UNSTUCK'S 08 FOUR DOOR JK

[UNSTUCK]

Some of you may remember this Jeep going up for sale on here back in December/January. I was the lucky one to snag it, and after a crazy Grayhound bus ride to Idaho to pick it up, it now resides here in Salt Lake. So after a few years of owning Jeeps that were only good for sitting on the side of my house, we now have a good runner.
I plan on doing a lot of stuff to this rig, and already have a few items to post up about. I will be reviewing products that I use along the way. For the most part it is just about done for round one. Round two is a bit of a surprise so wait for that one.
My hope is to be able to help some JK owners that are new to the sport get the most out of these rigs.

Most of all, remember that the reviews, mods, and ideas that follow are just one mans opinion.

For now, this first post will be just a few shots of what we have.






Together, my family has made the goal to join the once a month club. We will each take turns deciding on an adventure that we want to do. March was Sand Hollow and April will be dinasour hunting, in Moab, I think. So after spending February and March getting it road worthy, we had a great time in St. George.







Nice beach shots are what my wife had in mind with this Jeep, and to be honest me too. But when the rest of the family is visiting other family members and I just happen to get caught up in the action, plans change.







[video=youtube;VMyPyMFCyZA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMyPyMFCyZA&feature=youtu.be[/video]

[video=youtube;GMT2oD9sVhg]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMT2oD9sVhg&feature=youtu.be[/video]

[video=youtube;FJNjZYbFrCk]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJNjZYbFrCk&feature=youtu.be[/video]

Needless to say, this Jeep has already impressed me. It just about requires a whole new driving style and learning curve, but it will come. For now, I'll go back and update you all on what was needed to get this Jeep to this point.

 

[TJDukit]

Glad to see that JK on RME. Chris is a good friend of mine and it will be cool to hopefully wheel with your new to you JK again.

Oh and that license plate bracket is a TJDukit custom.

 

[TRD270]

Subscribed

Also what lift do you have and how much of it? And what size are those tires?

I just placed an order with Davy for a 2.5 inch lift from teraflex with the intent to add long arms to it in the future.

 

[kellerexpress]

Nice JK!

 

[Bart]

Congrats on the purchase. Nice rig.

 

[N8RB8R]

It is great to see all these JK builds going on!

 

[Greg]

Ahhh, so you're the lucky SOB! That JK (and it's price) had me very interested, good to see that it went to another RME'er! I'll be watching what you do with it, I dig JK's!

 

[UNSTUCK]

When JKs first came out I thought they were the worst jeep ever. They were long, wide, ugly and WAY under powered. In the last little while they have started to grow on me. I was just about to pull the trigger on a sweet LJ Rubicon (the one glockman picked up), my favorite of all jeeps, when I looked on the computer one last time and saw this one. My plan for the LJ was to put three kids suspension seats in the back. With the JK that wouldn't be needed and I would still have cargo room. The price was about the same so I jumped on it. It's the first time I've bought a rig pretty much site unseen. I traveled up to Idaho knowing that I was buying it no matter what, as I needed a ride back home.

I'm very happy with the purchase, although there were a few items that were not made known to me in advance. The air bag light was on, which is the tale tell of a bad clock spring. One of the tranny cooler lines was leaking pretty bad. The driver door is dented in and rusting around the handle. The tailgate was replaced and the key doesn't match. On the way home, I found it wandered so bad it was about all I could do to keep it on the road. It didn't help that there was tons of wind, and ice. So I was already making my short list of things I needed right away. And none of it was fun stuff.

I should also mention that I totally gambled when I bought it. I picked it up at the beginning of January, knowing that I was up for a pay raise in February. If the raise didn't come, I would have had to sale it. So it sat in my garage for over a month hiding, with the bank calling and asking for the title paper work. Well I did get the raise, so it was off to register it and get the bank the title papers. That meant that I had to get the issues fixed. I got Hinkley Dodge to give me a smoken deal on the clock spring and then found out there was a recall or TSB on the cooler lines so they got fixed for free.

All that was left was to take care of protecting the tranny with an added cooler, and getting the thing to drive straight. So that's where my first two mods come in. I'll get them posted up soon.

 

[UNSTUCK]

Subscribed

Also what lift do you have and how much of it? And what size are those tires?

I just placed an order with Davy for a 2.5 inch lift from teraflex with the intent to add long arms to it in the future.

It's a 3.5 inch lift from RE that I bastardized a bit with Tereflex short arms. I'll cover that install soon. With the flat fenders, it's to much lift for the 35 inches tires I have. 37's may have to go on when I burn these up. I have thought about long arms, but at this point I believe there is no need at all for them.

 

[UNSTUCK]

It is great to see all these JK builds going on!

Funny how it was pretty dry around here and all of a sudden there are quite a few popping up. You're in Santaquin? My wife grew up there. Do you know the Corry family? I'll have to check yours out next time we are down there.

 

[N8RB8R]

Funny how it was pretty dry around here and all of a sudden there are quite a few popping up. You're in Santaquin? My wife grew up there. Do you know the Corry family? I'll have to check yours out next time we are down there.

I actually had a Bishop Corry for a while. Let me know when your down this way your welcome anytime.

 

[UNSTUCK]

Couldn't imagine to many Bishop Corrys around there, so I would say he was my father in law. The world just got a bit smaller.

 

[UNSTUCK]

So one of my biggest problems with this Jeep was keeping it straight going down the road. I had a few ideas as to what was causing the problem, the main one being stock control arms killing my caster angle. I was about to buy some drop brackets to try to help the issue out when I was able to pick up some Teraflex Flexjoint arms from an RME member for some trade work. I liked this idea a lot better! I really don't want to dump much money into this rig until I do the major mod I have planned, so trade work was perfect. I knew going into it that they needed a few flex joints replaced. I ended up replacing every flex joint. The bushing ends were still in pretty good shape, so we'll just have to see how long they last. I was a bit nervous though, as I researched these arms, I found quite a few people cussing about the flex joints. Most were saying they just don't last long at all. So we will see about that.


I started out just working on these three arms, but then decided to replace them all. The other 5 arms were in better shape, but not by much.


When I took the first joint apart, I was a bit surprised at what I saw. Major wear on the ball, and the bushing ID was enlarged quite a bit.


In the next two pictures you can see wear. The old bushing has no gape between the two halves for one and the ball still can be moved in and out, whereas the new one is tight.



As I understand it, the early flexjoints were a two piece design, which I have. I guess they are just one piece now. So the two parts of mine get rust/dirt between them and then you can no longer get grease to the bushing halves. Instead of taking the time to clean them up, but mostly to prevent future issues, I drilled a hole right through the inner part where the outer part holds the zert. Thinking that's all these joints needed, I went ahead and put in all the new parts on the first joint.


As I went to grease this first joint, I was blown away at the seal between the now pressed together bushings and ball. The seal was so tight that instead of allowing grease to push through and out, all it wanted to do was push the two bushing halves apart! In the picture you can kind of see how the washer is being bent out along with the snap ring. That's what 10000psi of grease is doing inside the joint. Well maybe not quite that much pressure, but that's how much my gun will put out. Teraflex, what good does it do to put grease zerts on these joints if they will not take grease? Maybe that's why the rebuild kits do not include new zerts. I was not happy. Why the press fit? It's so tight that the bushings hold the ball in place and prevent it from pivoting up and down, going from full stuff to full droop. Instead now it pivots on the bolt, which will wear down the bolt and gall up the insides of the mounting bracket. I had to use plenty of anti-seize to try to lube it up.


When I saw the washer bending I knew there was a problem. I took it all back apart to inspect. As I suspected, the grease filled the gap between the two halves and instead of flowing out around the ball, it just pushed the two halves apart, leaving the greater part of the ball ungreased. You may think that that is enough grease to work, but in the real world you will get water entering the joint from the two sides and just sit in there. If you could get grease out there, you could push that water out, increasing the life of the joint.



At this point I remembered my old CJ leave spring bushings that used a grease bolt. Those bushings had flutes that ran the width of the bushings inside the bolt hole. As you greased the bolt, the flutes would fill with grease and keep things working smooth. Why didn't Teraflex think of this? I decided to do it myself. I notched out a section of the bushing that once installed would line up with my grease zert. I then notched two lines into each half of the bushing to act as my flutes. I clocked them in such a way that they were on the sides of the bushing that would receive the least load, up and down. I tried to make the notches about 1/16 of an inch deep.

 

[UNSTUCK]

So the white line shows where my notches were made. My notch for the grease to enter is lined up with my zert. I should have no problem getting grease to the ball.



With it all back together, it greased up super easy. I now had four nice grease exits. Now, I wish I would have done four more so they would all be 90 degrees apart. I hope that the up and down flexing will help distribute the grease around, but I doubt it because the busing is to tight on the ball.




So, with all the arms rebuilt I set to work installing them. I measured out the center of the wheel openings for the rear axle, so I could get the tires centered again. I made all four links about 1 1/4 inches longer then stock. I got them installed and found my tires were just about perfectly centered in the wheel well. No change was made for the pinion angle. I then moved onto the front axle, leaving the lengths the same as stock, except giving the bottoms an extra turn out to give me more caster. I was guessing at this point and just figured I would get an alignment when I was done.
I got her all buttoned up and hit the road. Right away I was amazed at the difference. I got on the freeway and up to speed and found I could relax with one hand on the steering wheel. If felt very solid and smooth. It wants to go in a straight line. I was very happy. It drove so well I gave up on the idea of getting an alignment. I could feel that the wheel was stiffer when making a sharp turn at a slow speed. That's normal with more caster. All in all I wont mess with it for now. It drove great down to St. George and back last week, when the wind wasn't blowing. But that's another story. I wonder how Jeep could make these things more arrow dinamic? For now, I have given up on any thoughts of a long arm system. It drives better then any Jeep I have owned (doesn't really say to much) and I found in St. George that it flexes great. Far better then what I need it to do. So why spend the money?

 

[TJDukit]

I do remember watching this Jeep behind me looking like it was a chore to drive.

As far as notching the joints, that seems like a good idea with tolerances that tight.

 

[UNSTUCK]

I do remember watching this Jeep behind me looking like it was a chore to drive.

I couldn't believe how fatigued I was once I got it home.

 

[TJDukit]

I couldn't believe how fatigued I was once I got it home.

Amazing what an ill handling vehicle can do to you on a four hour drive.

 

[xtremexj]

Looks like a nice purchase. I keep thinking of modding the wife's 2008 Unlimited-X a bit more than the BB and 33s but how many offroad rigs does a family really need. Having said that, I guess I shouldn't have put the Smitty XRC bumpers and 8K winch on it. LOL. We should have just driven that to Moab for EJS this year and then I could have actually got some wheeling in.

 

[UNSTUCK]

When we were about done playing at the beach at Sand Hollow I started the process of airing the tires back up. The two on the passenger side aired up with no problems. I got to the front driver side and clipped on the chuck and then it fell off, with a woosh of air. A closer look reveled a broken valve stem, with the outside end still stuck in the chuck. I went right away and stuck my finger in the stem to stop the flow of air, I called for my wife to plug the hole for me while I got my game plan together. That front tire was about a foot from the water, sitting on a little sand ledge. I knew I would have no chance of jacking it up right there. When I was ready I backed up about 10 feet to some less wet sand, before the tire went totally flat. I put a few rocks down and tried my factory jack under the front diff. It just pushed the sand. I have owned my Hi-lift jack for about 10 years, and have never had to use it. It got its moment of glory. A rock in the sand and a strap holding the axle to the frame, and the tire was in the air in no time. On went the spare and we were on our way.
After closer inspection of the broken end of the stem, you could see a slight deformation, indicating we hit it on a rock. It was amazing to me that we were able to play on it like that the rest of the day with no problems.
I did a bit of research and found out that this is a pretty common issue with the JK valve stems. I dropped the family off and headed over to Discount Tire to get a new stem. Sitting there in the parking lot, I used my Procal to just turn off the TPMS so the light would not be on. I then went in and asked them to install a rubber valve stem, which they said they could not do because my Jeep had the TPMS. I told them it was not installed. The guy went out and looked for himself and saw the light was not on. He said it was weird, but said ok. He didn't charge me for labor, so I was out $3.00 for the new stem. That was the best fix ever. Over time I will change them all over to rubber and just leave the system off.

 

[mesha]

I hate hate hate the metal JK valve stems. Hate.