Hunt's Debadged RME TJ

Owners Name & City- Hunt, Carmel , NY

Make, Model & Year of Vehicle- Jeep, TJ 1997

Engine- 2003 5.3L LM7 from a truck, LS1 Oil Pan, ECU re-flashed for 325 HP and 375 Ft lbs of torque, Sanderson Headers with 2.5” collectors and 3” exhaust with Magnaflow muffler, Aluminum radiator with 2 speed Taurus electric fan,

Transmission- TH 350 (recently rebuilt and resealed!) with full manual valve body & engine brake, Summit Racing 12” 2000 RPM stall converter, Art Carr shifter, Spal transmission cool, Advanced Adaptors, deep extra capacity aluminum transmission pan,

T-Case- Advanced AdaptorsAtlas II with 4.3 to 1 ratio, 32 spline outputs front and rear, Roark Fab Atlas mount

Axles- Rear- Dana 60 with 40 spline Mark Williams 1.75” shafts, 5.13 gears, spool and disc brakes, Tera HD diff. cover, Width=62”, 1.5” spacers at both wheels, TeraFlex axle bridge truss,
Front- Tera CRD60, Dodge Kingpin Knuckles with chromo shafts, 5.13 gears, ARB locker, 35 spline outers(not chromo) and Warn Premium hubs, crane diff cover, Width=64”, Full hydraulic steering with single-ended ram, PCS pump and Appleton power steering cooler/reservoir/filter, 83” wide from the outside of the tire to the outside of the tire,


Suspension- TeraFlex longarm LCG for an Unlimited Wrangler, Rear coil buckets have been moved back 11”, wheel base is 104”, 3” of suspension lift, 1” body lift under the tub but not under the radiator shell, TeraFlex Dual Rate S/T swaybar, BTF coil mounting kit, Custom from 3 link with the upper link built using lower components, TeraFlex Belly-Up 1/4” t-case skid plate,

Wheels and Tires- 17”x9” Cragar Soft 8 steel black wheels, 5 total, 3” back spacing, 6 on 5.5 lug pattern, Staun internal beadlocks @ 30 psi, 40x13.5x17 Maxxis Creepy Crawlers DOT compound running 6 psi rear and 8 psi in the front,

Winch- Warn M8000

Body Modifications and Protection- BTF Crusher Corner Comp Cut rear quarter panels with LED rear brake lights, BTF Rocker Protection, Highline hood, Ben Hank’s Racing custom front fender raised for more tire clearance, Custom Ben Hank’s Racing roll cage tied to the frame in 6 places, BTF front bumper with d-rings, BTF winch plate,

Favorite Trails- Hell’s Revenge and Hell’s Gate Moab, UT

Other-Summit Machine aluminum fairlead (I need to get a synthetic rope or switch to a roller fairlead), Orbial battery, Corbeau Ultra SS seats tied to the roll cage, RCI seat harnesses, Custom 15 gallon fuel cell behind the rear seat built by Ben at Alliance Metal Works in SLC with a Napa P5000 pump, Bestop Super Top with soft doors, Bestop Bikini Top, AutoMeter white face Hotrod style gauges,

 

[Hunt]

Here is a little better picture of what happens when a big orange YJ drops off a big rock right onto a leaf spring.

 

[Hunt]

The bolts from Blue Torch Fab came in. $39.00 for 12 bolts, unreal. Not real happy with that. The AC bracket and the rest of the bolts came in from Chevrolet. So now I have all the major components to put air conditioning back in the Jeep. I cut a 3/16” plate to go over the gap between the tail gate and the bumper. It’s too big to fit in my oven (I have a home power coat gun) so I will not power coat it, just paint it. I found a place to get all the stuff to do the Speedo hook up (Nevada Speedometer). I just have to measure for the cable length. I have decided to move the PCM bracket and to the dodge master cylinder. Mostly because I bought it and can’t take it back. I am STILL waiting on the cutting brake and parking brake line lock form Poly Performance. I called and they said they are back ordered on the blue handle. Not really that big of a deal right now. I have other things to peck away at.

Greg, everyone loves the Jeep. It gets a great response from everyone that sees it. I have pictures up on another east coast site from last weekend. I even had a guy comment that he saw it on Pirate. You should be very proud.

 

[Greg]

Good to hear Clayton, it really is one hell of a rig. I'm glad it's working well for you out there. That's too bad about the rear shocks! They held up to a few trips out for me, but I was being as careful as possible. Get those air bumps on there ASAP and forget about the problem!

I think you're right about learning the Jeep, it took me a few trips before I had a good feel for how it would react to certain situations. I think for the most part it will stay tires-down unless you get real stupid with it.

BTW... I got your text the other day, but it looks like whatever you had attached got left out because it was too big.

 

[cannoncrawler]

I think you're right about learning the Jeep, it took me a few trips before I had a good feel for how it would react to certain situations. I think for the most part it will stay tires-down unless you get real stupid with it.

I only got to wheel with ya once, but I was ultra impressed with how stable it was here:

Clayton, its good to see the rig getting used! keep it up!

 

[Hunt]

Picked up a few more things

I bought a purple tote for $1000 and it came with a Miller Syncrowave 180 SD Tig welder. The welder is like brand new. It came with all the accessories and two bottles of Argon.
I also started on the filler panel for under the tailgate and picked up the AC compressor bracket.

 

[Hunt]

Zack from A to Z Fabrication sent me some pictures of the radiator hoop/stinger in progress. The bottom plate (mocked in blue tape) will be 3/16”plate and the winch fairlead will mount to it.

 

[Greg]

That's a good looking grill hoop!

 

[LT.]

That's a good looking grill hoop!

x2!

Lt.

 

[Hunt]

Finally got my parts form Poly Performance 3 days short of a month from the order date. They are nice parts but the cutting brake isn't the one I ordered. The invoice is correct but the part isn't. I wanted a two in two out single handle brake. I got a single in two out double handle. The funny thing is that the double handle is actually $10 less and I got charged for the single handle! Nothing like getting screwed and sending things coast to coast.

 

[Hunt]

So there has been a little progress on the Jeep.
The front bumper is finished.
5-point harness tabs are in.
Computer bracket is moved. Now I can work on the Dodge MC upgrade and install the cutting brake and line lock. Oh, wait the correct cutting brake still has not shown up form Poly Performance. 6 weeks now I think I have been fighting with Poly.
Anyway, tabs are welded on the c pillars for the high lift jack. The jack will not be there all the time but I needed some place mount it securely when it is with me.
Oh and one more, I added some triangulation to the cage and added 2 more bars on each side.
The air bumps came in this week and those will be going on shortly.
I picked up synthetic line for the winch, and a PowerTank mounting bracket for my CO2 tank. I’m not sure where I am going to mount the tank yet.
I’m trying to keep the whole low center of gravity theme going. I got to looking at the whole project the other day and I am thinking I may move the battery to the back as well to help with the front to rear weight bias. While I’m at it I may do a dual battery setup??? I picked up a few more tool including a tire siper and 4 dimple dies. Should prove interesting.
I’ll get some better pictures up soon.

 

[Hunt]

A few pictures of the 5 point harnesses

More new pictures added on the last post of page 2

 

[Herzog]

Looking great! thanks for keeping us updated.

 

[Hunt]

A few more parts showed up today from different vendors. 100' of (edited) 3/8" synthetic winch line and finally the correct cutting brake came in from Poly Performance.

 

[I Lean]

A few more parts showed up today from different vendors. 100' of 5/8" synthetic winch line and finally the correct cutting brake came in from Poly Performance.

5/16" rope maybe? (5/8" would be huge)

 

[Hunt]

3/8"

 

[azonic]

Hey Hunt!

Love this truck! looks soo mean, capable and really like how it sits. good job on this one!

I build scale jeeps and this will be my next project for the coming winter build. I post some pics of it when i get some progress if its ok with you.

Here are 2 pics of 2 scale jeeps ive done.
http://i172.photobucket.com/albums/w20/gcrawler/Jeep%20JK/DSC05868.jpg

http://i172.photobucket.com/albums/w20/gcrawler/Jeep/DSC05886.jpg

And if you wanna see more rcjeeps check out http://www.rcjeeps.com/

Cheers
Kalle
Sweden

 

[Hunt]

The front air bump cans are mocked into place. They are mounted through the spring mounts. Flexed it out a little to check everything and it looks like it is going to work well. I think we figured out why this thing likes to eat rear shocks as well (besides not having any rear bump stops). With the shocks that are on it right now the upper shock mount is about 1” too low. By moving the shock mounts up 1”, at full compression the shock will not be trying to force the shaft out the bottom of the shock tube and at full droop the is still enough shaft length that it will not limit the travel at all. We will setup the all air bumps so that at full compression the tires just miss the finders.

 

[Hunt]

Air bumps are in!

 

[Greg]

Wish I could go for a ride with the new Air Bumps! Looks great.

 

[Hunt]

The air bumps are amazing! What a difference. I have the rears a little hard so I think I will take a little pressure out of them next trip. The fronts worked flawlessly. We used some high impact plastic on top of the rear axle pads. We didn’t have a 4”x4” stock but we used two 2”x4” strips. The strips tried to separate in the middle seam where the bump struck them so I will look around work to find some bigger stock and make a solid pad. There are some pictures of the new engine skid plate front mount. It’s mounted on the passenger side and tied to the belly up plate. There just isn’t enough room for a drivers side mount. It held up well this weekend so I will see how it goes for now. We ran Oder’s Trail, which is supposed to be one of the tuffer trails, Rock Creek from end to end and, various others, and ended Sunday on the new “Crawl Daddy”.