Earlier this year Lee took an interest to wheeling, which started from his geocaching hobby. By taking our truck out on unmaintained roads, we were able to get out farther and get more geocaches. We had also been going on various hikes for that same reason. I think Lee started out more into the geocaching aspect o these adventures, while I was just happy to get out hiking and wheeling some more.
Our Ram 1500 is a capable offroad vehicle for these adventures and we have the Rebel series with some stock offroad differences from other Ram 1500s. However, it is stock height (no suspension lift) and I’m reluctant to modify it too much since I use the truck as a daily driver and a tow vehicle. I was OK with taking it on the trail and beating up on it a little. We have a lot of scratches and dents top prove it. I also destroyed my nice aftermarket steps (running boards) that I installed after we purchased the truck new. We smashed them by bottoming out on rocks where we lacked clearance. I just removed the smashed running boards and have no plans to replace them for now. I did buy a small stool to keep in the truck for when we have passengers that need a little extra help getting in or out of the truck.
Besides clearance issues in general, the truck also has a long wheel base, limiting how far we can get on some trails due to its breakover point. The long wheel base also makes it difficult to turn around or get off the trail when needed. The “turning point” (no pun intended) for me was a trip to Moody Hill in the truck where I decided to turn around rather than risk damage to the truck through a technical section. I knew that if I had a vehicle with better clearance and a shorter wheel base, then we would have been fine. Not long after that, Lee and I had our hearts set on getting a Jeep.
Fast forward to today, I’ve been busy lately in my free time fixing up a Jeep I picked up in September. We’ve gone on several trips with it so far and it’s been a blast. I’m new to Jeeps (not new to offroading), so I waded into the waters of Internet forums and social media groups to try and collect some info on the major things I needed to work on. I was able to get out with a few good nuggets of information from some good folks that were willing to help. There is also a tremendous amount of helpful videos on YouTube that I relied on to get some initial work done on this Jeep. Thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours later, I think I’m at a good baseline on this Jeep and spending more time on trails and less time researching and fixing issues.
We bought the Jeep from a guy that I think got it in his teens and worked on it a little with his dad. This previous owner was still in college but it looked like he was getting toward the end of college and ready to start his career. I guess he was ready to move on from his Jeep and off to other adventures – and likely didn’t want to tackle some of the issues this Jeep had! When I got the Jeep, it had a lot of problems. I’ve easily spent as much on fixing and upgrading things as I spent on the Jeep itself. Some of this was expected, an some of it was not. There was a a lot more emissions related work that needed to be done right off the bat and I paid to have a local repair shop do most of this work. While I want to do as much work myself on this Jeep as I can, the initial onslaught of repair was beyond my experience level and time.
The previous owner passed along a box of receipts and other documentation that he received from the owner before him and added to himself. This turned out to be a treasure trove of information that I have used to piece together my “new” Jeep’s history and aid in various maintenance and repairs.
The Jeep Wrangler is a 1997 Sport edition, with some modifications – including a 3.5″ suspension lift plus 1″ body lift and stronger axles (Dana 44 axles with 4.1 gearing off a 2004 Rubicon) among other things. It has a 3-speed automatic transmission (32RH). I started out looking for a manual transmission Jeep and test drove about 9 Jeeps total. After some research and test drives, I was convinced that I wanted a TJ series Jeep (1997 to 2006) and I really just “liked” the idea of having the first model year in the series (no real technical reason, but I found a lot of people loved the 1997 after owning it). As far as the automatic versus manual, I likely would have bought a manual, but have since learned that the automatic is preferred for rock crawling, which we do a little bit of, but nothing crazy. So, I’m happy with the automatic, but would have been just as happy with a manual probably.
As far as the wheeling-related upgrades, my new TJ had already been upgraded with Dana 44 axles, 4.1 geared. It does not however have the stronger and lower geared transfer case that I believe was standard for the Rubicon series in later years. This is something that would be noticed on steep/highly-technical rock crawling, or heaven-forbid, a broken transfer case in an extreme situation. So far, for my driving style, I have been very happy with the gearing (after replacing the 35″ tires with 33″ tires) – and no catastrophic failures on the trail so far! Also, for what it’s worth, I replaced the aftermarket wheels that came with my TJ with Jeep OEM “Moab” wheels form the Rubicon trim. There were several reasons for this and I won’t go into detail in this post. The only other important thing to note is that I’m running the Moab wheels with 1.25″ wheel spacers, which are probably not needed (e.g., for steering clearance), but widen the Jeeps stance by 2.5″ for a little better corner handling and off-camber situations. I’ll keep my eye out for an upgraded transfer case to eventually replace the one I have.
The main visible differences with the Jeep from the time of purchase until now are the replaced fenders, aforementioned wheels, and tires. The biggest thing I didn’t like about the stock look of the TJs is the plastic fender flares. They’re “OK”, but I wanted something a little different – something more solid and something that would add a little character. So, I replaced the fender flares with some metal flares that I painted “Rustoleum Deep Blue” (with some clear coat layers). I didn’t want to buy a new set of tires right off the bat, but the previous owner had 35″ “mud” tires on the Jeep. They were in great shape, but the Jeep is really not geared correctly for 35s and the mud tires are not ideal for the icy conditions we’re going to have in the coming months. I got a lot of opinions and technical data on the tire size and gearing, but my conclusion was that 33s are a lot more appropriate unless I regear the axles and maybe replace the transfer case. After switch to LT285/75/R16 (32.8″) tires on the Moab wheels, there was a noticeable performance increase, especially on long steep hills. So, I was happy I took the gamble on “33s” (actually 32.8s). These tires were also all-terrain BFGoodrich KO3 tires with the three-peak mountain snowflake rating and had great user ratings and testing for icy conditions. I’ve had the chance to test them in icy conditions and can confirm that they are excellent tires for the ice and snow. I also bought a set of tire chains “just in case”.
The other noticeable performance increase I got out of the Jeep since I purchased it was replacing the fuel injectors. I had never replaced fuel injectors myself before, so this was an interesting experience for me. Again, there was a very noticeable difference in how the engine “sounded” and performed on the road. This was along with numerous other maintenance and upgrades, but I think the fuel injector replacement was the biggest thing contributing to increased engine performance.
I’ve taken the opportunity to get my son Lee involved with some of the repairs, although I’m just learning myself on a lot of this. Overall, this Jeep is pretty easy to work on and I look at working on the Jeep as part of wheeling as a hobby. I’ll probably start using geohub.com again as a place to save information on projects and activities. So, I’ll probably add vehicle mechanical projects and wheeling trips to my already eclectical collection of postings.