Did the SPC arms put that gouge in your shock tower?
Seeing the cracks on Assburns towers, I would be concerned about that damage, maybe weld it up?

Yep. Both sides have gouge from contact between the UCA and tower. I'm not worried about it at all. I could easily fix it with a grinder in 5 minutes but I got bigger fish to fry.

The cracks I had on my shock towers were well before going to SPC’s. But my SPC’s made a gouge in the towers as well. If your alignment is correct, I don’t think they hit the towers. Could be wrong though.


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Thanks for the inspiration! I am hoping to follow some of your lead but keep it a bit more road oriented.

I don't think it's an alignment thing. I think it has more to do with how you drive. I'm pretty sure we both drive faster then the average joe. Newtons Second Law is f(orce)=m(ass) x a(cceleration) us fast drivers put more force in the system. His Third Law is every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Those gouges are the reaction. Me and you are proving physics works. lol

For those that dont want to grind off the old ramp and burn in a new one, my fix for this on my 3rd gen was to merely grind the lock pin at an angle so it matched the ramp relatively close. Didn't mess with the paint/powdercoat and was a 5 minute job. Simple enough to look at the pin's position before opening the gate also to make sure it hadn't rotated. Worked like a charm.

Keep it up Jim!

Nathan

Is it possible to remove the fender flares on an 02 without it looking terrible? Love the build by the way!

You'll have the multiple mounting holes in your fenders/body like the pic below. Since the Sport doesn't have the body cladding, it won't have the holes in the doors though.

Looks like I will finally be able to post some updates soon, I have moved to a new place with a garage so I can finish the rear end.

|July 15, 2017|

The final item before the big trip was the roof rack, the highly anticipated Rocky Mountain Racks full length aluminum rack. I also got a 270° awning.

What/Why:
I needed a rack to mount the awning and antenna mount to. I partnered up with the fine people over at Rocky Mountain Racks to get this excellent full length aluminum rack. The main difference between this style of rack and the traditional Gobi-style is that this rack uses slotted crossbars that allow you to slide carriage bolts in and mount anything you want anywhere you want.

Parts/Cost:
$800 – Rocky Mountain racks full length aluminum rack (https://www.rockymtnracks.com/)
$350 – Overland Pros Wraptor 2000 foxwing awning (Wraptor 2000 - Overland Pros)
$175 – Tred 1100 traction boards

Tools:
-7/16” socket & wrench
-10mm socket & wrench
-Impact driver or Drill with socket adaptor

Time:
Installing the rack takes 1-2 hours.

Procedure:
You will want 2 people for this install, it is a full length rack after all.
@Flemster and @RockyMtnPhoto helped me with this install. The rack will come with instructions; but to summarize, the easiest way to install the rack is to start with the main crossbars and mount feet then get the side pieces on.


For mounting the legs, this rack re-uses the threaded rail sliders from the stock crossbars. Be sure to keep the crossbar even in the middle of the vehicle. The supplied mount leg fasteners are M6 and use a 10mm socket.




Once your 2 main crossbar are on, get your side pieces on. The crossbars are pre-threaded with 1/4-20 thread and the supplied fasteners will use a 7/16” socket


Photo by @Flemster


Powertools make the job MUCH faster..




Everything on these racks mounts with carriage bolts, they just slide right into the side of the slotted aluminum crossbars. The possibilities are endless!






I mentioned that I also got an awning. The awning mounts using these L-brackets. The carriage bolts make it super easy! I’ll have more pics of the awning later..


Photo by @Flemster




I also needed to re-mount my motorized CB antenna mount, here is the mount with the brackets for clamping on round crossbars:




Mounted:




I also added a small bracket to hold the antenna when it was down. I used the plasma cutter at work to burn this out real fast.




Cleaned up and bent:




Table-top press brake FTW!




Bracket painted and mounted:




Here it is in action, holding the antenna when it is in the down position. Without this, the antenna would whip all over the place and make one hell of a racket.


















The following trip report is with an early prototype fairing, the final version is the one pictured above.

|July 15-22, 2017|

Overlanding to FJ Summit 2017

A trip that had been in the works for months.. we wanted to start in Denver and overland our way to the FJ summit in Ouray over the course of a week. Total it would be about 500 miles of off road travel.

The trails we traveled are as follows in order:
Georgia pass
Mosquito pass (still blocked by snow)
Weston Pass
Hagerman Pass
Devil’s Punchbowl/schofield pass (still blocked by snow)
Engineer pass
mineral creek
Ophir pass
Black Bear pass
Imogene pass.






Day 1:
The group all met up at 8am in conifer outside of Denver. The group consisted of @Flemster , @RockyMtnPhoto , a buddy with a red long travel first gen and myself. The first day was the longest. Started on hwy 285 and ran up Georgia pass to start things off. Crossed the continental divide for the first time of many on this trip. After Georgia pass, we were in the town of Breckenridge and we drove south a bit to Alma to attempt mosquito pass. I say attempt because we had heard this pass was still snowed in. Once we go up near the mill on the trail we confirmed this rumor and backtracked to the start of the trail. To finish off the day we headed to our alternate pass, Weston Pass, and camped there.




EPISODE 1 of the video










Photo by @Flemster



Photo by @Flemster


Also passed through the town of Fairplay, also known as the town of South Park!


Photo by @Flemster



Photo by @RockyMtnPhoto



Photo by @Flemster



The awning proved to be VERY useful as it rained almost every day on this trip


Photo by @Flemster



I was the only person without a roof top tent, so instead I used this pop up tent from Front Runner.


Photo by @Flemster



Camp night @1


Photo by @Flemster

Day 2:
We got a late start on Monday, making a killer breakfast. The plan for the day was very full. We did not have any time to spare for slowdowns. Upon descending the pass, drew (in the first gen) noticed he was losing brake pressure. We inspected and found a cracked brake line due to stupid people routing his hard line all the way up to his control arm… We limped him to the end of the trail to the road that leads to Leadville where Alex and I headed into town to get new brake lines while drew and will took the tire off in preparation for our return.

Leadville is a small town, and is the highest us city at 10,200ft, but luckily they still had a chain auto parts store. We were able to replace the hardline, but the whole situation had put us severely behind schedule. The good thing about a trip like is the schedule is very loose to begin with. With the remaining time we had in the day, we traveled west out of Leadville across the turquoise reservoir and up to Hagerman pass.
When we neared the summit, the views were so spectacular we just had to stop and enjoy them. We decided to have lunch also as we cowered under a rainstorm that was become the normal weather for this trip. Before we left, a passerby told us of a double rainbow that was visible from a nearby hilltop. Many group members ran to see it before we set off to descend the pass. As dusk approached we still needed to find a campsite, we descended deeper into the valley to find camp.




Photo by @Flemster



Photo by @Flemster



Photo by @Flemster



Photo by @Flemster










Day 3:
We got an early start on, we needed to catch up! The plan was a bit different today though, we were going to head for the devil’s punchbowl cliff jumps outside of aspen Colorado. The daredevils among us headed straight for the high jump. We expected the water to be very cold, but I don’t think any of us were prepared for how strong the current of such a small body of water could be! After conquering the fear of the jump you had to immediately shift your focus to finding your way to the exit or risk being washed down a rocky waterslide. We did see one other poor guy go down it, he did not look like he enjoyed it. Once we all got our showers, which would turn out to be the last one we would get all week, we headed back out on the road we drove in on.

Our next destination was marble Colorado and the famous crystal mill. The trail leading up to the crystal mill was called devils punchbowl, not to be confused with the cliff jumps we had just come from bearing the same name. The ascent up the trail was one of the most spectacular drives of the trip. The way the rain fell through the sunbeams literally looked like it was raining glitter. We got to see the aftermath of an avalanche before we finally arrived at the mill itself. It was definitely worth the trip to it. The whole area was breathtaking. The student architects among us could not stop taking photos. Our plan from here was to assess the condition of the pass and hopefully make it across to paradise valley to make camp near the ski town crested butte. However some other enthusiasts we met on the trail informed us the pass was still unpassable. We expected this though, and our backup plan was to take some dirt roads around the long way to crested butte. But first we had to stop at the best bbq place any of us had been to. The journey to paradise valley through the dirt roads took us deep into the night, we arrived in camp after midnight. Mostly everyone promptly setup tents and went to sleep.



In Basalt


Photo by @Flemster



Will’s truck had been rear ended the night before our big trip. The truck was definitely going to be totaled, but that didn’t stop us from sending Milton off without a bang!


Photo by @Flemster



The cliff Jumps


Photo by @Flemster





Somewhere on the road to Marble, CO

Photo by @Flemster



Heading up


Photo by @Flemster



At the Famous Crystal Mill




Photo by @Flemster






From here on out through the evening, we were driving at night taking the long way around to crested butte.

Day 4:
We awoke to a breathtakingly beautiful valley. While we were tearing down and preparing to leave, a stunt plane came ripping through the valley. It sounded like a gang of Harleys. We were not fast enough to get any photos or videos of it, so you will just have to imagine it. The plan for the day was to travel into crested butte for a little then head south to lake city and run engineer pass.







Not a bad place to live at all..





Engineer pass was without a doubt the most scenic part of the trip.








Photo by @RockyMtnPhoto


Some remaining snow on the way up














The group at the top of Engineer pass:





Late night camping spot hunting on Mineral Creek trail


Photo by @Flemster

Day 5:

Day 5 was pretty relaxing. The camp spot we had at the top of the mineral creek trail was spectacular. The guided trail runs for the FJ summit event were in full swing so we saw plenty of convoys go by too. We went south through the animas forks ghost town and into the town of Silverton. The only trail we really ran was Ophir pass before camping near Alta lakes.



Waking up at camp on mineral creek:






Ophir pass






Day 6:

Day 6 we ran Ophir pass backwards to get to the top of Black bear pass then ran that.








Photo by @Flemster




It had been raining off and on all day. Before we descended, a group of bikes had to descend the “shelves”. Already a very exposed and steep section of the trail, only made harder now that the shale rock was slippery. The bikers hand walked each bike down.













Day 7:

For the final trail day of the event, we ran Imogene pass. After that was done we hung around a bit in Ouray to check out the event itself.


Photo by @Flemster





You can see the Black Bear pass switchbacks from Imogene




Heading up to the top







Photo by @Flemster



Photo by @Flemster





Photo by @RockyMtnPhoto

|August 19, 2017|

It was time to swap out the ICON suspension for some KING shocks, perks of the job and all

What/Why:
The main reason for this swap was that I wanted to get 12” travel shocks in the back, which involved custom brackets on the frame and on the axle housing. I got a clean axle housing to replace my rusty one. I have mentioned in the past how I was never satisfied with how I mounted the 10” ICONS. I also swapped in some SPC control arms in place of the all pro uniballs, the reason for this was that the uniball was starting to squeak and I didn’t want to deal with it. I also wanted some more caster adjustability.

Parts/Cost:
$1250 – King 2.5 coilovers (extended travel)
$1000 – (2x) King 2.0 12” shocks w/remote resi, compression adj, finned resi
$400 – SPC upper control arms
$100 – Used axle housing

Tools:
Basically all the tools..

Time:
The front was 5-ish hours because I ran into some slowdowns getting the all pro arms off. The rear was a lot of custom time over the course of a few weeks…

Procedure:

Lets start with the front..

SPC compared to the old All Pro arms..




Fancy new parts:




All in, sorry I didn’t take a whole lot of progress pics but we have all seen my truck taken apart enough




*NOTE: the coilovers are adjusted WAY too tall in this pic. I reduced the preload by a lot after this was taken*




I set the SPC to the E setting. This brought the front axle forward from the neutral setting, which should help with the tire rubbing near the pinch weld.











================================================== ========================

Now on to the rear…

This was my design for the rear upper shock mounts.






All the pieces cut out:




Starting with the mounting plates




Didn’t take any pics between that and the fully welded units..




Painted the back sides BEFORE welding them on, there’s no way to get to it after..




Picked up a few reservoir saddles..




Here is the new rear axle I mentioned. It will be so nice to get rid of my rusty one!!!




Stock shock mounts cut off




For the Axle shock mounts you need to cut off the factory lower shock mounts. To position the new lower mounts, I used the published lengths of King 2.0 12” shocks: 19.585” compressed and 31.585” extended (bolt center to bolt center).

Now measure from the upper mount 24.585” with the axle at ride height position. This will be the length of the shock at ride height, 5” of uptravel and 7” of downtravel.




Swapped the axle seals for new ones




Cutting the old upper mounts off





Welded on new ones and the reservoir saddles:
I did have to pound the wheel well to make some clearance for the mount, but this isn’t necessary. I could have just moved both mounts down a bit.