500 its just rebranded. Let me know if you want it and we can make some sort of deal.
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