I've seen many a build thread over the past 7 years. Rock-crawlers, racers, mall-crawlers. I figured, what the heck.... might as well chronicle mine.

Delivery Day; October 28th 2007. Cost with shipping to Oahu, Hawaii with Ziebart undercoating: $30,500. This is for a 2007 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited Rubicon with dual top group, smoker package, and engine block heater.





Week One: Bone Stock - North Shore, Oahu, Hawaii:



Mod #1: Warn 8000 winch with adapter plate for stock bumper.



Mod #2: October 2008: Old Man Emu 2" HD lift, Pro-Comp 8069 wheels, and Pro-COmp Mud Terrain 315/75 R16 tires.

Stock 32" versus Pro-Comp 35"s




Travel: I bought my Jeep new with 12 miles on the odometer. Today it has 107,500. Those miles have covered trips with the mods so far depicted to the north shore Hawaii, the Outer Banks, NC, George Washington Forest, VA, Germany, Italy, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Denmark, the French Riviera, and Monaco.

Mosel Valley, Germany.


George Washington Forest, VA.


Central Switzerland.


Black Forest, Germany: 2010


Cabin at Camp Darby, Pisa, Italy.


I know, there was no pic of Pisa...... so here it is, complete with the normally unseen Cathedral associated with the tower. Sorry, I couldn't drive onto the lawn here! :


From there, the Jeep remained mostly untouched, save an Airaid CAI. It had a winch, was still light with stock bumpers, and had 35" tires to conquer snow and off-road terrain. It served me well through the first five years of it's life in Hawaii, Virginia, and Europe: even on the German Autobahn. In 2012 we moved to the Mohave Desert in California.

 

107,500 miles might not be the most driven jeep, although its gotta be up there, but give where you have driven it, it may be the jeep thats seen the most of the world bravo sir, life well spent.

 

Thread #2: The Cali Desert..... 2012:

In May 2012 I was reassigned from Europe to the southern California Desert. I was thrilled, as I knew this was the Mecca for Jeeps. The harsh desert environment necessitated a few new mods.

Poison Spyder Rock Rails: A couple trips out to the mountains and I realized the stock Rubi' rails were not going to be up to snuff:









My mechanic helper:

Poison Spyder Diff Bombs:







The Mohave desert is dusty and I was getting tired of constantly vacuuming the carpet. So..... I decided to scrap the carpet in favor of bed-liner.

So, Mod #4: Bedline the interior. In the case of my Jeep, it's mail-order Raptor-Liner. To make it less "obvious", I decided to use factory tint bedliner. It isn't exact, but the end result was not bad.

Pull the carpet, and this is what you are greeted with. Factory sound-deadener. It traps water, is a pain to remove, and looks like crap.......


Chiseling the factory sound-deadener crap from the floor:


Masked and ready for Raptor Liner:


Completed Raptor Liner. The reason for pulling the carpet and spraying this is to allow the removal of dust with a damp towel. It's not aesthetic..... it's practical.

 

good call on the bedliner, and I guess pics dont do it justice, it appears to match other then texture in the pics

now you can just hose the jeep out (with the drain plugs pulled)

 

2013: Getting Crazy! My 3.8 "minivan" engine decided that 50K miles on the German Autobahn + another 30K in the United States was enough. It was seeping fluid from the bell-housing and was down on power. I thought it was a coolant seep from the rear freeze plug. Nope. There was a crack in the engine block. So, at 82K miles, MoTech in Las Vegas removed the stock engine and replaced it with a new 6.0L GM truck engine and 6-speed automatic transmission

Out with the old:

 

After 6 years / 100K miles, the stock seats were looking worse for wear. So, we decided to recover them with new leather skins from Star Fabrications.

Out with the old........


In with the new. These are stitched from really nice NAPA Leather. The are also designed a bit small to prevent wrinkles, which makes then a total PITA to install. I grew my forearm muscles 50% puling these freakin' leather covers over my seats. So far the've held up great and and be quickly cleaned with a damp cloth.

 

Next on the list was a suspension update. With 90K mies on the clock, the OME 2" lift from Northridge was beginning to show it's age on the trails. I took a trip to Off Road Evolution, where they suggested an upgrade that included 2" ORE plush coils on the front, new endlinks (the old ones were badly rusted), and new 0-2" King Reservoir shocks on all four corners.

Front King Shock + ORE 2" lift springs + end links. My young assistant aided with the install


Rear King Shock Install.

 

More travel:

Redwood Forest, Ca: We use the Jeep to tow a 17' R-Pod RV. Works pretty well, but even with the V8 conversion, 3200lbs is about the limit for Jeep towing.


The dunes at Pismo Beach, CA:


Eureka, Ca:


Craters of the Moon, UT:


King of the Hammers 2013 (Johnson Valley, CA)


San Louis Obispo, CA, 2014:


Eel River, NoCal, 2014:


Redwood National Forest, CA: 201$:

 

nice v8 and the leather covers could have been harder to install, you could have ordered katskins

 

I really should have added my hardtop bedliner write-up to this build thread. Added the link to tie these posts together

https://www.jk-forum.com/forums/jk-s...utside-310618/