How it began, bought a used 2011 Jeep JK almost three years ago. Basically was stock other than a tire tread pad on the console, upgraded hood latches and a MORryde tailgate hinge upgrade.

First thing I added were Weathertech floor mats and while at the shop getting an oil change we discovered one bad shock and one bad spring. Also at the shop I changed all the fluids over to AMSoil. Some folks like the stuff, and others not so much. I ran AMSoil in my 77 Celica way back then because it stayed fluid in some really cold winters that killed the tranny with stock fluids. A friend owns the shop so and charges a fair price so I just go with what he has. Otherwise I usually run Mobil 1 in the other cars.

So let the fun begin, since I needed a shock and spring I figured I might as well do them all. So digging into this a bit up here I discover that there wasn't a big difference in cost with aftermarket kits vs one my friend could order up from Mopar. So what the heck I had heard good things about the Mopar 2" lift kit so went with it. FYI this kit does not come with the front drive shaft, only the 2012 and newer kits for the 3.6L motor powered Jeeps have this.




For some reason these crates are popular, I jokingly mentioned on another post that they burn well.... they do!




The Mopar Fox 2" lift kit installed. The kit for the 2011 and older JK does not come with the front drive shaft. No idea why, the 2012 and newer kit does.

So since I had time I decided to order in the Mopar kit, I also noticed that the clutch felt a bit worn and the Jeep has high mileage, over 200,000 kms and since they were quiet I decided to do the clutch. When we took out the original clutch, yup it was due for a replacement. Also since we were in there I did the rear main oil seal, it was wearing slightly so why not since we were in that far. So after the lift and internal work, ta-da! Well ok it was more like, yuk...




Yup the lift was nice but the look of the Jeep sucked. So off to the internet to look at wheels. I already had settled on BFG KO2's so the tire side was covered. But finding a good deal on wheels up here or even getting a decent variety is the real challenge! I spent hours looking at various sites plus 'trying out' different wheel styles on the various visualizers and eventually compromised on Pro Comp series 69 wheels. Yeah I'm old school....

Since I had the lift I went with BFG 315/70 17's.




Ok that looks better.....

 

Of course that wasn't the end of it. I also needed to install some radio gear and antennas. And the Jeep is not an easy vehicle to do this on. As it turned out the MORryde tailgate hinges are perfect for an antenna mount. the bad news is they don't exist! But fear not, my buddy with the shop likes to custom fabricate things so he stepped up to make me a bracket. And it works great! The problem with the spare tire mounts is twofold, first it allows contact with the tire in some cases or when in motion and this can alter the SWR of the setup, the second and the real PITA is that if you don't open the tailgate fully or have it open on an incline the window glass will strike the antenna unless you are running an incredibly short antenna.




I own a pretty diverse selection of antennas as I've been into this as a hobby since the 60's and I've run a lot of different antennas on a lot of different vehicles. The Jeep poses some challenges as there are not many spots to mount an antenna. Ideally top dead centre on the roof is by most accounts the best spot as it provides a good ground plane (as long as the roof is metal) and a fairly omni direction radiation pattern. On fibreglass cars like Corvettes there was a metal foil ground plane kit that supposedly worked by sticking it to the underside of the body. Other thing I like to avoid is drilling holes in my cars. Because of this I have used glass mount antennas in the past, and I can tell you that the inexpensive one's don't work really well. With one exception, Larsen is an antenna manufacturer who provides antennas to the first responder community and has since back in the 60's. I have used a number of their antennas in the past and they work well. On my Explorer I ran two different antennas for VHF and UHF radios that were installed in it and these were their glass mounts. Excellent receive. They also made a rather interesting passive radiator antenna for cell phones that worked on the 800 MHz band. I had an unused one that I installed on my JK and it does work with the higher band new cell phones.

The other headache is where to mount the radio and the microphone. The microphone was easy, I splurged on the Jeepuniq grab bar mount. Now I suppose in an accident the airbag may deploy blasting these things into you or the passenger so keep that in mind. But it looks ok and puts everything in reach. They make several types depending on what you want to do/mount.





I like a fairly clean installation so this was a real challenge. Many folks mount their small radios on the dashboard where the bin is located. In my case that was to be used for something else so that location was out. So that meant one of two solutions. A radio with everything in the Mic called a One Hander or a radio that split off the faceplate and allowed the 'guts' of the radio to be mounted out of site.

This one will boil down to your needs and preferences. In my case I went with a split faceplate radio.

End of part 2.

 

Final instalment for now. My 'build' is pretty simple compared to others here. Basically I just wanted something that didn't break the bank, and was functional. I forgot to mention that I had wobble when I switched to the BFG KO2's even after checking all the front end parts and alignment. As a result I replaced the stock and I suspect worn out steering stabilizer with a Fox unit to match the shocks and that solved the problem.

I spend a lot of time behind the wheel so the interior layout is important to me. There are not a lot of spots to install some of the toys I like to drive with but with some creative shopping things worked out. One of the things I originally wanted to install was the factory GPS head unit with hands free. My JK did not come with Uconnect and I didn't realize that this might be a problem. I was able to order the GPS antenna and the microphone, of note the GPS and Sirrius antenna is considerably more expensive than the GPS only antenna and I wasn't really interested paying for the sat radio service when I had a good supply of recorded music. So I picked up a used radio through one of the larger wreckers up here.



The fun began when the radio arrived and it was missing the volume knob. The seller refunded me the cost of the knob so picked one up from the dealer. Installed the radio, powered up but no volume, now I have the base radio but upgraded speakers with sub so after doing some research I discovered that I need to have my computer flashed to work with this radio. (note it looks like JScan can do this) So I uninstalled everything and set the radio aside until I had some time to work through this. I actually thought the stock radio sounded pretty good and it with the factory Infinity system was good enough for me. (note that it does indeed sound better than the Alpine premium system, I have this in my 2013 JKU).

So anyhow I set the radio aside and came back to it a few months ago. Now the radio goes into an endless loop of starting and crashing, I suspect the hard drive is bad though the RHB radio is supposed to be able to boot without the drive. Mine won't so back on the shelf it goes. Instead I decided to install my Garmin GPS system, one thing about them is if you get the right version you can get free lifetime map and traffic updates. Mine does, the code for it is LMT, and is located on the plate with the model number. The units came from a second hand store for $10! Also of note the units I have also have built in hands free although in the JKU with the wind noise it is useless on the highway. For some reason the JK is quieter inside even with the offload tires....

To mount the GPS I used the Rugged Ridge kit that fits in the dashboard tray. Works a lot better than a suction cup that tends to fall off all the time and it also has provision for accessories such as a web cam. Rugged Ridge also supplies a spring loaded mount for cell phones if you don't have a GPS.




At this point I'm happy with the front office though I may at some point torture myself again with the factory GPS radio but the Garmin works fine and in some ways is better especially since you have free map updates for life. The mic and hand held are mounted with the Jeepuniq grab bar mount kit. Holds tight even when bouncing around offload.




The little spot behind the shifter is handy for the head unit of the radio, doesn't hit the radio though depending on what gear I'm in it blocks the view of the display. I basically use this radio as a radio scanner even though it is a quad band transceiver as it can cover quite a broad frequency range in receive mod only and has 809 memory channels. The HH9000 quad band antenna isn't perfect but after a tiny modification it works fine.

The final interior mod is for power, I have a distribution block for cigarette lighter plugs that also has a USB charge port, note that these things do not handle a high amount of current so I wouldn't be plugging a high draw unit such as a portable fridge or a power inverter but the GPS, camera and USB charger seem to be fine. I just plug it into the cigarette lighter socket because it's switched so I can't accidentally leave the radios running and drain the battery.




Pretty much everyone says that the stock headlights are no good, yup they really lack output. I have installed LED bulbs in a few cars so thought I'd try this first. I was looking at a used JKU with the JW Speaker LED headlights but wondered if you could replace the bulbs as it looked like a sealed unit. The main headlight LED was dead on that Jeep. Anyhow I decided to try a cheap set from eBay first. Big mistake, these bulbs did not fit without some serious modification (cutting) of the bulbs base since the keyways on the bulb were molded into the wrong positions! And once I Dremeled it out I found that the light output was worse than the stock bulbs! Oh and the fog light bulbs were no better, output was ok but again the keyways were completely wrong for the housing! So I would avoid the kit pictured below, might be cheap but it is junk.




Attempt #2 was a lot better, not only do these bulbs fit but the light output is good. If you don't want to splurge on the high end replacement LED headlights I would recommend the BPE Lighting bulbs and they cost $49 Canadian.





The final piece of the puzzle outside was a bumper upgrade and winch. I kept looking at the Jeep and thought it was missing something. I don't do a lot of offload driving but the trail into a buddy's cabin can get a bit exciting so figured it was a good investment.

Nothing fancy though. One thing of note, I think I should have installed the box to the side as the wiring blocks the front grill and will be a real challenge to remove. Keep that in mind with the XRC Gen II bumper and winch. Think I'm done for now.

 

Nice work in a short mount of time!
What type of mount are you using to hold the walkie on your grab bar?

 

I’m using the JeepUniq mount for standard mic and Baofeng UV-5r. It is very solid and holds everything in place off-road. https://jeepuniq.com

 

Thanks, I appreciate it. I'm not running a CB so would just need one to hold the walkie

 

I think all the JeepUniq mounts are walkie and mic but if you ever add an additional radio to your Jeep it would come in handy. I'm now trying to figure out where the least invasive spot will be for a second mic mount....

 

I guess this is sort of part of the Jeep build, basically it's the other stuff I carry with me all the time.

Most important is a decent tool kit, up here in Canada we have a chain of stores called Canadian Tire. They started out as primarily auto parts but have since expanded into a number of other product lines. They have some pretty good sales on their tool sets and their house brand carry a lifetime warranty. A couple things missing are a crescent wrench and a knife.



One downside of the JK is that there is not a lot of storage space, I already filled the bin under the floor with a tow strap, trailer hitch and booster cable. I added a Rugged Ridge tailgate MOLLE kit which gave me a bit more storage space for small items like gloves, first aid kit, tree strap, bungee cords rags and some other small odds and ends.



Also a small fire extinguisher.



Still trying to figure out what wheels to put on the JKU, The Fuel D564's look really nice but the cost up here is pretty high. Guess for now I'll just stick with what I have.

 

The JK looks really good.

 

Looking good! Good luck with the radio.