Mako build-ish thread

aermid

aermid

Member
So I've been procrastinating on my build thread for about 2 years. Last year was a mess; my father passed away, contractors destroyed some of our house, and I was trying to start mountain bike racing. I just never found time to organize my thoughts and post.

So full disclaimer: this is the first car I've ever worked on; I'm completely self/internet taught and I'm sure I've done some things incorrectly. Ya'll have been a huge source of information from build threads, write ups, answering questions, and videos. My Dad was the only member of my family who would talk cars with me, and he never got to "meet" my Jeep in person. He always thought it was pretty funny that my grandfather, owned a Ford dealership and had 4 sons, but it took having a granddaughter to pick up a wrench. Every time I work on it, I'm always thinking of him. Patrick is my finance who I wrangled into this adventure. He helps me get into trouble and works on the car with me.

2018 is starting out completely different. I've torn my ACL, two meniscus, and sprained my MCL in my right knee. I'll need surgery and will be out of "outdoorsy stuff" for about a year. I can honestly say I haven't been more grateful to have my Jeep than this year. I got to go to HF last weekend, and it really cheered me up. Now I'm home on a "snow" day and figured it was time to start.

So why Mako? I'm a programmer for a video game company, and our most notable game is Mass Effect. There is a vehicle in that series that is known for having terrible (or awesome?) physics that allowed players to basically go anywhere with it in a map, the "M35 Mako"
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(I really need to get a sticker like this). I play with the red/white theme a lot because it comes from the game.

Here's a picture of Mako and I on day one coming home from the dealership. I was so excited to get it, I forgot to take a picture while we were on the lot so this is actually at a home depot down the street.
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The first mod we did wasn't actually to the Jeep it was to the house. I wanted to get something that would help us take the roof on and off, so we installed this in our garage. There is zero space in this garage for the Jeep, and right now I have to consider getting a new bumper or buying a new house. More house mods for organizing the garage better will be necessary before making Mako any longer. I added pool noodles to the sides so it didn't scrape up the roof. My favorite color is purple so deal :p This also works really well for storing the freedom panels up top and out of the way.
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The next thing we did was add a grill insert, at first I was going to make it but decided for the price I'd save my time. This is a JWM 4x4 Grill Insert, it comes in 1 piece. We also painted the jeep logo black with plasti-dip. I wasn't sure we were going to keep it this way, so I didn't want to do anything I'd regret later.
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I wanted something really minimal for the door sills...I ended up finding these from Alpha Vinyl. I was a bit hesitant to just put vinyl there at first, but it's actually stood up pretty good. They have a 3 year warranty so I gave them a shot. I'm starting to see some wear and I think I'll end up replacing them with something else, but this is what is on there for now.
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I wanted to give my grill a unique look so my friends could see me around town, and start bringing out more personality; Mass Effect has an "N7 Stripe" that goes down one side of armor, so I decided to replicate that with the grill. I like how it turned out, people often first guess it's for Mass Effect, and my friends definitely know which Jeep is mine.
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I made some custom grab bars to go along with my N7/Mass Effect theme. Since I incorporated the "white" as well I figured it might be cool to have the white as glow-in-the-dark paracord. Here's how that turned out. They will get some light from the cab being on if those lights go out. Here I just put a flash light on them for the photo.
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Next was the lift and 35s. I went with Rock Kawler 2.5" Flex Lift, Rancho XL 9000 adjustable shocks, Level8 Tracker Pros, and KO2s.

We ended up renting a lift at a DIY shop, took everything off and started putting it back on. I was both nervous and excited. I was hoping the entire time all the reading/videos/instructions would help us put it all back together again, because I just took apart my brand new car.

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there was also a slight mishap with the lift; I had posted this else where in the forums but I figured to include it here as well for prosperity :)
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we ended up getting it checked out by a shop, everything was kosher
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My artist buddy really liked the Jeep, and he had a background in graphic art so he made this mockup for me if I ever wanted to fully commit with the graphics. I havent done it yet; might be a little too much for me, but nice reference to have
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By this time our first time meeting up with Wayalife - Texas was coming up, and we got a Cobra 75 CB installed, as well as some Rock Hard rock rails. I really like their stuff, and will be getting some skids this year too.
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Here's a few shots from the WAL meetup at HF. This was a while ago and there are a lot of pictures of this trip up here already, so I'll just throw out a few. Here's our camp site, and a picture of the newbie group
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On this trip Mako hit 10k too; Mako is the first time I've driven a vehicle > 15k a year. We love taking it everywhere.
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Next on the list was a trip to Colorado Springs. We were able to rent a yurt with 10 acres on top of a mountain. We brought the dogs, and wanted to be able to take them on to a big piece of property without having to worry about the neighbors. So I had to make some decisions on what to upgrade. I ended up going with an LOD Destroyer rear stubby bumper, a sPOD (at this stage I hadn't ran into the thread regarding sPOD/the owner's attitude issues; definitely know about it now!), and some new lights. The yurt reviews were pretty funny to read as the biggest complaint was the road getting to the yurt. I saw that and laughed.

The bumper install was fun, we got a little creative with holding it up to level
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I wanted the rear lights wiring to be nice and clean so it was a painful 1 hour run from the front to the rear down the frame using hanger to guide it and small hands.
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Here's the bumper without the carrier; I had messed up putting in the oil seal and had to order another so that's why it's not on there yet. I ordered two just in case I messed it up again lol. Just be careful when installing that oil seal if it doesn't sit right you will mess it up.
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We had a quick stop to palo duro because we were driving by and figured the dogs could use a stretch; definitely need to plan a trip out here again. It shows also the cheap lights we added. I haven't splurged yet for the JWSpeakers. So far I haven't had any issues. I painted the rim red, which I've later made black. I wasn't a fan of the red, but hadn't had time to fix it before this trip.
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Here are our dogs, Shepard and Camber... he's a little off ;)
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Here's the amazing place we stayed at for a week over last Christmas
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