Chenbro's Second Silver Taco Build

When looking at new wheels/tires, remember that you can get a lot of flex out of 265/75's--I think they'd look good with your amount of lift!

 

I'm planning on new tires in the spring but haven't decided on the size yet. 265/75 will fill out the wheel well a little more which is the look I'm going for, but I also like the idea of 255/85 for a true 33".

I agree, needs more mods! Winch, hi-lift jack, skid plates, CB, hi-clearance rear plate bumper with spare tire mount, the list goes on and on...

 

Swapped some interior bulbs for LEDs. I bought the LEDs from superbrightleds.com. Here are the part numbers:

Map lights: WLED-WHP5
Dome light: 3710-CWHP6

It's a lot brighter than stock now.




I also swapped out the two NEO wedge bulbs in the HVAC panel to LEDs (superbrighleds part number: NEO4-WHP).

This takes a bit more preparation, since the HVAC cluster needs to be disassembled so reflective foil can be applied to the circuit board and the black plastic behind the dial faces. Without this, HVAC cluster will be very dim since the LED is very directional and won't be able to send light through the clear plastic light pipe that illuminates the face. To apply the foil, I applied spray adhesive to the less shiny side and stuck it directly onto the plastic and circuit board. Just make sure to avoid having the foil touch any of the metal contacts on the circuit board. The pic doesn't show it, but the dial faces are like the stock orange, but the blue and red are bluer and redder than stock due to the color of the LED.

 

Thats a good lookin truck.

 

With JLink's help, I installed a Warn 9.5xp-s recovery winch and Factor55 winch thimble yesterday. Fortunately the process was fairly straightforward and I didn't even have to remove the bumper, which saved a lot of time.



Since ARB bumpers mount the winch in a feet-forward position, I had to rotate the winch clutch control to the side of the winch so that it would be accessible from outside the ARB.

Two of the bolt holes for holding the winch in place are also used to hold the fairlead, so with my synthetic line I needed to get an offset hawse fairlead to avoid drilling holes into the bumper. Most of the offset hawse fairleads are shaped like trapezoids and don't fully cover the rectangular opening in the front of the ARB, but luckily I found a vendor on the FJ Cruiser forums (Ellis Precision), who made a rectangular offset hawse fairlead that covers the entire opening.

I also wanted to relocate the solenoid from on top of the bumper to under the hood, which meant replacing some wires. To extend the wires from the solenoid I got some 2 gauge 600V welding wire and crimped lugs with 5/16" openings onto the ends. The wires were then wrapped with some protective mesh sleeving held in place with adhesive-backed heat shrink tubing at the ends. The solenoid power wire was already long enough to reach the battery so I didn't have to extend it.

There was a big empty space above the passenger fender well with 3 M8-1.25 bolts that looked like a perfect spot to mount the solenoid. I had some 14-gauge steel plate bent into a bracket and bolted it into place. Above that, I had another 14-gauge steel plate that I used to hold ARB's solenoid bracket and it will also double as a mounting plate for an

$323 ARB CKMA12 On-Board Air Compressor High Performance 12 Volt for Air Locker Differentials and Tire Inflation

ARB CKMA12 air compressor in the future. I tried to mock up the plate with the

$592 ARB CKMTA12 '12V' On-Board Twin High Performance Air Compressor, Ideal for Air Lockers Locking Differentials, Tire Inflator, Air Horn, Air Tools and Pneumatic Tools.

ARB CKMTA12 compressor but the space was just too tight, and it's probably an overkill compressor for me anyway.

Not the best picture, but you can see the steel bracket, plate, and ARB solenoid bracket with the solenoid attached:




From above, you can see the empty area where the ARB compressor will go:




Finally, no install is complete until the sticker is installed

 

I'm real happy with how that bracket/plate turned out.

 

Yeah me too. It's pretty solid and looks great.

 

Looks good guys

 

Team nj db

 

I upgraded from the stock battery to a DieHard Platinum Group 31M Marine battery last week. When I installed the winch, I discovered that when the winch was winching, my stereo would lose power and obviously this is unacceptable. The stock battery had 710 cold crank amps, barely meeting the minimum required by the winch. The new battery has 1150 CCA, dual battery posts (one for the main terminals, another for accessories), and looks awesome.

Since the new battery is larger than the stock one, I had to get longer, 10" j-hooks. One of the stock j-hooks is tack welded to the stock tie-down, so I had to grind it off in order to use the new j-hooks. Finally, the two accessory terminals are different size on this battery (+ is 3/8", - is 5/16"), so the positive terminals for accessory wiring needed to be drilled out.



With JLink's help, I also installed the

$323 ARB CKMA12 On-Board Air Compressor High Performance 12 Volt for Air Locker Differentials and Tire Inflation

ARB CKMA12 air compressor this weekend. The second pic is of the hose fitting covered with a vinyl cap to keep out dust and moisture.



Installation was pretty straightforward - mount the compressor to the mounting plate I had made, run wiring, and hook everything up. The only switch blank I had was in the center console under the A/C controls, so instead of using the switch supplied with the compressor I got an OEM-style switch from Air Onboard to fit in the center. I also removed the sway bar (finally). Should have just done it from the beginning when the lift was installed.

Finally, I finished off the weekend with the boot-slide mod. The inner CV boot on the passenger side was showing some wear marks so it needed to be addressed.

 

Subbed. Lets see them new wheels and rubber!

 

Well the wheels are here but the tires don't get here until next week

 

Got my new wheels and tires installed yesterday. Already caught someone going out of his way to check them out in a parking lot. The 4" backspacing on the SCS SR8's gives the truck a more aggressive stance compared to stock. Mounted on the wheels are 255/85/16 Cooper Discoverer ST MAXX and I couldn't be happier with them. No trimming needed and only minor rubbing in the front at full wheel lock even with the remote reservoirs. It rained last night, and on the old BFG All Terrains the rear would slip out on "spirited" turns, but the Coopers held the line and never squeaked once. The Coopers are super quiet too compared to the BFG All Terrains. Drove 20 minutes on a highway to meet some friends yesterday and didn't really hear anything from them, not even road whine, which made the stereo sound better

 

Side profile looks good! Let's get some moar pics

I love the maxxs! I feel when I tell people it kinda sound like your bragging about them because I personally have them.. It's not. These tires are epic! I already plan on buying the cooper maxxs again when need be, maybe just in a bigger size Great choice Davis. 255 ftw.

 

I'll try to get some side pics to show how much they stick out past the fenders. Mostly I'm just too lazy to get out my actual camera to take pics

 

Truck looks awesome. Well done!

 

wow looks great & totally different.

did you lower the front end?

 

Thanks!

I noticed the rake too but I didn't lower the front at all. The tire shop also adjusted the LR UCA to have 3 degrees of caster, which centered the front tires nicely but also changed the steering response slightly so I'm going to have to get used to that. I don't know how much of an effect changing the caster would have on the CV axles. A couple times I heard some popping coming from the front when backing up out of a parking spot with the wheel turned, but haven't noticed that since.

 

I'm getting same popping the same way...