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Hey all.  Forgot, it's Jeep night at Scooters.  Anyone coming?

I am told both of my front wheel bearings need to be replaced.  I was curious if anyone has done this and how much there is to it.  I can get Timken bearings from Amazon for $75 each, looks like its all a sealed unit to me.

Anyone think I would have a problem doing it myself in my garage?

So I wanted to share with everyone what I've been a part of for the last few weeks.  I've been up at Unlimited Offroad helping them with the new CrawlTek Jeep build.  I am lucky to have friends in this club like Mark and Ed where I've learned enough to help on something.  I learned so much from them having Jeeps up on Mark's lift and that knowledge transfer helped me be of some kind of assistance with this build. 

If you haven't seen the new CrawlTek line, check this out.  I've been up nearly every night for the last 10 days working on either getting my Jeep ready for Easter Jeep Safari or working on this:

You guys are the first to officially see this, though there have been a few posts on FB from Adam, this is the completed product.

I see Bundy Hill is open the 2nd weekend of February.  We are itching to go out.  Is there anyone else interested in a Saturday run to BH? 

I thought it was strange for the last month or so when I would logon and click the "show unread posts since last visit" button nothing was new.  So I finally decided to browse and I see there are a ton of new posts.  I'm sorry I missed a few of the "moves" but I couldn't make Eds anyway and Cody, i just didn't see yours. 

Tonight I click on the "Show new replies to your posts" then all the new posts popped up for the last couple of months. 

Anyone finding something strange here?  Besides Paul Hittie posting on a Ford forum?

http://jalopnik.com/why-doesn-t-the-jeep-wrangler-have-any-competitors-1731625180



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Hey guys,
We wheeled a couple weeks ago with Rachel in the white JKU and then Sunday she came back with her family.  Her dad is my buddy and he got pretty hooked on this whole thing.  I really hope they join.  They are great people and will fit in fantastic, his hole family is very awesome.

Anyway, he's pretty hooked but they don't want to beat up Rachel's JKU understandably.  He found a sort of YJ that he and I are going to look at Wednesday.  I say it's sort of a YJ because:

current owner says it's licensed as a '95 but it's more like a CJ-7
It does not have the leaf springs but now has coil springs
hard top
the whole bottom and tub have been painted with rhino truck bed covering
full roll bar
6000LB winch
air compressor
air lockers (brand unknown)
Hi lift jack
new clutch
street tires (he said the bigger aggressive ones were too loud on the road)
4.0 Liter
5 speed stick
He didn't know exactly how many miles on it but thought mid 100's
I'm not sure of the lift height or brand
He is asking 8k

I'm confused about the YJ CJ7 thing. 
When we look at this Wednesday what should we be looking for besides the stuff I'd look for on a TJ?  Anything YJ specific?

I'm planning on doing air lockers.  I had a couple questions I wondered if someone could answer:
1) I have a parts list below from 4wd.com.  Am I missing something yet?
2) Is this something that can be installed in a couple "wrench fest" sessions or should I hire it out?  If hire it out, any suggestions on who to do it?

I have some skid plates on here that I've been wanting to put on and since the Jeep will be in the air I thought it would be a good time to add them:

Part #ARBCKSA12 - Compact On-Board Air Compressor Kit
    Kit includes 12 volt compressor, complete wiring loom with air locker solenoid plug-in contacts, switches, air filter, mounting hardware, and comprehensive photo-illustrated installation guide.

Part #ARBRD100 - Dana 30 27 Spline 3.73 Up Air Locking Differential

Part #RUG16597.30 - Heavy Duty Differential Skid Plate
Part #TER4667100 - Oil Pan Skid Plate

Hey guys,
I need a Hi lift jack for a few reasons.  One, the factory bottle jack won't reach the frame of the Jeep but also I don't have a good jack to use on my utility trailer if it got a flat.  I am buying a mount for the hood hinges on the Jeep but wondered if there's any difference between a Hi Lift from 4wd.com or this:

http://www.harborfreight.com/42-in-off-road-farm-jack-60668.html

Does anyone use some sort of battery switch or a master power switch for their winch?  The Warn I bought didn't come with one but it seems to me like you'd want some way to disconnect the winch power from the battery since that 4 gauge cable isn't fused.  If I were to get into a wreck and the cable was severed it could lead to a fire it seems.  What do you guys do?

PM me.
I have a stock TJ bumper with recovery hooks and fog lights I'll give you.
Alan

I bought a Smitty Bilt XRC bumper and Warn VR8000 winch.  I have the winch mounted to the bumper but the controller that the remote plug into is supposed to mount on the top side of the winch.  The bracket they ship will not let that control box clear the light tab on the bumper bar. 

I am thinking I'll mount the bumper on the Jeep and just zip tie the control box to the winch to drive it over somewhere I can get a bracket fabricated. 

Here's my question:  Is anyone on the forum here willing to help me out with this by fabricating a new bracket?  I do not have the equipment or knowledge to fab. metal. 

So I thought, being new to the club and to help other new members, I'd do a write up of my experience mounting a CB in the Jeep as this is a requirement of being a member I want to make sure that there are no "snags" when it comes time to vote me in.  Or at least not because of lack of equipment.

I thought it would be "mount the cb, run the antennae cable, mount antennae and your done".  Not that simple, not for me anyway.  Probably everyone here with seniority will already know what I'm saying but for newbies to CB's this may help.

First. I went to my usual 4WD supply place in Fenton and purchased the Cobra CB that has everything built into the microphone and just connects to a remote box mounted under the seat or dash, the fire stick 3FT antennae, mounting bracket, and 9 FT of firestick fire ring cable.  It took me about a week to get to it but I figured it would be about a two hour job.  UH HUH.

I am one that reads, thoroughly researches, then reads again and one more time I read again on how to do something as I hate doing something twice.

The first step was mounting the antennae mount.  I chose the mounting bracket that goes behind the drivers side tail light.  In taking the tail light off, I snapped a rusty screw off which of course was a ground for the light.  That explains the tail light problem....bad ground.  Of course I didn't have any of the right size screws on hand to put a new one.  Hardware store here I come.  After all that and re assembling the light with the bracket in place I ran the coax.  Come to find out afterwards, these brackets usually have powder coating on them and don't get a good ground all the time.  You may need to scrape the powder coating off under the bolt head or run a ground wire from the bracket (not the antennae stud but bracket) to a body ground.  I learned this one the hard way.

Coax: the Fire ring coax is cool but unique.  The end that connects to the CB unscrews so you can drill a smaller hole than the 3/4" CB antennae jack takes when screwing the antennae on. Make sure you have rubber grommets on hand.  HARDWARE STORE HERE I COME AGAIN.  I ran the cable but then realized that yes, in a straight line the 9FT will work.  Going over the wheel well, down through the roll bar, tucking under the trim by the door, it eats up 9FT pretty quick.  I wanted to mount the remote box under the dash but no way is 9FT going to cut it.  Of course I mentioned this to the guys at the place I bought it from and they said "well you asked for 9FT so that's what we gave you".  Funny.  I don't recall that.  What I do recall is them saying go with 9FT otherwise you'll have way too much.  Anyway, as previously mentioned I hate doing something twice so I mounted the box for the CB under the drivers seat.  Okay.

Next, wiring the CB.  There are a lot of opinions on this.  Some people say to wire it to a switched fuse in the fuse panel.  Some say wire directly to the battery.  Some say the best way is install a separate fuse block for accessories and wire to that.  The one thing that I did find consistent from the manufacturers of several CB brands was to wire directly to the battery.  The battery acts as some kind of noise suppressor for the electrical system.  So that's what I did.  Use the same or large gauge wire as what the CB has as I promise you the supplied wire from the CB manufacturer won't be long enough.  Also use an inline fuse on the hot wire you are connecting to the battery as close to the battery as possible.  The one on the CB wire that comes with the CB is too far down line to use.  They say you can ground anywhere but I figured if I'm running one wire I might as well run two.  Run the wire through the firewall in an existing factory grommet.  There's one under the steering wheel on the TJ that I used.

So now the antennae.  As I mentioned the fire ring antennae cable has a different connector.  To attach the antennae to the antennae mount and the fire ring cable, you have to have the firestick stud mount.  Which is an option for some reason.  I called the 4x4 place, they never heard of it.  So I ordered it online.  project stalled for five days waiting on this.  At the same time I ordered an SWR meter.  More on that in a second.

I install the antennae with the stud mount and everything looks done.  The guys at the 4x4 place said they never tune an antennae when they install them.  I found this strange since Firestick is pretty adamant about tuning the antennae.  Also, when you look around the web everyone else is very adamant.  The SWR meter is what you need to tune it.  This is mucho important.  If it's too far out of tune you'll fry your new CB. 

NOTE, ANYONE THAT NEEDS AN SWR METER I'LL LOAN YOU MINE.

SWR stands for Standing Wave Ratio.  It's used to measure the mismatch of the load and the antennae.  Google it and you'll learn more than you want.

Anyway, my "pre-tuned" fire stick was so far mismatched that when I went to channel 20 the SWR was pegged as far to the right as it would go.  Way, way in the red.  Basically it meant that the antennae was "electrically long" and needed to be shortened.  It was only a 3FT but that doesn't mean anything in terms of electrically long or short.  I took the cap off the tip and low and behold there was no adjustment.  I looked further into it and apparently firestick makes a "trim to tune" and a "tuneable".  I of course had the trim to tune which meant I had to cut the antennae but be careful because if you cut too much it's now going to be electrically short.  Forever.  I didn't do anything to this one.

With that I took it to Nords satellite and antennae in Flint.  He's a great guy and helped a lot.  He took one look at it and said the antennae was physically too short for the Jeep and that the trim to tune antennaes are very obsolete.  He sold the 4FT tunable, hooked it up to a spring on my mount, got out his swr meter and tuned it right there. 

Bottom line:
1) buy a tunable antennae
2) buy or borrow my SWR meter
3) do your own research and read as much as you can.

If I would have listened to the guys at the 4x4 shop and not tuned that antennae it would have fried the radio.

Like I said, some of you guys know all this or might have a different way of doing it or whatever and that's fine.  I'm simply saying that from one newbie to another this was my experience.  I've installed CB's years ago and never tuned anything but those were with the all steel whips on a magnetic mount. 

I just read a report from Consumer Reports that all the Jeep vehicles took up spots on the worst 15 cars to own.  That's probably why the garbage disposal they said was the best broke the first year I had it.  Then the second one broke.  Then I bought a dryer they said was the best.  That cost about $250 to fix the fourth year I had it. 

I am new to the club (will be joining December 7) but I'm hoping I can pick a few brains.  Now that it's really cold out I've been trying to get heat out of my jeep and its lukewarm at best.  Here's what I've done:

1.  I've found that the air didn't blow on the floor at all.  I found a vacuum line off one of the vacuum thingys that changed the direction of airflow.  Now that works.
2.  I flushed the heater core.  What came out was not too dirty at all.  Looked like antifreeze.  I was able to blow through the large hose and could feel it come out of the small hose so there shouldn't be any obstructions.

The temp gauge reads 210 so I don't think the thermostat is the problem.

I can turn the cool/heat dial and feel the temperature change from luke warm to cold.  The little electric motor everyone talks about freezing up must we working if it changes the temperature.

Any suggestions as to where to go next?

So we've been really thinking about moving and we got an offer tonight on our 36FT boat.  My wife asked Paige (8 year old) if we moved how she would decorate her room.  She said "it would be with Jeeps and mud color"......How proud can I be?

So I know that I need to get a flag for the jeep.  I bought one at off road unlimited which is a really nice two piece flag.  Question is, where do I mount it?  And what's the difference between a sand flag and a trail flag?  I'm guessing sand flag goes in the front and trail flag goes in the back but that's just a guess.  Also, how do you guys have yours mounted?  I'm thinking about using an air compressor hose quick connect with the male end attached to the Jeep and female end on the flag pole that way I can just quickly remove/attach the flag.

Hi everybody.  Were the Daron's.  We've known Paul Hittie for quite a while as he does our taxes every year.  For years I've listened to his stories about "Jeeping" (that's what we've always called it).  I have to say I was seriously intrigued. Fast forward...

We have a boat we've kept in Bay City for years and have decided to move it to Au Gres.  I needed another vehicle to leave up there so when my family heads to Au Gres on Thursday night I have something to drive the next day and I can leave them with wheels.  So I bought a Jeep.

Now its become a damn obsession.  I have a drug called "TJ" in my veins and I can't stop using it. 

Our first organized adventure was last weekend at Dixie Gully Run II.  Now everyone is hooked.

Anyway, that's my story.  I hope Paul gets me a ton of money back on my taxes this year as now I have many upgrades that are on the docket.

Look forward to meeting everyone.

Alan, Michelle, Paige, and Connor.

HI Everyone.  So I'm joining this club.  I will meet everyone at the can food drive at the mounds.

I see on the homepage that we come here to register for "Operation Snowbound".  I'm in.  My family and I will be up for that but I'm not sure where to register.  Can someone point me in the right direction?
Thanks
Alan