Past Projects
In the fall of 2001 Ryan and I started assembling and modifying cars together. All started in different forms, some from scratch, others from near full build requiring only tweaking and tuning. Nevertheless, all of these cars have been ours… we have a tendency to go through a lot: lots that never even made mention here, and some that I spent hours writing and thinking about. It is some form of A.D.D…. really. In the first few years after we teamed up, neither of us managed to make it through a single season with one car. They came and went. Mostly it was because we liked to dream, but it was also partly because there was always someone willing to buy. Cash just looks so good.
Note: These charts are for fun. Don’t confuse them for us being hard core and bad ass. Check it out.
We all want to be fabricators extraordinare. Custom stuff adds so much to your car life. My problem is that because I have a few tools, I feel like I can do stuff that I really can't. Wife and I are heading off on a week long road trip tonight, and given the amount of driving we'll be doing, and the inadequacy of the factory head lights I thought it was important to add some auxillary driving lights. My past experience with driving lights has been... not that exciting. Everything I've ever bought has left me wondering... upon turning them on... if I had in fact turned them on. So this time around, I bought the biggest lights I could find... and afford. That meant some 7" 100W units that I found at Princess Auto... for... $50. Meh. The other lights I've had have all been 55W or 80W so... hopefully these do the trick. But where could I mount such big lights? They could have easily been mounted in the stock position, in front of the grill, but... given there gigantic size[...]
What have a really said about my ZJ? It's been good... I like it. I'm not entirely fond of it though. Ryan bought a YJ shortly after I bought my Jeep... and it's been a total nightmare, breaking every other week, catching on fire, causing serious bodily harm to it's owner. Apparently it's a Jeep thing. I guess... in someways I get it. I think I may have been living in denial. I've been telling myself that Ryan's nightmare YJ was not a nightmare because it was a JEEP engineered and built in America, but rather because it was a modified, well driven trail rig. After all... I've owned my JEEP for the better part of a year now, and the only work I've done on it has been typical maintenance: tires, fluid changes etc. But now... almost a year in, I can see a LOONNG list of items piling up. The transfer case has never been perfect. The shift linkage actually broke shortly after I bought the truck. It has never gone smoothly in and out of High/Low. I've fixed the linkage, adjusted the linkage, changed the TC oil... and still no luck. Apparently it's not uncommon... likely a result of the wrong fluid being used for a very long time. As we all know... your local repair shop is full of hacks and lazy asses. I know how it works... they only stock one kind of transmission oil. [...]
Hit an easy trail close to the house today. It was fun. Apparently I was slow. Jeep worked ok. Definitely could have done it without the new tires. Nice to get out and experience soft tires and mud.
This is the same road that gave us a 4hr recovery about a month ago. And an hour and a half recovery just last weekend. Warm weather has melted the snow. No recovery needed.
If I called anyone out... it would be an entire population of forum dwellers
31" tires apparently DON'T fit on stock ZJ's. Any forum will tell you that a minimum 2" lift is required, in addition to longer bumpstops... but even then trimming of the front bumper will be needed. This seemed a little bit stupid to me. After all... the Toyota's all fit 33's without any noteworthy trimming, YJ's and TJ's the same... and a lot of newer trucks have no problems with 35's. 31's are peanuts. They are the bare minimum for trail running. Sure you can buy 30's... [...]
lol, sweet tuck… bro