Templar's Build

Flex Testing

Offline and I went out to a local trail, Raw Deal, this morning and did a little flex testing.

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Arizona said:
Mark, Ya busy guy... Time to Update! lol
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Brad,

Crap you are so right - I can't believe it has been 9 months since I updated my build thread. Time flies and I feel lame for not keeping this thread up.

So I guess I should start with the front end changes. I bought a used Warn PowerPlant 9.5 with Warn Spydura Synthetic line. A big THANK YOU to local WAYALIFE'er Arizona / Brad for the great deal he gave me. I also added some D-Ring Shackles which I Plasti Dipped Red.

I sold my TruckLite's to local WAYALIF'er RDE2ROK and replaced them with the latest JW Speaker headlights. I have no complaints about either brand.

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More to come...
 
Some of the little things I did over the past 9 months:

Rugged Ridge Dash Multi-Mount Phone Kit: Use it to hold my Note 4, and also use it as a GoPro mount.

GoPro HERO Session & Headband Strap: Got this mostly for wheeling. It mounts nicely to the Rugged Dash mount, and I got the head strap for getting video's of others on wheeling trips without having to hold a phone or camera.

Midland 75-822 CB & Wilson Antenna: I have had the CB for a long time, not really a fan of it and it will be replaced with a better CB once I get a cage installed (Where I wan't to permanently mount it). I also bought a Astatic PDC1 100 Watt SWR Meter for tuning the antenna. The Wilson is nice, I like that it bends for when I forget to take it off before pulling in the garage. The flexibility also makes it easy to store strapped to the rear stock cage.

ARB E-Z Deflator: When I first got this it would not work with my valve stems which are the ones that came with my ATX Slabs, but they worked with other tires just fine. Resolved it by just prying apart the part that goes over the core and it works fine now.

Baofeng BF-F9 V2+ Tri-Power (1/4/8w) Hand Held Radio: A lot of the local guys I run with are using these. I love it. For me it is a lot clearer and has a lot better range than my CB (but my CB Sucks). To keep it legal I got a 5 year FCC GMRS License.

Rugged Ridge Hood Latches: No more hood flutter, very happy with this product.

ScanTool OBDLink LX Bluetooth: Using this with the Torque app and with a Ultra Flat Low Profile extension cable to get it out of the way.

ExtremeVision Cool White Interior LED Kit: just for the front and rear domes, really nice little mod for just $15.

Here is a pic I took that shows the difference between the LED and non-LED Dome lights:

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Templar said:
Thanks bud, I think it might lower it a little bit once I get the rear tire back there. For now I was hoping to do what Mel did with Evolander and just use the stock tire carrier with something on the bumper the tire can rest on when the tail gate is closed.That would free up the cash for some other things first like onboard air, a cage, and a winch which are high on the list.

Long term I am really not sure yet, I really want to see some of the options in person. I like the EVO corners and tire carrier, but I am worried about my wife being able to operate it. I am leaning more toward the Poison Crusher Corners and body mounted tire carrier. Really this is the thing I am most undecided about because I have not been able to see any of the options in person yet. I guess the other option is the Crawler Conceptz body mounted tire carrier but it seems pricey for what you get. Hopefully I will get lucky and see some of these options in person in the near future.

If you have any suggestion tire carriers independent of a rear bumper I am all ears.
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I wanted to update that I wound up going through with my original "temporary" plan of doing what Mel did with Evolander and the stock tire carrier. I showed Mel's video to the owner of the local shop that welded my sliders and did my re-gear and he welded a plate to the stock receiver hitch. It has worked really well so far and I like that I did not have to drill into, or weld on, the rear bumper. When the rear gate is closed, the full weight of the tire is on it. Since I am not doing a 5 tire rotation I don't have to worry about adjusting it for tire wear. Here is a pic of how it turned out:

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One of the major changes more recently was the addition of the Bestop Sunrider for Hartop in Black Twill. It's a product I did not even know about and I don't know if I would have even had it on my long list of items for my Jeep. What happened is Bestop was in Arizona to do a photo shoot for this new product. One of the Jeeps they had lined up backed out at the last minute. They asked a buddy of mine if he knew of a local guy with a bright color Jeep and he gave them my name. So I let them borrow my Jeep for a couple days and it came back with the prototype product still on - they gave it to me for free which was very nice of them. One of the door surrounds was missing the Bestop logo and it was a little discolored but Bestop sent me replacements about a month later. It was pretty cool to see my Jeep as the cover photo for their facebook page and their website.

As fast as the top goes, I LOVE it. I have yet to put my freedom panels back on since I got the Jeep back from the photo shoot. It takes 5-10 seconds to open or close it and I feel like I am getting a lot more enjoyment out of my Jeep now that this is on as until this recent heat wave hit I was opening and closing it daily, where as before I had not taken off the Freedom panels since I had the Jeep. I did a Smiley Rock trail run a couple weeks ago where it rained on and off most of the day so it was nice to quickly open the top when it was sunny and not-dusty, and close it when it was raining or on a dusty section of the trail. After having one its on my top 3 list of first mods to get right behind rubber floor mats and LED Headlights.

A couple pics - opened and closed.

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