Charlie's 95 KR to KY LT Taco

I think that leaf pack should be good for you then. If you want it higher later, I guess you could get the same shackles I bought.

I've got about 300 lbs of sand in my bed now and I don't think it's much lower than it was before sand..maybe an inch? My 2.5" spacer lift is in the mail so I'm hoping that goes on next week and the sand can get out.

My options are a little limited since I'm not in the states. I actually contacted Alcan to get a shipping rate originally and he said he wasn't even going to ask the lady who handles it to get the rate. Maybe he thought it would be insanely high. The shipping for all of the rear suspension parts was $485 from Wheelers. The poly spacer lift shipping was $67. So the products I use somewhat depends on which company has the best rates. But generally, I have to more or less pay double what everyone in America pays. It really sucks.

 

I spent pretty much all of August and the first week of September working on my car stereo, ordering parts, waiting, working on it some evenings after work and on weekends.

For sound deadening, I used:
Siless 80 mil - 72 sq ft
Noico RED 150 mil - 72 sq ft

I basically covered the entire interior, as high up on the firewall as I could get it, I backed many of the plastic panels, too.

Before piecing the car back together, I got new carpet. (ACC cutpile in Oak color) It was a real pain in the ass to fit since there isn't a single hole cut. A lot of guess and check. One hole lines up and it pulls another hole out of place. I also had to cut holes for stereo wiring. It's not a perfect fit but it's better than before. If I had to do it again, I'd probably order black carpet.













my worker

 

I will list the components used. All of this came from the Jeep, except I had to order new wiring and a few things here or there.

AudioCircle Berlin Line 3-way component set
JL Audio CS113TG-TW5v2 (13" TW5 in sealed wedge-shaped box - 2 ohm)
JL Audio XD1000/5v2 (1000 W - 5 channel amp)
Helix DSP Mini
Helix URC.3 controller (contains 2 sound presets and system volume and sub control)
Stinger 7000 series RCAs
All speaker cable is AudioPlus (high end Korean brand)

I had a local shop build a-pillar pods for the 3.5" midrange and tweeter and a speaker bracket for the midbass. Cost around $300 for both.











He didn't have anything to wrap it in that matches the oak color so he just did it in black vinyl. I thought it would look weird with the oak grab handle but I don't think it looks bad at all.

 

Under the driver seat I mounted the five channel amp and under the passenger seat I've mounted two crossovers with the DSP. They are mounted on a piece of particle board wrapped in black automotive carpet.
Channels 1/2 on the amp go to the crossovers powering mids and tweeters
Channels 3/4 go to the midbasses
Channel 5 goes to the sub

These pictures show the new carpet.

 

With everything finished up, a look into the back seat..
The sub being held by the seat belt looks stupid but it actually works very well and holds the sub very securely.




I'm not really satisfied with it so I probably will end up redoing it later. I'd like to find a way to get some 8-10" midbasses up front and go fully active and ditch the crossovers.

 

The next things on my list to take care of were engine and transmission mounts. I decided to go with Toyota on these parts.

For the motor mounts, I ended up in a city a little south of Seoul, called Pyeongtaek. That's where the US army base is. The shop name is Detroit Motors and I was recommended to go there because the guy deals with many US soldiers and speaks English.

Since I'm lazy, I had him change my oil too. The price came out to 230,000 KRW or $192 USD.

The motor mounts were in good shape. I was hoping they would be awful, to justify spending all of that money.







I also pulled out a new wiper fluid reservoir (mine was cracked up and unable to hold fluid) only to discover it has a big hole in the bottom. So it will have to wait.



Drove for an hour and a half to get home and I'd say it felt about the same. I was pretty pissed after I got home and parked though because...



I guess they thought my coolant was low and overfilled it? without telling me anything. I sent a text message with photos and videos and he has yet to reply. At least I now know that this truck needs a coolant flush.

Skip ahead to December and the trans mounts arrive. I decided to hit up a local shop, or "Car Center", as they are called in Korea. This guy, to my surprise spoke English and he charged me 70,000 KRW or... $59 USD to change the mount. I was very satisfied this time because the mount that he pulled was clearly not a Toyota one...but something made in Thailand. No thanks.







I think it might actually run a little smoother. But there was no dirty coolant dripping into my battery tray when I got home, at least.

On other notes, insurance finally reached a conclusion after 10 months of bullshit and government mediation and we are receiving 1,900,000 for our wrecked '03 Sahara! That comes out to right at $16,000 USD AND we get to keep the vehicle. Pretty good deal. Went to a local shop today and they swapped out rear axle shafts with Alloy USA (factory 27 spline) and it looks like the TJ will be on the road again tomorrow. But the plan is to sell it. I really want to get a clean TJ or LJ Rubicon! Will likely have to import it from the states though because TJ's are very rare in Korea and the likelihood of finding what I want is like winning the lottery.

On a second note, it looks like my spacer lift is also arriving tomorrow. So I'll get to see what the front looks like lifted and if it solves the overextending rear shock issue.

 

An update for the air:

I finally received insurance money for the TJ Sahara that was wrecked in March. Received around $15,800 and get to keep the car (which runs and drives).

I decided not to install the spacer lift that I ordered because install will be a waste of effort and/or money. Instead, I will get new LCA/UCA/coilovers.

On another note, I completely dismantled the stereo that I installed a few months back, including head unit and reinstalled that in the Jeep (which I plan to sell).

If anyone out there is interested, I would like to get the newer 01-04 door panels and get custom enclosures made housing large (8-10") midbasses built into the panels, better midrange/tweeters and/or horns, all class AB amplifiers with DSP, and a full size subwoofer (rather than the slim style I had previously). I also plan on a large 'floating-tablet' style head unit with wireless Apple CarPlay if I can get it to fit. I envy those with the 01-04 style dash because I would really like to relocate the HVAC controls to the bottom of the dash. I'll probably have to save at least one rear seat, just in case we have a little one join the family in the future.

 

So a few months back, I ordered a genuine Toyota washer fluid reservoir from Ebay and later realized it had a big hole in the bottom of it. After searching I found out that this was for a later year first gen that has a sensor in it to tell you when the fluid is low. So I spent about a month repairing it with this plastic repair stuff that I bought at Korean's version of Walmart. I put a layer of masking over the hole and then put a layer of glue once every couple of days, gradually spreading it out a little further. After about a week, It seemed strong enough to use but I kept going just for peace of mind. This is what it looked like before the install:


Here it is installed:

Then I realized that the plastic cover goes on together with it. (I wasn't the one who removed the broken original) So I had to remove it.


Here's a pic of the parking garage I work in and what my truck might look like if the front were lifted.


I thought about installing the 2.5" spacer lift that I got in the mail from Wheelers but I ran out of time. It's probably a waste of effort since I have coilovers coming.

I also removed the sway bar today. Those 12mm bolts are a pain in the ass to get to and with little space for ratcheting.

Over the next couple of months, I will probably have quite a few posts since I have parts in the mail and some waiting to be installed.
Here's the list:
Solo Motorsports stock-length LCAs and UCAs
Accutune Fox coilovers with DSC
Sonoran Steel Fabrication dif drop
Toyota lower ball joints
Toyota adjustment cams and cam bolts
Wheelers front and rear stainless brake lines
Bay Area Metal Fab BPV relocation bracket
Unknown (but new) steering rack
555 outer tie rods

In addition to that, I'm considering Heavy Friction Works reinforced spindles with new wheel hubs and hub dials. It's very tempting.

 

Suspension parts came in the mail today.



Both lower and upper control arms had many pits and gouges in them. If I were to guess, this was to insufficient packing (parts hitting each other while in transit). One of the coils was scratched up, too. This definitely wasn't from transit because of the way the coilovers are packed. Fox or Accutune did it and then sent it to me this way.

 

A couple months back I decided to relocate back to the US and I'm taking the truck with me so on June 2nd, I sent it to Masan Port to get on a RORO ship headed for Freeport, TX.
All of the parts I purchased never got installed and were sent to the US separately.
Here it is before taking the trip to Masan. The last time I'll see it in Korea.

 

From Masan, it went to Hiroshima, Kobe and Kawasaki.
Now it's on it's way to Kingston, Jamaica and then from there, it will go to Freeport!
Here's where it's at as of today, June 14th.

 

So I arrived in Kentucky on Wednesday 6/15 around 11:30 PM. Just trying to overcome jetlag while getting my new apartment set up and transitioning to US life. Luckily, I have a car to use while I wait for the truck. So here is it's location as of today! Unfortunately, it's not headed for the LA port (that was impossible to set up and I waited for two months trying to book it). It's heading for the Panama Canal and will first go to Kingston, Jamaica and then ultimately Freeport, Texas. It should arrive around the July 6th or 7th. So I have time still to decide how I'm going to handle the truck when it actually arrives.

So far, these are the parts that have been ordered to be installed with the Solo LT kit.
Accutune Fox 2.5 Fox Factory Series Coilovers 8" stroke
Heavy Friction Works gusseted spindles with new hubs and manual dials
Anonymous Fabrication uniball converted LBJs
Advanced Fiberglass front fenders 3.5" flare

Yet to be ordered: CVJ 3.5 axles for manual hubs

Yet to be decided: bump stops, wheels and tires, to get the bedsides while the truck is in CA or not (shipping to KY is scary expensive - in case I do want to add them later)

Here's the current location of the truck

 

Found the build thread finally lol.
Maybe some of my parts make it in here... Not very many first gens getting built in KY.

 

if you could call it a "build thread". It's more like my maintenance diary. I think if I actually have a cool suspension and big tires, maybe people would visit more. (I am a little proud of the stereo I installed, though.)

At some point, the rear will need to be sorted out and there's no way I can do it alone. Will definitely need parts and help with that when my bank account recovers.

 

Should be in Jamaica by tomorrow morning or earlier. Yesterday, I refreshed my browser so many times to watch it make its way through the Panama Canal.
I read that the average speed is around 17 knots, which is around 20 mph.

 

Eventually I'll have Links made for the raptor shocks lol.

 

what if I want my rear shocks to be matchy matchy with my front shocks?

 

I thought you were gonna be fox up front?

...I can put a DSC on a raptor external res shock

 

ah yes, it didn't even register those Raptor shocks are Fox. I'm kind of OCD. Ideally, I would want the same Factory Series with DSC on the rear, too. Not necessary I know. But it could work, right? as long as they are the same stroke?

Where are we with that engine swap and do you and the gf have any fun Fourth of July plans?