Every year in Moab
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00:00 This week on Dirt Every Day we have 14 days to get this Jeep ready for the Moab Easter Jeep Safari.
00:06 We've got a lot of work to do.
00:08 Weeeee!
00:11 [Music]
00:39 So as you probably know, I have a bunch of different Jeeps.
00:42 There was that CJ7 you've seen in a previous episode. I've got an old CJ5.
00:46 But I've never had a Wrangler TJ. And that's what this is.
00:50 Now in '97 they went to the Wrangler body style and what's different about it from all the previous open top Jeeps is that it has coil springs.
00:58 And with coil springs it rides a lot better than most of those leaf spring Jeeps.
01:02 So I've always wanted to build one of these. I've never been able to find one I could afford.
01:07 And I came across this one and it was actually a really good deal.
01:10 This Jeep hasn't really been off road in its life.
01:13 And I want to transform it into a cool little off road vehicle for going out to Moab.
01:19 One of the problems with this Jeep compared to a lot of the Wranglers is that it's only got a 4 cylinder engine.
01:24 Not bad as a trail rig but out here in the dunes and when you're running big tires that can be a problem.
01:30 So that's one of the things we're going to have to address is how do we get more power to the ground with that little tiny engine.
01:36 Overall we've got a lot of cool things to do to this Jeep and one of the things that's great about Jeeps is there's so much after market support that you can get just about anything for a Jeep and most of it bolts right on.
01:48 Hopefully in the next 14 days we can turn this thing around and be ready for Moab.
01:57 Okay cool little Jeep, little 4 cylinder engine but also little tires.
02:02 And you probably know me being an off road guy I like big tires.
02:06 There's a good reason to put big tires on your 4x4.
02:09 When you have a larger diameter tire it helps you roll over obstacles but it also gives you ground clearance.
02:14 It brings that center of your axle up higher so all those axle tube and their center differential have more ground clearance to help get over boulders and rocks.
02:22 A lot of the type of stuff we'll be running over when we're out in Moab.
02:25 Another thing is this vehicle has a lot of low hanging fruit such as transmission cross members and these side steps.
02:33 These are really good if you want to help your mom or your grandmother get into your Jeep.
02:37 But we want to take this Jeep rock crawling so this is probably going to go but then we're going to end up with all this bare sheet metal right here.
02:44 That's something that if we're rock crawling we may smash this into some boulders so that's going to need some protection.
02:51 But one thing we don't want to do with this Jeep is get it too tall.
02:55 You get too tall and then you're off road and the thing is going to feel like it wants to tip over.
02:59 So that's my conundrum on this project.
03:02 How do I put bigger tires on it without making the whole Jeep really tall?
03:06 Some of the things we'll address is like the front fenders and the hood.
03:10 These types of things we may be able to cut or modify or change to get a bigger tire in there without the whole vehicle having to get really tall to clearance them.
03:17 Another thing is up here on the front.
03:20 There's this great factory bumper. It's got these plastic side things here.
03:24 If you're in a fender bender with a Honda that's not really a big deal. This would protect you.
03:28 But when you're rock crawling you want this tire to hit the boulder first.
03:31 You don't want to get hung up on a bumper.
03:33 So we're probably going to remove this bumper and come up with a more rock crawler friendly bumper.
03:37 And right about here it's going to need a winch.
03:40 Oh one other thing I need to tell you guys about is lockers.
03:43 So let me hop in this thing and I'll show you what this vehicle is like.
03:45 It doesn't have lockers and that's going to be a big problem.
03:49 So most vehicles have an open differential in the axles.
03:57 What this allows is when you're going around a corner the wheels are going to turn at different speeds.
04:02 So it has a differential allowing the tire speeds to differentiate from side to side.
04:07 That's great when you're driving down the highway.
04:09 The problem is when you're off road and you want traction going to every tire.
04:14 If you're off road and one tire has traction and the other tire doesn't and you have an open differential.
04:19 All the power is going to go to that tire that doesn't have traction.
04:22 Say you're on sand or in mud or in a ditch and that tire is hanging in the air.
04:26 Then the vehicle won't go anywhere.
04:28 So if I try and start this vehicle up here and there's a little rock pile right in front of me.
04:33 I don't have very big tires. I don't have a lot of suspension travel right now.
04:37 All the sway bars are connected and I just want to try and climb up this thing.
04:40 The next thing you know I'm on it and I'm spinning tires.
04:43 Once those tires start spinning they're going to start digging in the sand and I'm not going to go anywhere.
04:47 In fact I may end up getting stuck.
04:49 I can back up, I can get a little run at it, I can try and bump it.
04:53 But without lockers I'm not going anywhere.
04:57 The same with gearing. You have a small engine, you have big tires.
05:00 You're going to need gearing to help multiply that little bit of torque the engine makes and turn the bigger tires.
05:05 So we're going to need to address gearing, we're going to need to address lockers.
05:09 We're going to do all that to get bigger tires on.
05:11 The stock axles probably won't hold up to that gearing, those lockers and those big tires.
05:16 So we may even address the axles completely and replace them with something stronger.
05:20 Moab is a small town in southeastern Utah known for its off-roading and rock crawling trails.
05:35 We go there every year for the big Easter Jeep Safari.
05:38 In fact last year we went there and did a night run which we called the Mustache Ride.
05:42 This year our goal is just to get there in time before the Easter Jeep Safari is all over.
05:47 We've got a lot to do to our little Jeep.
05:49 Our first stop was Poison Spider Customs where we hooked up the little Jeep with better bumpers, rock sliders and a safer roll cage.
05:58 With only a four-cylinder engine we were being very weight conscious.
06:01 So we weighed the Jeep prior to adding the body armor just to see how much it would increase with the new parts.
06:06 In stock form the Jeep weighs 3,145 pounds.
06:10 Since our Jeep is mostly rust free, the guys from Poison Spider are having little trouble unbolting our stock roll cage and bolting in the new powder coated fastback style cage.
06:21 While the guys are swapping the cage, I'm working on ditching the lame stock bumpers.
06:27 Being beefier, that'll work better off-road.
06:30 So, of all these bolts that hold the front bumper on and the sway bar, which we all have to remove to put the new bumper on, 90% of them I can take off with the impact.
06:40 So they just blow right off.
06:42 And then there's that one that you have to do a quarter turn at a time with a hand wrench because it's stuck underneath the grill.
06:49 Somewhere there's a Jeep engineer laughing because he engineered this thing to be just a little bit more difficult than all the other ones.
07:00 Alright, put the new one on.
07:02 So, with about four bolts per side, this Poison Spider bumper is bolted on.
07:12 We're going to put a winch right here and there's going to be a skid plate to protect the steering box that'll go on right there.
07:18 It allows you a lot of access to the tires.
07:21 So once we get bigger tires on here, you'll be able to go rock crawling.
07:24 Plus it's angled here so it should slide up over obstacles.
07:27 We've got some shackle hangers here for recovery if we need to get pulled out or if we need to pull somebody out.
07:32 But basically, pull that big bumper off, put this small, stronger bumper on, and we are ready to go rock crawling.
07:38 The rock sliders bolt directly to the tub of the Jeep.
07:41 And we're also replacing the factory tailgate with a lightweight aluminum version.
07:46 Other than that tailgate, everything we've added is made of steel.
07:50 But even so, we only gained 55 pounds over stock.
07:54 It goes to show that well-designed parts can give off-road protection without overloading the vehicle.
08:00 We're here at Curry Enterprise. We're picking up some axles for the TJ and we're running out of time to get ready for Moab.
08:18 As it turns out, John Curry is also trying to get a Jeep built for Moab.
08:22 His is a lot farther along than ours. What all are you going to do to this JK?
08:26 Well, we started with just a brand new JK we went and bought.
08:29 We put the RockShox 70 in the back, the full float, the 40-spline axle.
08:34 This one's got an ARB in it.
08:36 And then in the front, we put our RockShox 60 in the front, 35-spline axle with a Detroit in the front.
08:42 Built some custom aluminum links on it, full Johnny Joint suspension, used all our aluminum arms on it.
08:48 So we got a little more work to do. We just got the fenders bolted on last night.
08:52 We put the RockSlide engineering, we put their RockSliders on it.
08:57 None of us are getting any younger.
08:59 So we had those on one of our other vehicles and we liked them so well that we put them on this vehicle too.
09:06 Hopefully, we'll put a few miles on it before we end up at Moab, but I doubt if we'll really have much off-road time.
09:11 You've been building Jeeps for a long time, so I'm pretty sure you got it figured out.
09:15 Well, I guess we better get back to work. I got a lot to do. Thanks, John.
09:19 All right. Thank you.
09:20 The front axle we're building for the TJ is a RockShox 44.
09:29 So this is a Dana 44-style axle.
09:31 One of the things we wanted to do on these axles is put ARB air lockers in them.
09:35 The air locker will evenly displace the torque from the engine to each side of the axle, giving you more traction.
09:41 Basically, it sends power to both tires, and that way, no matter which tire has traction, it can help you pull the vehicle up the trail.
09:48 This copper line that runs through here, it actually runs to a fitting at the top of the axle that runs to an air compressor on your Jeep.
09:55 We'll be able to flip a switch, turn on the locker, and you'll have power going to both tires.
10:00 [MUSIC]
10:11 We are back in the Dirt Every Day shop with our little white Jeep.
10:16 Now, this little Jeep needed a name.
10:19 We call it Tube Sock.
10:21 I know it's completely ridiculous, but you're not going to forget that we named our Jeep Tube Sock.
10:25 This Jeep is going to end up with 37-inch pit bull tires.
10:29 We want the Jeep to be low.
10:31 We want to stuff these tires under the fenders, but as you can see, it's already getting right into that fender.
10:38 But you'll notice there's something strange about this.
10:40 This is a fiberglass hood we put on the Jeep.
10:42 It's a Chris Durham Motorsports hood.
10:44 We sent it out.
10:45 We got it painted, and this is actually where our fender is going to end up.
10:49 So a lot of this is going to get chopped away so that our tires don't rip out our flares like that.
10:55 I got some PRP seats.
10:57 They're nice suspension seats that are really going to hold us tight.
11:00 We pulled all the old seats out.
11:02 The back seat is gone.
11:03 We're not going to have a back seat because of our cage design and what the Jeep is going to be used for.
11:08 I'd really rather not have too many people in it.
11:10 It's only got a four-cylinder engine, so we're going to only have two seats.
11:14 The stock axles are gone.
11:15 I've ripped them out.
11:16 The stock suspension is gone.
11:18 The stock coils, the stock shocks, all that stuff, gone.
11:21 We're going to use a BDS long-arm kit.
11:24 It replaces the short links on the TJ with a longer link, and when you use a longer link, it has less of an arc of travel for the front axle.
11:34 So the axle will move more of a vertical line instead of kind of a curve the way it does with a shorter link arm.
11:41 We're hoping that a 2-inch coil with our Chris Durham hood and our long arms will keep it low enough
11:46 but still have enough clearance around everything for these 37-inch pit bulls.
11:50 We also have these JKS Aecos.
11:53 They're kind of a bump stop that replaces the factory bump stop.
11:57 BDS supplied us with a set of their Fox shocks, some really good shocks, so that even though it's a low Jeep and it's built as a rock crawler,
12:05 with those Fox shocks and with these JKS parts, we should be able to bomb around through the dirt,
12:11 kind of keep that go-kart feel that we had when it was stock.
12:15 So the general idea here is keep it low and light, wide, stable, and get it all done in the next 10 days.
12:22 [Music]
12:51 [Music]
13:07 It is Thursday. We are supposed to be four-wheeling in Moab, Utah on Saturday at 11 o'clock,
13:13 and we still have parts everywhere and a Jeep in pieces.
13:16 The shop is totally destroyed. There's tools everywhere.
13:20 Luckily, I called in reinforcements. My buddy Tony flew out here from Detroit.
13:25 Tony's been working on the rear. Rear axle's in. I've been working on the front.
13:29 The front axle is in. Both axles have air lockers in it, and that's what we're doing now, is I'm putting in a mount for the compressor.
13:37 You can put this thing just about anywhere. We have a great little spot in the corner.
13:41 We can run the wiring to the battery. We can run the switches inside, plumb our lines down to our differentials,
13:46 wire our switches inside, and we should have locking differentials in no time.
13:51 In about 12 days, we've done a ton to Tube Sock, our dirty white TJ.
13:56 We added a new cage, rock sliders, and bumpers, a worn Xeon winch, new seats, put lower gears in the transfer case from Terra Manufacturing,
14:03 as well as adding a new aluminum Genrite gas tank with a gnarly steel skid plate.
14:07 We also added a pair of Curry sway bars in addition to all our BDS suspension.
14:11 This will give us stable rock crawling and on-road driving.
14:14 The old fenders were trimmed to work with our new fiberglass hood, and we replaced all the front lights with better lights from IPF and ARB.
14:21 Finally, we added a Daystar body lift to help give us more clearance while keeping the Jeep low and stable.
14:36 Alright, it's Friday morning at 11 o'clock. We are leaving here at 9 a.m.
14:42 So that means we're only slightly late, but we've gone through our entire list,
14:47 and the only thing we didn't finish was wiring up one of our off-road lights, so that's easy.
14:51 That's something we can get done in Moab.
14:53 We also ordered driveshafts, which they're actually shipping straight to Moab,
14:57 so we had to mock up with the stock front driveshaft so that the Jeep can run.
15:01 But we are ready. Tube sock is done. Ish. Kinda.
15:08 Yay!
15:30 It's about 11 o'clock on Saturday.
15:34 We drove through the night and got to Moab at about 3 in the morning this morning.
15:39 The Jeep made it on the trailer, but we still had to work on it this morning.
15:43 Tom Woods overnighted us some driveshafts for this thing, and they bolted in perfectly.
15:48 So we were laying in the parking lot of the hotel this morning, bolting the driveshafts in.
15:52 So the Jeep really doesn't have any testing other than getting onto the trailer.
15:57 We just got out here to Area BFE just east of Moab, and we're going to go see what our little Jeep will do.
16:03 So Area BFE is this really cool private property just east of Moab, Utah.
16:12 And what's cool about it is there's a ton of really neat trails here.
16:15 They do some off-road races here, motorcycle stuff.
16:19 But unlike in town where it's all BLM and public land,
16:23 you can come out here and run all these different trails. A little bit more hardcore stuff out here.
16:28 There's Upper Helderado, which is a very well-known trail.
16:31 And we're going to take our Jeep out. Some of the guys from Pitbull Tire are here.
16:35 ARB is here. They brought some of their vehicles out. We're going to take the Jeep out there.
16:39 We're going to test the air lockers and our big tires, our BDS suspension, and see how the whole thing holds together.
16:45 We're crossing our fingers because it's a new car, and there's always new car blues.
16:49 But we've gone over the thing three times just looking for bolts and nuts that we might have forgotten to tighten in our mad mayhem to Moab.
16:56 But we're here right now. The cooler's stocked. We're ready to go have some fun.
17:01 [Music]
17:26 After airing down the Pitbull tires to nine pounds, I headed up the trail and let old tube socks stretch the suspension.
17:32 The Pitbulls have a really tough carcass and actually need to get worn in a little for best rock crawling performance.
17:37 I pushed the tires over some boulders at BFE and was fully impressed with the abuse that they could take.
17:42 In fact, Mike Green from Pitbull flew to Moab just to make sure I had zero issues,
17:46 and because he likes this awesome little town as much as I do.
17:50 Do you actually have a Pitbull? No, I do not. I had a Great Dane and a Black Lab.
17:58 Uh oh. There we go.
18:02 Too much traction. It's nice when the tire makes up for the lack of horsepower.
18:07 Matt Glass from ARB rode along and gave me some pointers on what's best to use my lockers,
18:11 so I have no problem getting all that four cylinder torque to the tires.
18:15 So you push this button, you turn on the compressor, right?
18:18 Then you push the button to turn on the rear locker, right?
18:20 You push the button to turn on the front locker.
18:22 With one lock, you have the full maneuverability of the vehicle, so you can get yourself set up on the line that you want.
18:26 Then as soon as you want to start getting after it, you hit them, turn them on real quickly,
18:31 hit the obstacle, climb up, turn them off.
18:33 Most people don't realize that just because something says it's 4x4 doesn't necessarily mean it's a four wheel drive,
18:40 because it has open diffs, you're only sending power to the tire with the least amount of traction.
18:45 Exactly.
18:46 The BDS suspension and Fox shocks flexed and stuffed the big tires up the trail,
18:51 and other than the fact that I forgot to add a coil retainer to the axle,
18:54 the suspension worked flawless on our test run.
18:57 I did find a few minor new car issues like a nasty leak from the transfer case after we forgot a front seal,
19:03 but nothing that was going to stop us from enjoying a great day in Moab.
19:06 In fact, if it wasn't for a bad lightning storm that threatened zapping our camera crew,
19:11 I would probably still be out there today.
19:13 Do I have jumper cables?
19:16 Who needs jumper cables?
19:18 Yeah, let's put a golf club on the battery.
19:21 They have a saying in Moab that if you don't like the weather, just wait a few hours,
19:28 and sure enough, the next thing you know the rain was gone and we were looking for something else to do.
19:32 Mike Green from Pitbull said we've got to go meet Scott McFarland.
19:36 He's a local guy with a class 8 race truck, and when he offered to give me a ride, I couldn't pass up the opportunity.
19:43 [Engine revving]
19:46 [Tires screeching]
19:49 [Engine revving]
19:52 [Music]
19:55 [Music]
20:17 It was the perfect ending to a perfect day in Moab.
20:22 Well, that is it for our mayhem to Moab. We did a lot to this little Jeep in a very short time.
20:27 We added tires, wheels, suspension, locking differentials, axles, a roll cage, a winch, bumpers front and rear, rock sliders, seats,
20:36 transfer case gears, skid plates. We did a lot in a very short time, and we made it out here to Moab,
20:42 one of the greatest places you can ever go four-wheeling.
20:45 If you want to see more about this Jeep, check it out on the pages of Peterson's Four-Wheeling Offroad Magazine.
20:50 If you want to see more of Moab, you're just going to have to come here yourself because our show is over.
20:54 But I want to thank all those companies that we worked with. We got a lot of great products on this Jeep,
20:58 and I especially want to thank my buddy Tony, who saved my ass by coming out to California and helping me build this thing.
21:03 That's it for Dirt Every Day. We'll see you next time.
21:06 [Engine revving]
21:09 Moab is such a cool place because there's...
21:11 It is.
21:12 We should try and quantify it.
21:14 My friend Tony is an engineer.
21:16 Yeah.
21:17 I bet we could get him to quantify it.
21:18 Hey, Tony, you're an engineer. How do we quantify how great Moab is?
21:23 Look at the camera. How do we quantify how great...because you're an engineer.
21:26 The requirement shows that it depends on how much articulation angles you achieve through the whole obstacle.
21:31 Yeah. So if we take the amount of fun and multiply it by a given known constant...
21:38 Create the fun quotient.
21:39 Detail Dan.
21:40 Detail Dan does.
21:41 How do we determine...
21:42 Why do we love Moab?
21:43 How do we quantify the funness that Moab has?
21:45 What's the fun quotient for it?
21:47 I mean, it's all a playset from the west coast to the east coast that we meet in the center, you know?
21:52 [Laughter]
21:55 Alright.
21:56 This episode...you can end it with that episode.
21:58 Alright. Everything just got much better.
21:59 No. Maybe I'll rephrase it.