Minor Update: I was experiencing some jiggling in the steering wheel at speed on the highway. So I removed the AEV geometry correction brackets. My lift was just barely at AEV's recommended minimum lift for using the geo brackets. The clunking and steering wheel movement at speed has improved without the brackets.
The wheel debate is over. I found a set of reasonably priced AEV Argent Pintler wheels. They were very rock rashed but I didn't mind since I'd scratch them up also. But after looking into it, it sounds like AEV wheels scratch, gouge and crack very easily. So I passed on the AEV wheels and will keep my stock rubicon wheels. I think the color and machined highlights compliment the Granite color the best. The Quadratec Moab rims were a nice runner up. But the machined aluminum seemed too bright, the painted silver too boring, and the black and gun metal too drab with the Granite paint.
Spidertrax spacers are going on this weekend.
4Wheel parts has the best price on BFG AT KO2s and BFG KM2s and will install them on the stock rims. So that's the route I'm headed.
What do yall think about the AT KO2 vs the MT KM2 for Baja? It seems like the AT is better for all of my usages (Mostly highway and dry overland routes with occasional rock crawling when necessary) and cheaper. They just don't look quite as tall or good IMHO. But these 35" KO2s with 3" Mopar lift are slowly changing my mind.
I've been doing a lot of home improvement projects lately. I think I have the itch to build some stuff. The biggest annoyance when camping is setting up the kitchen at every meal time. It's too hard to get to what you need. And without a tailgate, there aren't enough good work surfaces on the Jeep. I've been looking for a better kitchen set up for awhile. Lately, I've been considering building a single full width drawer for the back of the Jeep with a slide out table surface. Ideally it would hold all my tools and misc stuff in the back. And hold my stove, food and kitchen gear in the front. The table part would slide out above the drawer and be about half the depth of the drawer so you could easily get to utensils and foods while cooking on the table part. I'd like it to be easily removable so packing for a trip would be a matter of sliding it in the back and tightening down two turnbuckles. It would have to be fairly short so I'd have enough room between the shelf and drawers for my feet while sleeping. But I know I should be saving for that lift and tires instead.
The last set of drawers I built turned out well but took forever to build. Who would have thought that counter sinking every piece of hardware, and using all stainless steel T-nuts would be expensive and time consuming. If I build another set, it'll be much simpler and use locking slides.
I've also nailed down a shotgun rack design that seems to work. And I'm looking into some quikfist mounts for a roll bar mounted propane tank and mounting a zodi shower to my shelf.