2016 JKU Rubicon Hard Rock - Jolene

[brien]

I've been meaning to start a build thread for months, today is the day!

We picked up our 2016 JKU RHR last August and have been slowly building her up as a mostly dedicated overland / exploration rig since then. We're building her up slow and steady with an attempt to customize only as we find ourselves needing additional functionality, for the most part. I do, however, maintain a long "To Do" build list that has all my aspirational goals for the build.

Our progress has been a very relaxed pace, so I'll start off with the backlog and work my way up to present. Compared to many incredible project on here, this will probably seem like a pretty tame build, at least so far.

This is the first post of my build thread, so it seems fitting to start it off with the first photo I took of her. Taken only minutes after I drove home from the dealer. This is the cleanest she's ever been. Just look at the dealer grease on those tire sidewalls!

 

[brien]

Here we are a couple of months later. I'd been traveling quite a bit for work, so we had only managed to take the jeep out once or twice. The first "off-road" trip we did was to take her down the back side of Mt. Lemmon here in Tucson after a weekend of camping at the top. We played around a bit, got a feel for the jeep. The trail starts off pretty mellow at the top, and after the first few miles becomes a very easy and fairly well maintained dirt road. It was enough for us to get the exploration bug. It was also on this trip down the Oracle Control Road, as it's officially called, that we decided to name our JKU Jolene after the Dolly Parton song with such fitting lyrics.

Since we had recently moved to the area, we didn't really know anybody yet, and were just exploring on our own as a family. Because we were exploring solo, I figured I should start off with a do-all piece of equipment for getting us out trouble if we ever get stuck out in the middle of nowhere. I picked up a hi-lift jack and a Bolt J-Mount to attach it to the front driver's side of the vehicle. I added a few straps, d-rings, and a wheel mate to our recovery bag as well.

Here's our 4 year old making sure it's securely attached. I went with the J-Mount because I really didn't like any other options. Mounting on the hood requires retrofitting the sprayers, and lets be honest, i'm too clumsy to be able to take a heavy mount off the hood without scratching or denting the Jeep. At this time, we were taking the hard top on and off all the time, so any sort of rear mount just seemed like it would get in the way constantly.

So far I still love the J-Mount, it hides the jack nicely in front of the A-pillar so it's almost completely unnoticeable from the driver's seat view. The one thing I will say about it is that the foot of the jack will collect mud and grit very easily. Not too much of an issue here in the desert, but on a few rainy jeep runs, I've noticed it get really caked up with mud. Hi-Lift makes a neoprene boot to protect the foot of the jack more from the weather, one of these day's I'll probably pick one up.

 

[brien]

After a few months of us venturing out solo on relatively easy adventures. We decided to hit up a slightly more challenging route that would require almost full time use of 4WD-L. It was on this adventure that we made friends with another jeeper on the trail and then joined up together. After this run, he suggested it would be a great idea for us to go out and buy a CB to make communication a lot easier if we ever find ourselves with other vehicles again. That was kind of a forehead slap moment for me, so as soon as we got home I ordered a Midland-75-822 and a mag-mount antenna to get us up and running quickly with comms. A while later I found a CB mic mount that mounts to the passenger-side glove box grab bar and the radio has lived there ever since. I forget why i went with a more expensive portable CB at the time, but i've glad i did. It has come in handy a few times to have a handheld CB to communicate while spotting others.

The mag-mount antenna has since been replaced with a spare tire carrier mounting bracket with a 3' Firestick antenna. In the bottom of the picture below you can kind of see the PL-259 connector hooking up the radio and the antenna. The coax lead is hidden under the carpets and side panels and pops out at the rear tailgate hinge where it leads to the panel on the back of the tailgate and then through rubber bulkhead and out the jeep to where the bracket is mounted (bottom pic).

Getting that cable wired through the tailgate was an interesting challenge. Since the outside cable hole and the inside cable hole are offset by a few inches both up/down and left/right, I had to use some strings, one with a paper clip tied to the end, another with a magnet tied to the end to feed into each hole. The metal and magnet connected to each other, and then i was able to pull the joined strings back through the inside hole. Once that was done it was just a matter of tying the cable to the outside part of the string and then pulling the cable through. I wish I had some photos or video of some of these installs. I was pretty proud of my pretty cabling job on this one.

 

[brien]

Airing down the tires has become an absolute necessity on most of our adventures by this point, all it took was a couple of expensive uses of a Circle K air compressor to realize that there had to be a better, faster way. At this point we picked up a SuperFlow air compressor, which has made all the difference. Someday we'll likely install a permanent on-board air system, but for now this one does an amazing job, and is able to air up all our tires in about 10-15 minutes of mild putzing around.

 

[brien]

PROTIP: since the taking of this photo, I realized that we could place the air compressor inside the passenger footwell, keep the jeep running, and blast the air conditioner out of the lower vents to drastically increase the duty cycle of the compressor. This was a critical realization here in the hot desert, since the compressor heats up really really fast sitting out in the sun on a 105F day which drastically reduces the duty cycle.

 

[brien]

Some time early this year or late last year we picked up a Trasharoo after hearing and seeing so many positive mentions of it. This has become one of the most invaluable items we take on adventures with us. We of course use it for carrying out our own trash, and many times it is also carrying rope, tarps, and sometimes firewood.

Whenever we are airing back up on the side of a trail or in a dirt lot at the end of a trip, we have our two sons run around to see who can collect the most trash to stick in the Trasharoo. It's a great way to keep them busy while I'm dealing with the compressor shenanigans, and has the added benefit of leaving the area better than we found it.

 

[brien]

My OB 2 emblems had arrived in January of this year, but it took me until march before i finally decided on where to place them. I like to overanalyze as much as possible, yay! In the end I went for one just above the wrangler decal on the driver front fender, and one on the rear just to the left of the tailgate.

 

[brien]

Our modest setup is working out really well so far. Getting us to all the places we need to go. We are definitely struggling with storage a bit at this point, especially for any trip longer than a couple days. It's clear to me that we are going to want a roof rack, so I put in an order in Feb 2017 for a GOBI Stealth rack. They make their racks to order, and we were told to expect a 4-6 week wait for it to ship. Cool. In the mean time, I practiced my camp supply tetris skills and my wife and I started getting really good at knowing exactly what we needed and what we didn't for each particular trip we went on. We started using the Overland Bound adventure checklist PDF to keep track of what we would bring on trips, and upon returning, we would fill out what we found to be the most valuable parts of those documents - "Needed and Didn't Have" and "Had & Could Have Gone Without". We quickly realized some things that we would bring on every single trip but never use, and we found ways over time to really pair down to a much more minimal set of gear. Most of the optimization was in our kitchen items and dishware.

Copper Creek Mining District East of Mammoth, AZ - camping on a chilly and drizzly February weekend

Sawmill Spring,Coronado National Forest, North West of Sonoita, AZ - My first time camping in a hammock. I don't think I'll ever sleep on the ground again.

 

[brien]

While we were on that trip where that last posted photo was taken, my 4 year old was playing in the distance at the side of the creek that ran along side the campsite. I heard him yell something, and then noticed him start casually walking back towards us. He came up to me and in the most nonchalant manner said "I cut my finger". I glanced down as he raised his hand - it was just blood. blood everywhere. Apparently he had found a large piece of glass and was throwing it around trying to break it more. Thankfully after we cleaned it up, we were able to see that despite the amount of blood that was initially covering his hand, his actual wound was a fairly small stellate laceration that we were able to manage with bandaids, which is good, because that's all we had with us.

It was a pretty big wake up moment for me, since at that campsite we were probably a good hour and a half away from any kind of civilization. I had been planning on getting a proper med kit in the jeep for quite some time, but thanks once again to my habit of analysis paralysis, I never did get around to buying one. The moment we got home from that trip I placed an order for the Outer Limit Supply Weekend Warrior kit, along with a mounting bracket that I could use once the GOBI rack arrived. The kit comes with too much to list here (here's the full list), and we've added a few additional items like Quickclot, a LifeStraw and some allergy medicine that we might need.

 

[brien]

For the first part of the year, Titan Fuel Tanks was running a huge sale on their 12Gal Trail Trekker to offload the current inventory and make way for the v2 design. The deal was just too good to pass up, so we picked one up for almost 50% off.

While this is a bolt-on tank, it does require extending the rear brake light, which meant I would have to take a knife to Jolene for the first time ever. The tank comes with an extension brace, which you first mount in one way to use as a guide for drilling some new holes

the gore

Then it was time to mark a line and do some real damage with my grinder and a cutting disc

Relatively clean slice, I also knocked down the edges with a file just a bit to make sure there were no really sharp spots

extension installation completed:

Now it was time to put mount it all up on the spare tire carrier. The design of this is pretty sweet, it mounts to most spare tire carriers including both stock and aftermarket, and then there's another bracket that attaches to the tank that you then mount your spare tire to. It adds about 4" of leverage to spare tire weight, and full of fuel it adds about 100lbs of additional weight.

Pulling the mounting studs through the new spare tire mounting plate was a bit of a challenge, but thanks to youtube and a bit of elbow grease it went fairly smoothly.

Here's the final result. I was pretty pleased with my work.

 

[Moriarty]

Very nice. Like the Titan tank.

 

[Levidale]

Nice looking rig and build!

 

[brien]

Very nice. Like the Titan tank.

Thank you!

 

[brien]

Nice looking rig and build!

Thanks! It's a modest build at the moment, but it's serving us really well!

 

[brien]

So far our stock rubicon has been an absolute workhorse. We have gotten our money's worth out of the bash plates on a few trips, and we have been really good about not hitting the differentials at all, ok, maybe one or two minor taps. Well, that all changed on a Rug Road trip from Mammoth, AZ to Wilcox, AZ that we did a few months ago. After experiencing it, I would say that route is somewhere near the top end of what we can accomplish with a fully stock Rubicon. Absolutely gorgeous trail, and so many interesting types of obstacles. If you ever find yourself in the area and looking for adventure, I highly highly recommend it.

Apparently on that run, I gave my rear diff a little bit too much love on a rock or two, because the morning after we got back home from that trip, I noticed a few drips of oil in the driveway under the jeep. I peeked under there to find this

The bottom of the cap was peeled back just enough to start a little leak. I took this opportunity to swap out the factory covers front and rear with nice beefy Teraflex diff covers. I was absolutely blown away at how paper thin the factory covers were compared to the replacements.


I failed to take any photos of any of the work, or any after photos, and now they're all dirty so not worth taking a photo of.


Oh, here's a tip that I wish I had known when I swapped out the covers: The stock diffs are filled with oil until oil reaches the top fill hole. With many (most? all?) aftermarket diff covers, the top hole is in a slightly different spot, so if you fill up to the hole, you are likely putting too much oil in. I found out that I made this mistake because the breather on my front diff is dripping oil now after a drive on these really hot Tucson summer days.

One of these days soon I will suck some of the oil back out of the diff to take care of it, but for now, i just put a little piece of cardboard under the Jeep to try and soak up the overflow.

 

[brien]

It was now the end of April, and I finally got confirmation from GOBI that my rack was actually being shipped out within a week or so. So much for the 4 week wait they initially quoted me (numerous times, too!). I knew that the rack would interfere with the satellite radio antenna, so I took the top off the jeep and disassembled the roll cage bits to get to the antenna hidden above and behind the passenger seat before the rack arrived. I had seen a few alternate locations to mount the antenna, but both required either fishing out the full antenna lead line (which sounds like a HUGE many-hour undertaking on a 2016 JKU) or purchasing a new Mopar lead line for about $70. I didn't have time to wait for a new lead line to come, and I wasn't sure I wanted to spend $70 on it anyway, so the plan was just to remove the antenna and figure it out later. Not to mention one of the locations meant drilling a hole through the metal front cowling behind the hood, which wasn't very appealing.

Once I had the antenna taken out, I saw that it had about 8-10 inches of lead line to the connector that attached it to the longer line. I had an idea to see how close that would get me to the back of the radio, so I took apart the console and pulled the radio out. As it turns out, with some delicate finger work I figured out I could fead the lead line through the dash's rubber gasket thingy (?) and around some bracing and have just enough length to reach the antenna connection on the radio.

here you can see where the skinny black antenna line runs down the inside, under an existing wiring harness, and into the back of the radio.

Once assembled back together, the antenna just sits right next to the daylight sensor out of the way. Reception is not 100%, but I'd say it's pretty close. Close enough for me. I do notice in rare occasions when the Sirius connection will be momentarily dropped for a second and then reconnect, and that only usually happens when i'm driving next to a steep canyon wall or tall building.

Here's a close up shot of the antenna where it sits currently. It blocks a small portion of the vent, and it could be mounted more securely and more flush. I'm assuming i'm not going to leave it here forever, so I opted to leave it in this less-permanent state for now.

 

[M4yh3m]

Very nice build - giving me ideas for my Rubicon Hard Rock. Thanks!

 

[brien]

As I may have mentioned earlier in the thread, our main annoyance by this time was lack of space for longer trips. If we were headed out on a multi day trip, we'd have the back packed up to the top, leaving little to no rear window view, and all the space in the back seats that wasn't taken up by a child was packed with gear. including foot wells, which was fine for the 4yo, but probably not totally comfortable for our 9yo. We had ordered a Stealth rack from GOBI back in late January or early Feb and were just waiting for it to come in.

After a long long wait, the GOBI Stealth rack finally arrived at the end of the first week of May. The shipping company called the day before to set up the delivery slot - "We have a delivery for you, It's a... a... I'm not sure what this thing is, but it's big."

I had a similar exchange with the guy driving the delivery truck the next day. "What is this thing? We were trying to figure it out back at the warehouse but the shipping manifest just says 'BOX'."

For as great as these racks are, I have to say, dealing with GOBI is a less than pleasing experience. I'd love to just be able to observe their operations for a week to see what the hell is going on and maybe give them some tips on optimizing it a bit. They seem to be the least organized, least communicative company I've ever dealt with. Don't get me wrong, everyone I managed to get ahold of and interact with there was absolutely wonderful and polite, but their process seems to have some very serious issues at least from the outside looking in.

Now on to the goodness, here's my first glimpse at the new rack, the way it is all packaged was top notch. Super secured for shipping while also being super easy and organized to unpack.

I'll save you from the boring install photos, there are plenty of photos and videos available all over the internet for anybody interested. I will say that I was pretty much able to install the whole thing myself, although I did get antsy and have my very very very pregnant wife help me lift the top of the rack up onto the top of the jeep at one point because it was just so much faster than me coming up with some rigging to do it myself. She's the real hero of this install for that moment alone.

The whole install took just about 4 hours, a large part of that time was removal of the rear bumper and installation of the first of the rear support pillars. With only a short box wrench removing the Hard Rock bumper took about 65,534 0.002deg turns of the wrench for each bolt, thanks to lack of room between the bolts and the muffler. If I was doing it all over, I would probably just take the exhaust off temporarily to allow for use of an impact wrench or something. The first rear support on the passenger side was the longest and most tedious task, mostly due to it being unfamiliar parts. There were a few brackets and about 7-10 bolts to assemble, and they all had to happen in a pretty specific order. Once that was done, getting the second pillar installed went really quickly, since I already knew how it was all going to go together.

Towards the end of the install, my 9yo came out and really wanted to pitch in and help. Here he is getting his hands dirty and attaching the top rack to the front rack support:

By the time we finished we were well into darkness, so I had to wait until the next morning to check out Jolene's new look. I was super happy with how it turned out:

 

[brien]

I was so pumped to use the new rack, and thankfully I had a trip coming up the next day. The ironic part is that since my wife wasn't going to be able to join for this trip, I was able to do some expert-level gear tetris and ended up not needing to use the rack. I think it was my most efficient gear packing yet, even more than enough space to bring along three large Tonka trucks for the boys to play with:

(not pictured: more camping gear in the back seats)

With the rig all packed up, we headed a couple hours north to catch up with the Arizona Overlanders meetup for a weekend of exploring Tonto National Forest and Agua Fria National Monument.

 

[brien]

https://cloud.hemaexplorer.com/datasummary/track/f0635a0975b1cf3fad4df9b1bfc57247/
https://cloud.hemaexplorer.com/datasummary/track/5d839218c8c515e7d51ad876e36e9518/
https://cloud.hemaexplorer.com/datasummary/track/c49be2d714fe9a764e22947a4bca9cd9/