GraniteCrystal build thread

GraniteCrystal

New member
Used oil fluid bottles

Planning on pouring gear oil into one of these to take on trips. It's a container that originally held ATF+4 transmission fluid, which I sprayed out, soaked in hot water twice, and sprayed out again. Any concerns with pouring gear oil in there and then pouring that oil into my differential?

IMG_20160818_122728.jpg

The gear oil bottles are too tall to fit in most containers, including the one I use.
 

WJCO

Meme King
Planning on pouring gear oil into one of these to take on trips. It's a container that originally held ATF+4 transmission fluid, which I sprayed out, soaked in hot water twice, and sprayed out again. Any concerns with pouring gear oil in there and then pouring that oil into my differential?



The gear oil bottles are too tall to fit in most containers, including the one I use.

Chemically shouldn't hurt anything, but you may want to clean them out the best you can with Brakeclean or something. But the tricky part is if you go to use them, it will be near impossible to get the fluid out of those and into the differential fill hole. Unless you're using that funnel thing. Also an auto parts store may have caps that fit on those quarts with a squirter nozzle that you could carry also.

In the future, CarQuest carries gear oil tubes that are small and narrow with a squirter fitting already on them. Here's a pic. Under that cap is a squirter nozzle.

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GraniteCrystal

New member
Chemically shouldn't hurt anything, but you may want to clean them out the best you can with Brakeclean or something. But the tricky part is if you go to use them, it will be near impossible to get the fluid out of those and into the differential fill hole. Unless you're using that funnel thing. Also an auto parts store may have caps that fit on those quarts with a squirter nozzle that you could carry also.

In the future, CarQuest carries gear oil tubes that are small and narrow with a squirter fitting already on them. Here's a pic. Under that cap is a squirter nozzle.

View attachment 218030

Thanks Doug. Planning on bringing the funnel thingy. And a bottle pump. So should be covered there.

Does that tube actually hold a significant amount? I like the idea. Couldn't find gear oil in a quart size bottle.
 

WJCO

Meme King
Thanks Doug. Planning on bringing the funnel thingy. And a bottle pump. So should be covered there.

Does that tube actually hold a significant amount? I like the idea. Couldn't find gear oil in a quart size bottle.

They only hold 7 oz. I thought they held more than that. But I know you can get those nozzle caps for quarts as I have some.

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GraniteCrystal

New member
Bungee cord storage

Found another use for sunglass cases: storing bungee cords. These are the ones mentioned previously which I'll use to secure a tarp to the Jeep (or anything else you use a bungee cord for).

IMG_20160818_193625.jpg
 

GraniteCrystal

New member
Custom fluid bottles

I need to bring gear oil along with me on trail runs but the gear oil bottles are ridiculously tall. So, I used a transmission fluid bottle instead.

Step 1: Clean out the bottle
I used hot water and soap, soaked it over night, sprayed it out, repeated. Still smells but I think that's just baked into the plastic at this point. Scrape off old label while it's wet.
IMG_20160818_122733.jpg

Step 2: create a new label on your computer and print it off
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Step 3: attach to bottle and spray paint white
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Finished product:
IMG_20160818_175121.jpg
 

JK Pleepleus

New member
My paint is really old and that might have something to do with it, but somehow i have white/blue discoloring on my paint after leaving the blue tarp on my car in the sunshine. You're in a little bit of a different position as you will be with your jeep and driving it so, leaving the tarp over the jeep when it's sunny probably won't happen. Hope you have a great trip. Jeep is looking ready to go!
 

GraniteCrystal

New member
With the multi-day trip finished, I wanted to write up my thoughts on the mods I've made so far. It was amazing to see how some things performed above and beyond and other things fell short. I highly recommend taking your Jeep on a trip like this before moving on to the next phase of a build. It was very insightful and help set priorities for the future.

This will be a multi-post effort as I'll split them up for each mod for easy reference in the Table of Contents in the first post of this thread. I'll be skipping any minor/cosmetic things and you can assume those were just fine unless otherwise specified. Here we go...
 

GraniteCrystal

New member
Gobi Steal Roof Rack Review

Gobi Steal Roof Rack Review
A bit of a mixed review but overall I still really like having it. One new thing it helped with was tree limbs. Tree limbs and branches were coming by along the trail and the rack helped keep them off the paint job of the Jeep. It also sufficed in holding the spare gas and water, though it's not an optimal solution. I had those held down by weaving a tie-down through the Rotopax containers and through the diamond lattice of the rear cargo area of the roof rack. When you tighten a tie-down as it weaves through that diamond pattern, it wears down the tie-down fabric. A couple days in we had to swap out the tie-down as it was starting to get a little sketchy.

Conclusion: roof rack is great, but doesn't work well with tie-downs weaving through the diamond lattice. I'll need to do a few things to improve:
1) Mount the Rotopax a different way. I'm thinking tire carrier. More on this in the Rotopax review
2) Buy a Trasharoo so I don't have to keep putting garbage bags up there and tying those down.

Here is a pic of that diamond lattice and the frayed tie-down:
IMG_20160826_145613.jpg

IMG_20160826_145742.jpg
 
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GraniteCrystal

New member
JCR Crusader Mid-width Bumper Review

JCR Crusader Mid-width Bumper Review
Original Writeup:
http://wayalife.com/showpost.php?p=637657

I'm really happy with how it performed. It gives enough clearance that there was never a situation where I couldn't get my tire up on a rock because the bumper was in the way. I also bent a tree over with it with no sign of wear (PowderCoat done by TrailJeeps). Sometimes I second guess the choice of mid-width purely for aesthetic reasons, but I'm really happy with how it performed on this trip. Two thumbs up for this one.
 
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GraniteCrystal

New member
Tie-down storage review

Tie-down Storage Review
Original Writeup:
http://wayalife.com/showpost.php?p=690302

In the past month or two, I rotated my tie-down storage rope from going diagonally across to looping between the two rear headrests. I like this configuration much more, entirely because it takes up far less space. Becoming disorganized on a long trip is easy to do, and having the sunglasses cases forced me to put things back where they belong.

Here is the current way I have it:
IMG_20160826_145901.jpg

That's 4 tie downs, 16 bungees, a tackle box, doggie poop bags, and tire deflators all on one easy to reach hanging system.
 
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