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Project Heepster Build Thread ('67 Jeepster)

Nice, well good to have a solid backup plan now it looks like. I just picked up the transmission last week, so as soon as I get some time to get it roughly in place I’ll double check this. Looks like I’ll likely be swapping the mount based on your pictures. Thanks for the heads up!
 
To make it easier to roll around the garage and maneuver everything, I wanted to get the bump stops in so it would be simple to drop it down all the way without resting it on the links. It also is going to make getting the engine and everything else in as I’ll just leave it at full bump to make sure everything clears.

pretty tight on the clearance especially on the passenger side, but there wasn’t too much room to move it when accounting for the coil over location. Once I get the coils in I might try and move the bump stops back a little bit, but for now they work. They’ll also be getting some real support plates attached Eventually, but since I might be moving them anyway i didn’t want to overdo anything.
 

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With the bump stops in it was time to get the coil mounts started. I picked up some 12” shock mounts from ruffstuff and they look like they’ll work perfectly. The upper mounts were super easy, notch the ruffstuff towers slightly and get them placed where I think everything will clear.
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The lower ones were a little more complicated. I really just needed to make a good spot for some tabs to mount, but with the minimal clearance between the track bar, bump stop, coilover stackup it left the lower coil mounts right over the lower link mounts. Luckily, when I ordered the brackets from Barnes they sent me a set of brackets that were both left side. they were quick to send another set with the correct orientation, so I ended up with a couple extra brackets. I just flipped those over, notched them to the axle tube and welded them in place to give myself a nice platform for some tabs
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did that on both side and now I have a spot for upper and lower tabs for the coilovers. Once I actually get them I’ll get the tabs in place and check all the clearances. Time to turn attention to finishing up steering.
 
For steering, I decided to go with a ruffstuff 1 ton tie rod kit and just convert the super duty knuckles to gm taper. Wasn’t sure if this was even going to work, but I had the reamer from a friend who used it on his ZJ (and then my XJ, and then a buddies xj, it’s been around the block lol), so I figured I’d give it a shot. It turned out pretty well! Just a little bit of grinding on the knuckle to clear the tie rod end on the drivers side as I tapered it slightly too deep, but no big deal its got plenty of meat left.

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The main requirement though, was having a low clearance diff cover. I picked up one of the new cast super duty 60 covers from Barnes and that thing was pretty stout. Very impressed with he quality, and it was just enough clearance to run a straight tie rod and not collide with the diff cover.

For the drag link, after flexing the passenger side up I realized that it was going to be limiting factor in flex when it hit the frame if i ran a straight link. I was trying to make sure that my track bar and drag link were perfectly in line and since the track bar sits up high to help with the roll center, the drag link had to go high as well, hence the high steer arm on the passenger side and the need for a bent drag link to clear the frame. I attempted to bend the tube i had (1.5” x 0.25” wall) and well, my bender wasnt up to the task to bend something that thick. So instead after some research i found the pre-bent cut-to-length drag link from WFO which ended up being perfect. Everything clears at full flex and should be more than strong enough especially with hydro assist that will go in eventually.

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That about brings it up to where I am right now. Other than the fact that I bought an engine :smokin: I haven’t actually been able to pick it up yet, but its in progress currently and ill post some more info on it once I get it. Just for reference its an L59 (flex fuel 5.3 lm7 essentially) with 90k miles or so. Once i new exactly which engine i was getting i went to a local JY and picked up a transmission. $750 got me a 06 4l60e with 110k miles. May have been able to find a better deal somewhere, but whatever I wanted a transand this was ready to go from a reputable JY near me in San Jose.

Pulled the NP241c from my dads backyard for free.99 and double checked that it was going to work with the trans like it should. Fits it ships!

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Ive since purchased a clocking ring to raise the front output up a couple inches. I’m hoping for a nice flat belly skid, we‘ll see how it goes.
 
About your upside down link mount/coilover mount.


That's fucking awesome.
Lol thanks I was pretty proud of that one. I was trying to find some convoluted way to get some 1/4” plate pieces and some tabs in there and realized I could make this way simpler and save a ton of headache.
 
That about brings it up to where I am right now. Other than the fact that I bought an engine :smokin: I haven’t actually been able to pick it up yet, but its in progress currently and ill post some more info on it once I get it. Just for reference its an L59 (flex fuel 5.3 lm7 essentially) with 90k miles or so. Once i new exactly which engine i was getting i went to a local JY and picked up a transmission. $750 got me a 06 4l60e with 110k miles. May have been able to find a better deal somewhere, but whatever I wanted a transand this was ready to go from a reputable JY near me in San Jose.

Pulled the NP241c from my dads backyard for free.99 and double checked that it was going to work with the trans like it should. Fits it ships!

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Ive since purchased a clocking ring to raise the front output up a couple inches. I’m hoping for a nice flat belly skid, we‘ll see how it goes.
minimally you'll want to install a transgo shift kit, it will boost the line pressure and protect the frictions...
 
The plan for engine install/location requires the bump stops to be a little more permanent. The goal is to just the rest the jeep at full bump while I get the powertrain assembly in so that I can be sure everything clears before welding in motor mounts and such. That means that I probably cant rely on three measly tac welds on the bump stops to support the full weight of the body + 650 lbs of engine lol.

Time for some CAD (Cardboard aided design) to get some gusset plates for the bump stops. I had to full weld in the side of the Trackbar mount on the frame as well since it will soon be covered by gusset plates. My welding isn't great, but I'm practicing more and more on things like this where if they fail it wont be catastrophic before I start in on major suspension and drivetrain mounts and things.

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Also, I'm in love with these fancy magnetic adjustable holder/clamp things. They make doing work in random places like this a lot easier:

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Also, while I was in there with a grinder and cutoff wheel I hacked out the old motor mounts (my plasma cutter was out of commission, ran out of electrodes and didnt have time to go to HF). Using a grinder SUCKS for shit like this, but oh well it at least got them out of the way. I was hoping id be able to use the original mounts as a starting point for the new motor, but after looking at pictures of other peoples LS swaps in TJ frames I realized that definitely wasn't going to work, so out they went!
 

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In other news, like I mentioned in a previous post I bought an Engine. Well, this weekend was pickup weekend since I had a Friday off :cool2:

After perusing junkyards and pricing everything out, as well as the fact that I have ZERO knowledge of engine wiring/tuning etc. I decided to leave the engine building to the experts. Compared to around my area for a JY Lm7, plus cost for a wiring harness strip down and ECM tune and everything else that needs to go into it, the cost of purchasing a turnkey motor from BDTurnkey seemed like a no brainer. And with the stage in life that I'm at, time to work on the Heepster comes at a significant sacrifice to other things going on in life. Doing all the wiring and tuning myself sounded like a huge waste of time when I've got so much other shit to do on the build.

Enter: turnkey engine from Bryan at BDTurnkey:

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This thing came with literally everything to hook it up and I couldn't be happier with the work that Bryan did. Saved me a ton of headache and time and I know it will be done right the first time.

Engine is an L59 out of a 2006 suburban with 92k miles. With the tune he put on it it should put out ~340-350hp running on 91oct. Came with all the wires labelled and even a manual for my dumbass to make sure I dont screw anything up when I go to hook up ignition and other stuff. And since it's a DBW engine he even put in a cruise control option (so fancy). Also has all the wiring necessary to just plug and play into the 4l60e I picked up a few weeks ago and even includes Tow/Haul mode.

To say I'm excited is an understatement. I even got to hear it run on his test stand before we loaded it up to bring it home.



I cant find a good drool emoji in here, but thats pretty much what I was doing when he fired it up.

Loaded her up in the truck and drove the 4 hours back home, well worth the trip to pick it up in person!
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As you may know from my previous posts, everything I'm building is in a lovely 2 car garage. No fancy ass shop for this guy. Plus, when I finish working on the rig it gets shoved to the side so my wife's car can go back in the garage. Ya, space is at a serious premium here lol. She really thought she was gonna have to give up her garage space so that I could keep the new engine inside, I told her it would fit, but she didnt believe me:

:smokin::smokin::smokin:

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Wont be here for too long though, next step is to get it mounted! Just need to convince a few friends to come over for a day or two to get it mocked up and welded in. Then the real fun begins.
 
Very nice--that oil pan is a low hanger though, so you might want to swap that guy out(that's what I'm doing), unless you've accounted for it and FYI what an LS engine builder told me is to not go with the DBW(drive by wire) because if it goes out you aren't going anywhere. I don't know how often they have issues, but I'm going cable operated(DBC).
 
Very nice--that oil pan is a low hanger though, so you might want to swap that guy out(that's what I'm doing), unless you've accounted for it and FYI what an LS engine builder told me is to not go with the DBW(drive by wire) because if it goes out you aren't going anywhere. I don't know how often they have issues, but I'm going cable operated(DBC).

Ya an oil pan is on the list of items that may be added in the future. Depending on where the transmission/transfer case end up will kind of determine that. If I can have a flat skid that goes under the case+trans that can also fit under the engine then I say screw it and ill run it as is since it wont be my limiter on ground clearance. If I cant make that happen, then a new pan is definitely on the horizon.

Its true the DBC setup would be easier to fix if something fails, but the reliability of the DBW doesn't seem that bad with as often as it's used in everything. It also has a lot of benefits being able to mess with throttle mapping and such, plus it makes adding cruise control stupid easy (it's already setup for it, just need to wire a switch in to turn it on). I'm gonna try out the DBW setup and if it fails on me ever it will get replaced, but I'm not too worried about it.
 
Electronics in cars have come a very long way, I wouldn't sweat DBW unless there are lots of reports of them failing on road-going cars :)

How big is your 2-car garage?
 
Electronics in cars have come a very long way, I wouldn't sweat DBW unless there are lots of reports of them failing on road-going cars :)

How big is your 2-car garage?
If you take a look at one of the pictures in my first couple posts you'll get an idea. Standard 2 car door with ~8-12" extra on the left side of the garage (looking in from the front). The right side benefits from the fireplace sticking into it, so it has enough room for a workbench/shelving/toolbox ~36" or so out from the wall next to the fireplace. It's also decently long since it has the washer dryer in there as well, but obviously that space gets taken up by... the washer/dryer lol

It's juuuuust enough space to get this done I think, but I constantly have to move things around when im done for the day so that we can fit 2 cars in the garage. And even then the jeep gets pushed up along the wall and the other car only has room to get out of the drivers side once its parked. She real tight.
 
Almost every new car and truck is DBW now. I wouldn't give it a second thought. The LS3 I'm putting in my Jeep is DBW. Hell, my 2001 Chevy 2500 has the 8.1L and it's DBW. That's 20 years with zero problems.
 
stay with the DBW and keep the truck pan (they hold pressure much better than the shallow pans do when you are on steep verticals). You do need to pay particular attention to keeping the motor as high a possible, this will help with up-travel link clearance, solve the truck pan clearance issue and probably help with steering shaft clearance..
 
I'm now entering the detailed planning stage of getting the engine mounted into the jeep. AKA I have no time to actually do any fab work because of work+kid+life, so I spend my days planning instead of actually doing shit. I'm hoping to get a full work day coming up shortly and I wanted to make sure I had everything to get the engine mounted in one day (along with trans as well).

Started taking measurements of where the engine is going to go, planning out what all I need to get the engine/trans together etc. I was hoping I wouldn't have to put the engine super high to keep the CG low, but link clearance + trackbar clearance + everything clearance means I'm going to end up putting it as high as it can fit and as far back as possible to the firewall. I'm not opposed to cutting the firewall either since it already has a giant hole in it from the Previous Owner, but I'm hoping to not have to go that far. It definitely does mean cutting the ever living shit out of the floor/trans tunnel since the stock trans tunnel was abysmally small.

Here's the list of shit that needs gettin' done:
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I wish I had the room to slowly assemble the engine/trans together before what I call "Engine Day", but the 2 car garage life with keeping the wife happy with her car in the garage means thats all gonna have to happen on one day. I cant even put the new headers I bought on yet, because the damn stand it sits on interferes with the new headers. Ah well, hopefully I can get enough friends to help out to where this all gets done in one day to keep the wife happy.

Picked up some motor and trans crossmember mounts from ruffstuff:
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And some headers:
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These are the LS block hugger headers that were recommended to me by Mark @SkorchFab in the Jeepster Facebook page. Him and a bunch of other guys run it on that page in their jeepsters so I figured why mess with success. Speedway Part # 9300114H. They are out of stock right now, but luckily someone else on the page had a set new in box lying around that he didn't want anymore so I snagged them up.

I'm a big fan of reaching out to expertise in areas where someone has more experience than you (in jeeps and in life).

Wanted to share more of my 2 car garage struggles, this is what the "shop" looks like when everything is back in place at the end of a night of fab. Cant wait to build a real shop one day.
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Still have room to do laundry :flipoff2:
 
Alright, the day finally came. ENGINE DAY. I wasn't expecting to be able to get this done any time soon because of the new baby, but some life circumstances kind of made it happen so that it needed to get done ASAP. We went and bought ourselves a new house! And there was no way in hell I was lugging the engine, trans, and t-case all over there separately when I have a perfectly good rolling chassis to throw it all into. Called up a few friends as there was a lot to do and I only had ONE DAY to get the engine and trans mounted so I could transport it to the new home.

Step 1: Get the powertrain assembled.

I was planning on doing this earlier so I could do it right, but didnt have the time before hand. Instead of pulling the starter, getting the trans aligned, bolting up the torque converter and bell housing bolts etc., I just threw the trans on and threw 4 bolts through the bell housing. Realized I didnt even have one of the dowel pins to align It and had to use a 7/8" bolt to get it lined up right :flipoff2:. Luckily I thought ahead and at least had the bell housing bolts so I'm not a complete idiot.

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I had also pulled the stock manifolds off as those were getting replaced with the new block huggers. Would've done this earlier too, but the stand I had it on prevented me from getting the new headers on. Luckily with the engine out this was ridiculously easy. I'm so used to working on the 4.0 I6 in my XJ I forgot how easy changing headers could be lol.

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With the new headers on and the stand removed it was time to throw on the motor mount plates from Ruffstuff:

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Only some minor notching required to clear some items on the block. Needed to use the LS aluminum style motor mounts as just a 4 hole plate wasn't going to give me enough room to clear the headers with the motor mount tubes. I plan to eventually tie the plates into some of the other holes in the motor, but for now it's just gonna be cantilevered like that.

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All assembled and ready to go in! T-Case is clocked at 20Degrees right now so it's nice and flat, we'll see how that plays out when it gets into the trans "tunnel".

Time for a lunch break
 
Next up, put this thing in place. Personally I have used a cherry picker plenty of times in life, but I'll be honest I've never actually pulled an engine with one before... which is like its main purpose. I've seen it done plenty of times so I knew the gist, but never actually done it myself so I figured I'd learn on the fly like pretty much everything else on this build. Did I mention somewhere I have no idea what I'm doing?

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Attempt #1 went poorly as expected. The fancy engine lifter thing was very handy at making it easy to tilt the full assembly back and forth as we shoved the whole thing in there. The problem is you should probably pay attention to which side the handle is on so that when you get the engine 80% of the way in and you need to tilt it more you can actually turn the damn thing :crybaby2:. That probably could've been remedied by cutting the handle off and just using a socket on the other end of the lead screw.... but then problem #2 became very obvious. Had the hoist set on 1 ton mode and it definitely did not have the reach to get the whole thing in far enough. Note the hydraulic cylinder is running into the front of the frame and we've still got 6" to go in:laughing:

Attempt #2 was much better?
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Well, at least this time its in... However I was on the passenger side and wasn't paying attention to what was on the drivers side. Which is here my spark plug wire was running into the old master cylinder on the firewall and shredding itself.
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Ah well. at least that's a cheap fix and so far has been the only casualty in the process. I'll call it a win.

Now that the whole thing was in I got to see how everything was going to clear. Jeep front end is currently set to full bump, so if it clears everything here it should be good right?

I took this photo after it was all done, but my limiting factor on height was the new headers running into the top of the 3 link. Right now the bump stop is set up 1/2" lower than it will sit when its done, so if the motor touches the 3 link now it should have ~1/2" of space at full bump. with the engine at this height, the hood JUST closes and misses the top of the plastic cover on the motor. I could've easily pulled the VORTEC cover off, but I Kina like it so I wanted to make it fit.

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Now that everything is in the right place Up/down/left/right. Time to actually make some motor mounts.
 
Unfortunately with the way the motor had to be slightly shifted to one side (~1" to the drivers side) due to the 3 link, it meant I had to ditch the coilover tower that I had tac welded on earlier when building the suspension. The power steering lines on the pump as they're configured were trying to go right through it which is obviously a problem. Later I'll either change which direction power steering lines come out (can they be bent? Idk we'll find out) or I'll just ditch the towers all together and opt for a bent tube design with some tabs. It'll probably make the engine cage build a little easier too with being tubes instead of plated towers, I just didnt have access to a tubing bender at this point. Focus was on getting the engine in, so I just cut the tower off for now and I'll deal with it later.

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On to the motor mounts. The kit I had was from Ruffstuff and it included the mount plates and some slick poly bushings that I opted to weld to the frame rail. All it needed was a tube to connect the two and we're golden.

Here's a shot from underneath of the driver side mount.
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And here's one of the passenger side from the top:
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I did my best to make sure that they were at the same angle so removing the engine isn't a major pain in the ass down the line. I think they were pretty darn close all said and done. I'll come back and full weld these later on when I have time to pull the motor back out and weld the mounts on the table. My welding skills are much less... boogery when I can weld in easy to reach places lol. I threw a ton of Tac welds on just to make myself comfortable with transporting this thing on a trailer to the new house. Luckily its only a few miles down the road on surface streets.
 
So I skipped ahead a bit to cover the motor mount stuff, but before I actually welded it all in place I needed to get the trans/T-case where I liked it. I was expecting to have to cut the shit out of the floor, but it turned out not to be as bad as I thought. My end goal was to not have the T-Case stick lower than 3" below the frame. That way I could throw a 3" drop skid plate on it and have my belly height be right around 22-23" with the 108" wheelbase I ended up with.

To get there I didnt even have to cut anything to clear the trans. The only clearances I needed were around the T-Case and thats mostly just because I clocked it up those 20 degrees. I basically pushed the T-Case up as high as I could get it without having the front driveshaft flange ear the floor. I really didnt want to have to cut a new trans tunnel AND a new tunnel for the driveshaft as well. Managed to get the T-case up to where it had just under 3" to the bottom of the frame and the driveshaft flange is like 1/4" from hitting the tub. Winner winner chicken dinner.





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The body sticks past the frame a bit so it's hard to tell, but here's how much the t-case sticks out. Eventually these rockers are going away and will get replaced with some nice new steel sliders that go right up to where the angle starts on the body below the door.

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Here's a better view underneath:

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I was hoping to get the full Trans Crossmember done with all this, but we just ran out of time in the day. To get it to the new house we just threw some square tube on the plate my friend had made on the transmission and just hard welded it to the frame bottom. It'll get us there and then I'll put the tabs+bushings+new tubes in later to finish it up before putting the skid plate on.

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I slapped the grill back on just to have it look like a jeep again. Very excited to have the engine in as now so many other things can fall into place.


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At the end of the day it's ready for transport, and the wife can still park her car in the second half of the garage :lmao:
 
looking good! What type of joint are you running at the frame end of the pan hard? Will it keep the bar from rolling side to side?
 
looking good! What type of joint are you running at the frame end of the pan hard? Will it keep the bar from rolling side to side?
Thanks! Ya the drivers side end has a dual durometer bushing from Synergy that should keep it from rotating. Figured it was a good idea with any bent link to have a solid bushing on one end instead of a rod end that will allow it to roll.
 
Well done. That's a lot of progress really fast.:beer:
Thanks! I'm lucky to have a few friends that are solid fabricators that I can trust to help out with stuff like this. I did one motor mount, one friend did another, and a third got the trans plate and cross beam in. Definitely a group effort. It's amazing how much faster things get done with extra hands.
 
Now that the engine is in, SO MANY THINGS CAN HAPPEN. A little overwhelming, but gotta start somewhere.

To this point I was waiting on ordering Coilovers until I had confirmed that 1. the engine was actually gonna fit with the suspension I had designed. and 2. I had a weight distribution that actually included the engine and trans in it. I figured the rest of the crap that's gonna go on the jeep I can estimate how much it'll weigh and where it will affect the distribution, but that I definitely needed to get the engine in first before that.


So, I had a free night last week to get this thing up on some scales! Conveniently a friend of mine at work had purchased some scales for his track car awhile back. He told me I could use them as much as I want as long as I stored them at my house since he didnt have the room. Sounds like a win-win to me!

Dropped the rear end onto the bump stops to even out the height and got the scales ready. Doing this by yourself is a royal PITA I will say, especially when you cant just drive the thing up onto the scales. Had to lift it up, put it on jack stands, then lower it back down onto the scales. (We wont talk about how I forgot to chalk the wheels the first time and it rolled off the scales and almost squashed me up against the washer/dryer) :idea:

Looks pretty slick as a low rider :lmao:
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Here's the results as it sits:
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Front distribution:
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Rear:
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Now, this obviously doesn't include a TON of shit thats going to go on this thing before it is drivable, but its definitely a good starting point. For the rest of it, I made a spreadsheet to total it all up:
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Anything I'm missing?? Any weights that are totally off that you think I should update? I tried to keep it to heavy-is things. Obviously I will have even more than this to put on, but is this a solid starting point?

LMK what y'all think! Probably gonna order up some coilovers in the next month or so after the move to the new house (We get keys tomorrow :eek:)
 

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Great looking progress on this thing. All these Jeepster builds got me tempted to get a new project.
 
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