New to ExPo - 2008 Wrangler.

[Morticon]

Hey guys, new to Expedition Portal. I have been reading some expeditions and checking out the site the past couple weeks and love the idea of traveling in a vehicle and living out of it.

Unfortunately my jeep is modified in the wrong direction. Born to Crawl instead of Born to explore.


So here is the background on my Jeeps life and how it got to where it is at now.

I bought it back in middle of september 2008. absolutely no options. No A/C soft top, no hard top, 3.21 gears 16"steelies vinyl seats(which i love, so easy to clean mud and dirt off)

First time offroad

First modification...
33x10.5 Mickey Thompson MT's on 16" black steelies
and some hella 500 windshield lights to help look the part haha

what a difference in look!

then i ended up taking the tube steps off and adding some rocker guards, adding a cb, and bedlining my grill

Then I added a Smitty Bilt bumper and 8500 Superwinch

and of course beer and wings followed...

then I went crazy haha
I added 35x12.5 MT's on 15" rims with 5.13 gears and arb lockers front and rear :smiley_drive:
and yes i have a d30 up front:Wow1:
Im smart.....
in prep for the gears and lockers, I put on some rse(rock slide engineering) outer sleeves and some C-gussets and control arm skids.

I cant find any pictures of the install but I ended up blowing apart my drivers side ujoint and axle shaft yoke. aka upgrade to USAalloy Chrome-alloy shafts.

Im gunna round up some action shots and post them soon.

 

[Morticon]

Here are some action Photos.

of course.... jeep is always at the end of the rainbow!

hope you enjoyed the pictures!

So now to the point. Im considering chaning my gears out for 4.56s so i can still run the 35's and changing the jeeps purpose more towards an expo rig... or do i keep my jeep the way it is. find another rig and start from scratch for the expo idea?

 

[Life_in_4Lo]

looks great!
If you feel like there is enough room, I would jsut stick with what you have since you've done so much already.

No need to change gears for exped style. Probably be better to go 33's if anything.

I'm jealous of all the easy mods avail for the Jeeps so it should be easy to add cargo racks, etc and keep enough interior space to be comfortable.

I always thought the unlimited was nice for travel with the long wheelbase and interior room but yours looks like a real kick

 

[XXXpedition]

looks good nice scenery but looks coolish ))
nice trail, nice rigs!

 

[atm76039]

If I read that right, you have 5.13 gears, and looking at the pictures you have a manual trans... I think you will have a hard time running 33s with those gears. 4.56 is about as high (number) that you would want to go with 33s and as low as you would want to go with 35s with a manual trans. right now im on 33s/5 speed, and trying to decide between 4.11 and 4.56 for a highway friendly expo rig.

 

[atm76039]

So now to the point. Im considering chaning my gears out for 4.56s so i can still run the 35's and changing the jeeps purpose more towards an expo rig... or do i keep my jeep the way it is. find another rig and start from scratch for the expo idea?

It's always fun to have more than one toy if you can swing it! Especially if you are still into the crawling scene... However, you are not too far gone to the rock crawling side if you really want to convert this to a full on expo... Personally, I'd go down to 33s, that's why I posed the previous post.

 

[Scott Brady]

Welcome. Looks like you are having fun!

 

[Petro]

Nice to see you finally found this place, need to get more of the guys from the jk-forum over here.

 

[Morticon]

yeah, i had 33's and got rid of them, and really like my 35's especially with how much lift i have in it now 33's would look goofy... i really should try adn figure out what kind of gas mileage im getting. also with the 5.13's if i get a trailer or a crap load of gear I should have no problem hauling all of it. cause lets face it.

me and my brother (both 200lbs) plus my dog buddy who will eventually wiegh clost to 70 or 80, plus gear and a rtt and gas cans and blah blah blah. maybe i want the 5.13s?

or i find a job that pays better and buy this sweet old 79 cherokee ive had my eye on.... hmmmmm but that is def. dreaming

 

[Xodius]

I like those light racks. Have not seen them before. How bad do they block your vision?

 

[Morticon]

light racks? oh the windshield light mounts? not at all... got them from mopar.... cant remember the price. probably could make your own really easily. uses the bolts that are already there!

 

[Mr. D]

great looking jeep that you have built up.

 

[rustyjames]

Nice mods. Your jeep looks really good.

 

[Bad Karma]

Hey Brian...
I have 4:10s in my Jeep with 36s. great for street and off-road (mind you have a 6.35:1 1st gear)

I say get rid of the 5:13s, probably one of the reasons you snapped that front axle.
get some spare axles so we dont have to watch you get pulled around Green's in 2wd!!! BAHAHAAHA!!!

 

[Morticon]

hahaha yeah that was a rough day man. hoepfully with the USA Alloy chrome-alloy shafts there will be no more breaking they are ALOT beefier.

i think my plan is to possibly stick with what i have untill i can get something else for dd/expo rig and let this be my crawler. but for now it will have to do both duties