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TJ Camping Rig / Mild Trail Wheeler

crazybluerider

Squirrel!
Joined
Jun 1, 2020
Member Number
1720
Messages
502
Loc
Portland
It's probably time I got a thread going on this thing. The build has started now that my buggy is operational. It's a 2005 TJ that I purchased a little over a year ago to use as a tow behind when we go camping, I've also been doing some exploration type wheeling and camping in it. It's a 4.0l auto jeep and had around 75k miles at time of purchase, despite being a salvage title rig it's in really good shape. I was able to confirm that the total was because the front axle was bent and the front link mounts on the frame were damaged in a minor front end collision. No damage to the actual frame or tub.

I'll be building this with the intention of having a fairly capable trail wheeler while retaining good road manners and the ability for it to be flat towed.

This is the day it followed me home.
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The first thing I did was get a winch bumper built for it and take it out for a summer work party with my club. Two other guys had also recently purchased stockish wheelers and we had an absolute blast wheeling open rigs with 31-33's, one other TJ and a grand cherokee.

After that trip I discovered that the mismatched lift kit that included 4" teraflex springs, 6" rough country shocks, a huge drop pitman arm, and various other parts was doing some super funky crap. I acquired a set of OME 2" springs and rancho 5000x shock in the correct length to get that sorted out. I left the pitman arm because I knew I had a solution for that coming. Pics below show before and after spring swap. I also swapped out the super worn out soft top with a new bestop.
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The next big hurdle was getting the salvage title converted to a rebuilt title, or so I thought. All my prior experience with that was in WA, turns out in Oregon you show up and tell them its rebuilt, they check the vin and issue a title. I was super shocked to find this out. I did have a little issue getting it through emissions because the cats were completely smoked. A new set of cats and we were on our way. Then I took it on its first camping trip as a tow behind. The wife and I spent a week out on the Washington coast using it for running around all over the place. It worked out awesome for that. It was really nice to have it behind the camper and not have to deal with a trailer in the campground.

We used it for some more light wheeling and RV camping over the summer.

I have to admit this setup makes me feel like an old person. :lmao:

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Short springs and long shocks all day man! I remember doing that when I was young, order up a 3” lift and put 5” lift shocks on it, my Cherokee springs would fall out all the time, thought I was the coolest kid in the woods. :lmao:
 
When I finished up the buggy last fall I decided it was a good time to get this build going. In late December I pulled it in for an oil change and the axles fell out. :laughing: I had been searching for parts for most of the last year get rid of the toothpick 35 rear axle and getting the super bent front axle out of the rig. After looking at several options I scored a waggoneer front 44 and an Isuzu rear 44 for good deals and decided on using them in this rig. Suspension will be converted to triangulated 4 link rear and 3 link front in a "mid arm" ish setup. The rear didn't really need to be changed but I dislike panhard bars in rear suspension and I wanted to gain a little wheel base, the front did need to be swapped because one of the mounts was basically torn off the frame. I also managed to find a hard top for winter fun at a decent price. Before removing everything I test fit the front fenders. It is crazy how much extra room is gained with a set of highlines.



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Short springs and long shocks all day man! I remember doing that when I was young, order up a 3” lift and put 5” lift shocks on it, my Cherokee springs would fall out all the time, thought I was the coolest kid in the woods. :lmao:
Yeah, the real fun part was the rear had stock shocks on it so there was 0 down travel. That was fun too. Made it ride super good on the forest roads. :barf:
 
The next thing to do was get the axles cleaned up and prepped with the new mounts. Then getting the suspension set up and tacked in. Most of the link brackets and mounts were acquired from Barnes 4x4. I really like their front coil bracket for the axle, It makes setting the factory TJ stuff up really easy. Links have johnny joints to keep the road noise down. I moved the rear axle back until the diff cover was just a hair from rubbing the fuel tank and snuck the front foward around an inch. This can be done without having to relocating the frame brackets. While i had it in the air I installed a UCF extra clearance skid plate.

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I've spent the last couple weekends getting the steering dialed in and installing sway bars. The steering box had a ton of slop in it and was leaking from the sector shaft, maybe form the wreck, maybe from Mercedes?:laughing: The steering pump was leaking from the front seal as well. So I decided the most logical course of action for this rig I swore I was going to keep on a budget was PSC's bolt on big bore box and hot rod pump. :homer:

PSC also make a pretty cool cooler mount that installs in front of the radiator in place of the grill v. It mounts two plate and fin style coolers so that I can get some additional cooling for the trans as well as a way overkill sized cooler for the steering.

I also got the tires on and cycled everything to make sure the axles were going to work where they were set. The rear rubs a bunch on the factory flairs but they are going away. The rear will be getting Genright flairs to match the front along with AL corner armor. I'm trying to use AL as much as possible on this rig in an effort to keep it fairly light. I did opt for steel for the rocker guards though.

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This weekend I went to work on getting the exhaust around the new suspension in the rear. I have a bunch of take off stainless at work from replacing stolen cat converter, it all happens to be 2.5" stainless mandrel bent. So I grabbed a couple pieces of that out of the scrap bin and went to work. V-bands and a new muffler to complete the job. I decided to leave the tail pipe pretty short since I've seen a few of these have the exhaust bent up pretty bad offroad. It is really hard to find a good place for the tailpipe to route around the tank and shock. Outboarded shocks could make this a whole bunch easier. I managed to get the muffler fully in the skid so it is well protected. With that complete the axles are ready to come back out for final welding.

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While I had the skid out I figured I should make a modification that needed to be handled. This UCF low pro skid does not clear the trans pan on the 42rle. They do warn you about this when you buy it and I will be bolting in a engine skid that completely covers the modified section so I do not think that the loss of strength from removing the bend is of concern.

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More pictures and story of assembly to follow but after a 3 week monster thrash fest I got this thing all together and out on the trails this weekend. I worked very well and drives awesome out on the highway as well, which was important to this build. The combination of OME springs and rancho 5000x shocks rides very nice on the road and on the trail. The 5.38's seem to be perfect for 35's and the deep overdrive of the 42rle. It's very happy at 70 on the highway and holds overdrive well all the way down to 45-50 for cruising backroads without a bunch of hunting like it did with the stock gears.

Well, it went good, other than breaking the transfer case... The chain started slipping about halfway through the trail. I managed to get it out in 2wd without too much issue so it didn't really ruin the trip or anything.

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The next thing to do was get the axles cleaned up and prepped with the new mounts. Then getting the suspension set up and tacked in. Most of the link brackets and mounts were acquired from Barnes 4x4. I really like their front coil bracket for the axle, It makes setting the factory TJ stuff up really easy. Links have johnny joints to keep the road noise down. I moved the rear axle back until the diff cover was just a hair from rubbing the fuel tank and snuck the front foward around an inch. This can be done without having to relocating the frame brackets. While i had it in the air I installed a UCF extra clearance skid plate.

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Little late to the party here - the build has turned out awesome.

What link separation, length, etc. are you running?
 
So some recap photos from getting it to it's current state. Getting the axles installed. I was able to reuse the factory front lines by just drilling the center of the banjo 7/16. There are also some shots of how close the front axle is to everything at full bump. I managed to squeeze just a hair under 6" of up travel in with a 2" spring.


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Then it was time to get the armor and fenders installed. I opted to use blank rear corners since I have a non standard amount of stretch in the rear. Most options are for 0" stretch or 4". I landed somewhere around or just under 3". These are 3" flairs from genright. All fenders and corners are AL in the interest of trying to keep this thing as light as possible. I did opt for steel rocker protection though as they will probably see enough abuse that AL may have been an issue, that seemed like a good place to spend some weight.

I'm super happy I went with 3", I almost bought the 6" flairs when I was doing the original measuring on the axles but after seeing the amount of stick out I have I'm really happy with it. Not full coverage but close enough that I think the police will leave me alone while having enough stick out to keep the fenders off trees for the most part.

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Then it was on to getting the underhood stuff to fit. I wanted to run a stock air box, but they don't bolt in with genright's inner fenders. With a little creative cutting and a nut zert on the fender I was able to get it to fit. It's no longer water tight on the bottom but I'm OK with that in this rig. I used genright's kit for mounting the battery in the stock location. I was running out of time so the power steering res got zip tied to the grill strut and sent. That has been fixed now. I also got the compressor mounted under the hood using a cool bracket from MORE. I really like where it puts it over the engine and uses a wasted piece of space so that I have room on the inner fenders for other things.

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That catches up to pre trip status. This week and last weekend I started buttoning up some of the unfinished stuff. I lowered the power steering res into the fender a little to get it below the hood, installed a new used transfer case with a Novak super short output and new OEM chain, and got the washer fluid bottle located.

With a little creativity I managed to get the factory washer bottle to fit down next to the brake booster. At first it sat fairly high and was very close to the hood. I used a heat gun to bend it a little next to the booster and got it sat down pretty low in the hole.

The t-case that was in the jeep when I bought it had a standard length SYE and the rear shaft was binding just a hair at full droop. So I decided to install a super shorty to gain a little more length. The shaft is now 19.5" at ride height which is much more comfortable and actually could accommodate around 2" more inches of droop.

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