Imkunfused

This is the build of my 2012 Jeep JK8. It was purchased last June from Shawn Gulling from Jeep Jamboree USA. While it was very well built at the time, I had a much different plan for the Jeep. What really attracted me to the Jeep was its uniqueness and the fact that it already had some high quality parts that I would be able to build a solid platform with. Unfortunately most of the parts that were previously installed, eventually found the way into the hands and Jeeps of two of my friends as one of them made me an offer I couldnt refuse on the JK Prorock 60's, wheels and tires.

The Jeep started out with a full Currie 4" lift, Genright fenders and Sliders, LOD bumpers front and rear along with a set of the Dynatrac JK 60's and an Atlas. My plans were originally to 4 link the rear and 3 link the front with the Dynatrac axles, but a friend back in November spun the tube on his factory rear Dana 44 and made me an offer I couldnt ignore. This gave me the opportunity I really wanted to go with, which was wider and much stronger and bigger axles as these were originally made only slightly wider than the factory setup.

Here's the Jeep on the way home from Placerville to Reno



From there, I took it on one small wheeling trip to test everything out and started doing some small stuff on it as the parts started arriving.

First project was the front bumper. I wanted something with high clearance and small, but would still fit the winch, so I ordered the Tomahawk bumper and light mounts from Motobilt. Once the frame was chopped, test fit, it went to the powder coaters to get it shot. Here's a finished picture



Next stop was installing the GMRS Radio and antenna. It's a 50w unit and I wanted it hidden. It was not an easy task due to the size but the glove box ended up being a perfect spot for it. There's still plenty of room for what I need



From this moment the Jeep sat for a while waiting for parts to show up and finally in November, it found a permanent spot in my garage for a while as I tore down the jeep and begun the deconstruction process to remove all of the factory mounts from the frame. This is no easy task but my Hypertherm plasma did make it a lot easier. During this time frame as well as mentioned earlier my friend spun the tube on his rear dana 44 and he knew I would like to purchase new axles and he made me an offer I couldnt refuse. I called up Dan at Fusion 4x4 to order a custom built set of axles for the Jeep. I had a previous set of Fusion axles in my Gladiator that I sold to purchase and fund this build, and the build and quality of the axles are amazing and there was no other company I wanted to consider to meet my needs. We ended up making a plan to build a Super Kingpin 60 in the front with 5.38's Super 60 ring gear, ARB, Branik Legacy ujoints and 40 spline axles. The rear I settled on a Full Float 14bolt that was shaved, outfitted with 40 spline axles, 5.38's and an ARB. When the axles finally showed up in Early March, I was slightly heart broken as there was suppose to be minimal brackets on the front and completely bare rear axle, but a quick phone call to Dan and he made it right for me.




Dan also had a deal on wheels, I ended up going with 5 KMC Beadlocks and a set of Cooper SST Pro 40x13.5x17. I wanted to go with Nitto's, but at the time they were nonexistant. I had the wheels custom powder coated to match the plans for the Jeep. The rings were done in a Gloss black and the wheels were completed with a Triple Bronze with Clear Vision




Back in February I received my Motobilt 4/3 link suspension kit back from powercoat and I proceeded to get them install. It worked out quick nicely. The links I ended up going with was RPM and Michelle at RPM was great to deal with. Took about a week from order to shipment. There was a combination of 2.5", 2" and 1.75" thick 7075 Control arms using Rock Jock joints in the ends. Talk about full beef. Outside of the 1.75" uppers, all the ends were drilled and tapped for 1.25" shanks




More Updates to Come Soon:

Imkunfused

I should have updated this sooner, but the project kept rolling and I had surgery on my hands in June and July. Most of the work was done just prior to June 1st when I took the Jeep down to Tim at Trailwize to have a custom cage built for the jeep. Here's updates in series

Went with a Banks CAI and the Genesis Dual Battery setup


Finshing up the bump stops


Front Suspension Completed

Imkunfused

I wanted to clearance out the area around the fenders for the tires. After putting the Nemesis Flares on, I marked what I needed to cut, then went to work removing all the metal I didnt need there. There was some large holes so I made a template out of cardboard, cut out the sheetmetal with the plasma, then welded it in to clean up any rough areas or large holes I created

Imkunfused

Ran into a few issues with the clearance between the shocks and the tires on articulation and nothing I could do would fix it, without Frenching in the towers into the frame. It worked out extremely well.


Custom Bump top mounts, Also had to cut off 3 inches from the rear sway bar to clear the bump stops. If the cans didnt have the pinch bolt at the bottom, I would have cleared by 1/4"
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Imkunfused

Pictures of the Motobilt rear frame chop bumper, and rear skid plate for the fuel tank


The Genright corners with their matrix tail lights


Custom cut Nemesis Rocker armor. These are the same length of a 4dr, but the guys at Nemesis did me a huge favor and had these done up without the door cutout for the rear


Motobilt half doors. Ended up doing their upper window brackets after the photo to run a soft upper window

Imkunfused

Motobilt's uncut inner fenders, clearance for the shocks, bump and resi. These have been powder coated and waiting for the jeep to get back from the cage being built to be installed

Imkunfused

This was after everything was back from Powder coaters and installed. Quite a bit of orange peel on the doors and corners, they will come back off and go to a paint shop to get done correctly. Also added the Motobilt Frame mounted Rock Sliders, Baja Designs front lights

Imkunfused

The Jeep didnt look quite right without a Custom cage in it. I reached out to Tim at Trailwize in Turlock and he was ecstatic to build a cage with the way I wanted it done for a JK8. He's absolutely in love with the design of the JK8, spent a long time trying to find one for himself but gave up and built a very bad ass two door JK. I wanted to keep the hardtop functional, but also have the strength of a cage to protect myself and anyone riding in it. It's been a long process but the Jeep will be picked up this week. Here's the build in progression for the cage. The factory cage for the jk8 is absolute garbage for aesthetics, so I will lead with that picture first



The front cage 95% completed in design. He still needed to mount the brackets for the roof, and the front windshield mount


The rear cage with a gap for the hardtop. This gap is closed by a bracket that is installed which makes the cage look like one seamless unit. The rear cage also has a horizontal mount for a spare tire with a removeable mount incase I dont want to bring the spare with me and I can use it as a shelf for storage


Rear spare mounted


Hardtop on


Side Profile of the cage with the hardtop on


I wanted a rear cooler rack, so Tim fabbed one up. He does these racks for most of his cages, but based the mounting design off of the one he did for an LJ since the rear cage didnt come down like a standard 4dr cage. He wanted to mount a rear bar across the back, but i had a 19" height requirement for the bed (will have a fridge/freezer on a slider) and the bar didnt look right ascetically. The cooler rack is removable. To talk about the strength of this rack, there's video when he rolled his jeep at Hollister, where he stood the jeep up on it's end vertically during the roll on the cooler rack, prior to flipping it on the top, with no damage done to the cooler mounted on a rack

Imkunfused

The cage was powder coated the bronze to match the rest of the Jeep accent pieces




The panel connecting the two cages is clamped in. It's radiused to match the bend in the cage, it will be powder coated gloss black to match the jeep. What's not pictured is obviously the rear spare or cooler rack on and the custom aluminum one piece top for it.


Tim made me up some shock covers for the bed to close it off from the outside. I swear this man is an artist with fabrication