SilicaRich's Overland TJ Rubicon Build

[AgentOrange76]

You and me, we have a lot in common......glad everything turned out alright. Sounds like that could have been really bad. Slow and steady wins the race.

Maybe you heard about St Louis in the news a few days ago. Oh boy.....Stay tuned to my thread, I'll have a report up once I get my junk dried out and thawed. Sounds like we have very similar stories.

 

[SilicaRich]

You and me, we have a lot in common......glad everything turned out alright. Sounds like that could have been really bad. Slow and steady wins the race.

Maybe you heard about St Louis in the news a few days ago. Oh boy.....Stay tuned to my thread, I'll have a report up once I get my junk dried out and thawed. Sounds like we have very similar stories.

Was it something to do with the ice storm?

 

[Jeeper4life]

That awning looks great man!


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[AgentOrange76]

Was it something to do with the ice storm?

It was indeed. Took us 5 hours to get 23 miles, and we were the lucky ones. We didn't spend the night in the truck. At least his heater worked.....

 

[SilicaRich]

That awning looks great man!


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Thanks Alan!

 

[SilicaRich]

Did some routine maintenance on the Jeep today. Changed from 10W-30 to 5W-30 dino oil for the winter and solved my brake squeak. Managed to narrow down the squeak to the front passenger brakes where the pads meet the rotor. After a generous amount of brake cleaner, I managed to kill the squeak. Hopping it solves the nuisance for bit, still need new rotors though.

I also noticed something while jacking up the Jeep...

Both bolts for the quick discos were loose. I was wondering why Jeep was wandering a bit while driving, I initially thought it was just wind. Went ahead and pulled bolts on either end, cleaned them up, applied loctite, and tightened them right back up. Otherwise everything is running good.

 

[SilicaRich]

Well I figured I would give an update since Christmas always provides goodies.

Got a set of LightForce 240 Blitz HIDs but happened to get a bit of a surprise when I opened the box. In the box was supposed to be the 240s and the wiring harness, at least that's what the invoice said. Inside was two boxes of lights, the 240s and the surprising box of Striker 170s. So basically instead of the $50 harness, LightForce thought it would be better to send me a pair of $300 lights. Looks like LightForce made a mistake for the better. Still need the harness so I went ahead and ordered a new one without contacting LightForce about the mishap. Basically just paid $100 for $350 worth of goods. Also waiting on a pair of amber lense covers that are arriving late.

Here are the 240s:


Small dog for scale. These suckers are massive


Here are the 170s:

Small dog for scale again


And here was another grand surprise

About a year ago, being the avid ARB fan I am, I tried to order an ARB jacket only to find out ARB doesn't offer their clothing in the States (except hats and beanies). Well I still thought the jacket was awesome and planned to buy if I ever found myself in Australia in the future. Through probably close to a year of planning, my mom worked a plan with one of her friends from Australia who makes routine trips back and forth from the United States to get the jacket stateside. As far as I know, there are not many ARB jackets in the United States so all I can say is great job mom!

Don't have much going on with the Jeep, I have a separate project going on right now...

 

[SilicaRich]

Late Update

So I'm currently back up in Arkansas but I'm without the Jeep. No I didn't sell it, but it's back home in Texas. Just so happened that an hour into my initial trip going back up that I got death wobble going 70mph an hour. Now that I have actually experienced death wobble I now know how scary it is and why some people say they need to an extra pair of undies when it happens.

Prior info I never updated after the start of the year:
Decided to pull off the KMs and put on a set of 265/70R17 Goodyear Silent Armors that we had pulled off our old Tundra a year ago. The idea was that these were snow rated, plenty of tread, and just in general have better road manners than the KMs. Was originally very satisfied with the road manners but I never drove over 55mph until I drove back to Arkansas... I didn't get the chance to drive the Jeep much after putting the tires on due to my grandmother passing and having to go to Florida to attend the funeral.

After the death wobble occurred we immediately went back to the shop that did the alignment and they honored to fix the alignment under warranty and check to make sure all parts were okay. Alignment was slightly off but all my parts checked out meaning the death wobble was not from the suspension or steering. Then I realized that I was driving fine before Christmas (going 75mph across town gift shopping) and the issue didn't occur until I put on the Goodyears. Although tire induced death wobble isn't normally the culprit we are 90% sure the Goodyears are the issue. We think possibly the tires sat too long and maybe some of the cords separated making the tires nearly impossible to balance.

I have since order a set of 4 Cooper ST Maxxs in 255/75R17 and plan to keep the best KM as a spare. Theoretically it would have been easier to put the KMs back on however my dad convinced me otherwise due to the KMs having poor snow, wet, and ice traction being too much of a risk (already had an embarrassing instance last semester sliding into the middle of a 4 way stop with the KMs). Also paid to go ahead and get a front brake upgrade that was needed.

In the meantime, I'm currently driving my dad's 2015 Tundra TRD. Gotta say it's nice having the horsepower

 

[AgentOrange76]

I think we're actually twins. Although my Jeep hasn't decided to get death wobble, it's not with me right now, me and my brother switched and I'm driving his El Camino. It is nice to have some zoom zoom. Ricky Bobby would be proud.

 

[SilicaRich]

I think we're actually twins. Although my Jeep hasn't decided to get death wobble, it's not with me right now, me and my brother switched and I'm driving his El Camino. It is nice to have some zoom zoom. Ricky Bobby would be proud.

All I'm going to say about death wobble man is that it is scary as *insert curse word*. I don't think I have ever been more scared in my life. Just pray you never get it.

That V8 power is sure something nice, 380 or so horsepower in the Tundra. Not to mention the TRD is orange so that's a nice convenience for me

 

[AgentOrange76]

I've counted myself lucky so far. Everything is basically still stock so I'm sure that's helping me in that regard. Hopefully it will stay that way. My roommate drives a first gen tundra, and he got death wobble after coming back from hunt camp. I think its fair to say lots of poo shot out. He hasn't gone off road since. He did an alignment and all but it turned out to be mud caked in the wheels, so that would back your tire theory up. At least it was only scary AF and you didn't die or anything. So that's good

It sure is nice to have the power. The El Camino is mostly just set up as a cruiser though. It'll run 65 down the highway all day, so its got total cruiser gears out back. The suspension is also just so floaty you can run over a small ravine and it'll slowly move up and down a half mile later, plus it has that glorious 1 finger power steering.... That transmission is also the definition of a slushbox, there's some gears somewhere in there that do things that change how loud the exhaust is but that's about it. not like you can kick it down a couple gears and bang down a backroad. It does have a 305 and a 4 barrel paired up with a posi out back, and occasionally on slick parking garage floors or rainy streets the back tires make a noise and the back end rotates a little.....hmmm..... The Camino doesn't match the Jeep, but it does have a big green rat on the back though.....

 

[SilicaRich]

New tires arrived! That being said they are still 540 miles away from me, but that hopefully means I'll be getting the Jeep back maybe next weekend. Fingers crossed this solves the death wobble issue.

 

[Jeeper4life]

Nice man


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[jscusmcvet]

I would still do a double and triple check of the ball joints, hubs, tie rod ends, etc... In my experience, death wobble is rarely caused by tires that do not balance, but those tires exacerbate the issue that is at the heart of the DW. So there may be something there, lurking, more worn than it should be... waiting to cause the same effect later... (right bump, right speed, etc...). Also check the track bar on the axle side. The hole gets worn out easily on these jeeps. This is the most usual culrpit of DW. Easy fix is to weld a plate on the entire bracket, and drill a new hole.

Nice tire choice by the way.

 

[SilicaRich]

I would still do a double and triple check of the ball joints, hubs, tie rod ends, etc... In my experience, death wobble is rarely caused by tires that do not balance, but those tires exacerbate the issue that is at the heart of the DW. So there may be something there, lurking, more worn than it should be... waiting to cause the same effect later... (right bump, right speed, etc...). Also check the track bar on the axle side. The hole gets worn out easily on these jeeps. This is the most usual culrpit of DW. Easy fix is to weld a plate on the entire bracket, and drill a new hole.

Nice tire choice by the way.

The shop is currently doing a final check and alignment again today while also installing new front brakes. They have already checked TREs, trackbar has been already pulled and reinstalled, checked ball joints, and checked u-joints. I honestly believed the it was likely the TREs needing to be replaced but they checked out fine. Literally everything has checked out. I agree that DW is rarely ever associated with tires that can't be balanced but as of now the only thing left unchecked was installed just before the DW occurred. Although 60k miles isn't exactly "low miles" I would be more concerned with my suspension and steering parts if I had higher miles and if the Jeep was "wheeled" harder. That being said something still might be hidden but I won't know til this weekend. My dad is going to drive the Jeep to a business meeting in Austin for the weekend and see how everything is. Fingers crossed the issue will be solved but you never know. Earliest time I'll be getting the Jeep back has been pushed back another weekend.

Tires have been installed but not tested.