The building of "El Toro"

El Toro

El Toro

Member
Honestly, I wasn't going to do a build thread. I enjoy reading others but didn't see the point for me to create one. Then I was flipping through all my hand written notes and digital notes and I realized..."I need a place where I can keep all this stuff and also get feedback from others who have gone down this road".

So here I am, creating a build thread :)

I bought my first Wrangler on the 4th of July, 2014. It had 25k miles on it and I found it at a dealer. I ultimately decided to buy it from the dealer vs elsewhere bc the dealer extended the warranty to 100k. I've never bought a vehicle from a dealer and this was the nicest vehicle I had ever purchased. I have only had a few vehicles but I usually buy them with 100k miles and then drive them until the wheels almost fall off.

The first thing my wife and I did was take the top off and drive...anywhere...it didn't matter. We loved the freedom.

I began to browse around for forums and finally found our way to Wayalife. Really glad to be part of the family.

We ran bone stock all the way until March 2015 with the addition of Weathertech mats. We were gonna need them since we were heading up to Rausch Creek in PA for their off-road 101 course. It was still very much winter and I figured we were gonna be getting snow, mud, water, and everything else on our feet so in the mats went. The day of our course it was 25 degrees and it had snowed a little the night before. We got mud, snow, and water all up inside, just as I expected and the mats performed perfectly!

Here's a shot at Rausch:
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After reading and gleaning from the more experienced members, one thing I read stood out. "Learn how to drive your Jeep stock, learn to pick good lines, and become a better driver". So that's why we headed up to Rausch Creek bone stock. We learned so much and had more fun than we should have, we decided to sign up for the 201 course. We'll be heading up tomorrow for the April 19th class.

Well, we had some mod money set aside and took the advice of the veterans once again. We purchased a snatch strap, d-rings, and a CB. Not very sexy mods like a lift and tires but essential.
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Then came the sliders and the engine skid plate. Brown Santa was not too pleased with us that day but we were thrilled to see him.
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So that's it for now as far as mods are concerned. Here's my plan, broken into 2 phases.

Phase 1:

Mats
CB
Armor
33" tires
ATX Shakles
1 1/2" Spidertrax wheel spacers
ARB air compressor
Front stubby bumper
Winch
Rear bumper w/tire carrier
Wilderness rack

Phase 2:

Old Man Emu 2.5" lift
35" tires
Regear
Lockers
Rubicon transfer case

Our ultimate goal is to run the Rubicon Trail and so a regear with lockers went on the list.

We expect to have phase 1 complete this year. After phase 1 we'll be saving for phase 2 and plan on wearing out the rubber on the 33's before moving to phase 2. That should give us a few years to keep learning and having adventures to write about.

My hope is that the OME lift will be closer to 1" of lift with the weight we plan on having. I don't want to get into correcting the steering geometry. I'd even be happy to run flat fenders with the 35's if we can keep the lift down.
 
Since I'm eventually going to run 35" tires and my sliders looked funny with the pinch seam sticking out, I decided to do an easy an cheap mod...trim the rear pinch seams.
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JB Weld filling it in and sealing it up.
 
The 201 class at Rausch Creek was awesome. Here's a shot just after we finished Crawlers Ridge.

Jeep Badge of Honor recommends 33" tires and lockers, neither of which we had :). We made it up with just a bit of scrapping and maximizing our traction control. We made it down with zero scrapping. What a blast!
 

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Time to resurrect this build. It’s been on hold due to relocating to the PNW and zero disposable income. So we just set about learning the area, hiking, making friends, I couldn’t resist holding off any longer especially since we’ll have the funds to finally continue with the build and I might add at my wife’s insistence! All it took was rewatching the JK experience with my wife and she says to me “I want us to have one of those. Let’s build it.”

After the haziness wore off from fainting I was glad to see I didn’t get a head injury from the fall. :crazyeyes:
 
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I was able to get the OME 2.5” lift with medium duty springs on before moving. Added to it the Wheel spacers and Nittos and this is how it stands now.
 
An update long overdue and lessons learned.

The rock sliders were causing a vibration or weird sound that irritated the hell out of me so off they came. After talking with the company they assured me they have never heard of this happening. Turns out the maker of these sliders wanted you to mount them to the frame and pinch seam under the doors “for strength”. Being ignorant in all things Jeep, it sounded great when I purchased them. I jumped on a forum (can’t remember which since it was a few years ago) and asked for help.

Turns out connecting the frame to the body with the sliders eliminated what absorption the body mounts provided.:eek: I called the company back and they basically told me it wasn’t an issue and refused to accept a return :icon_crazy:. Fair enough, tough lesson learned.
 
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Hoping to learn my lesson I did a search for a switch system that fit my budget - S-Tech. I recall the makers of SPOD had lacked a bit of integrity here at WAL in years past & so I did cross them off my list of options.

I’m not savvy at forum navigation but after doing a search I could find nothing negative on the S-Tech and so I pulled the trigger. Less than a week later I discovered Eddie’s recommended products sub-forum. Doh! Looks like I’ll be using that moving forward. That will give me greater confidence in my future purchases.

Anyway, here’s the switch panel installed.

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El Toro said:
Time to resurrect this build. It’s been on hold due to relocating to the PNW and zero disposable income. So we just set about learning the area, hiking, making friends, I couldn’t resist holding off any longer especially since we’ll have the funds to finally continue with the build and I might add at my wife’s insistence! All it took was rewatching the JK experience with my wife and she says to me “I want us to have one of those. Let’s build it.”

After the haziness wore off from fainting I was glad to see I didn’t get a head injury from the fall. :crazyeyes:
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Glad to hear you’ll be building up the Jeep some more!

Where abouts did you relocate to? Always nice to meet a fellow PNW Jeeper.
 
El Toro said:
Issaquah but we We'll end up in North Bend one day.

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That’s great, we have very similar plans (North Bend, Hobart, or Cle Elum that is). Well welcome, feel free to holler if you ever need a hand or another Jeep in the mix.
 
GraniteWilly said:
That’s great, we have very similar plans (North Bend, Hobart, or Cle Elum that is). Well welcome, feel free to holler if you ever need a hand or another Jeep in the mix.
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Thanks and back at you. Look forward to wheeling with you.

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BaddestCross said:
Looking good! Building can be a lot of trial and error... Wheel until you break something and then upgrade accordingly. [emoji23]

#SaveThe2Doors [emoji41]

--
Build Thread - Adventures of Fiona - https://wayalife.com/showthread.php?t=47407
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True words indeed! I learn more in my errors than successes.

Love the #SaveThe2Doors[emoji41] signature! I'm copying it, gotta spread the word! [emoji106]

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