Tires!

Time to get new tires.   I may have not rotated them enough but the set of nearly worn out Toyo MTs were cupped and noisy and causing vibrations and a nasty shimmy at 45 mph.

Once I ruled out any issues with my tie-rod ends, track bars, etc, the search for new tires was on.

Through weeks of research I learned a couple things:
1) someone on the internet loves every tire
2) someone on the internet hates every tire or "knows a guy" who did

Through weeks of trying to talk myself into an AT tire, I struggled to find one that "looked like" a Jeep tire.  I daily drive my Jeep and in Boise I am rarely in mud so it seemed logical.  Couldn't do it.  Gotta go MT.

I like BFG tires.  I like their style, their reputation, their marketing, and last but not least, their tires.  It was really their spot to lose from the start.  I never found another company to consistently outrank them on any review board, website or forum.  I really thought hard about the Nitto Trail Grapplers.

My LJ on worn out 31s and a 3 inch suspension lift before the new tires:

http://flic.kr/p/hCAjvF

The new bundles of joy delivered to my door:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/63601457@N03/10916095263/

5 gorgeous Km2 33 inch mud terrains. 

Next post I'll have the after pics.

A new era for JeepingIdaho has begun.  LJ.

I wanted to buy a Jeep I could keep forever.  My 2dr 06 unlimited wrangler fit the bill.  6spd manual, 4 seats, tow 3500 lbs, orange.

Jeeping in Boise's Backyard

In just 10 short miles from downtown Boise, on the same path of the "World's Hardest 1/2 Marathon", The Race to Robie Creek,  you can go from sipping a beer at a brewpub in the city to jeeping trails high on a mountaintop looking at miles and miles of valley or layers and layers of Rocky Mountain foothills.

In Boise's backyard is a wealth of great back roads winding through the foothills.  This is truly an off-road paradise that is full of trails to explore.  My friend and I went exploring the trails in the Jeep with tops down and his camera rolling.

From Shaw Mountain road you make your way up to Rocky Road where you can get views like these:

Looking down onto Robie Creek

Looking back towards Boise

From this point we could continue back down the hill into Robie or turn left and head farther up into the hills.  We went turned left.

As the road winds back towards Highway 21 you make your way into Boise National Forest.  You get a great mix of terrain in which to play:

Nice Dirt Trails

Fun Climbs

Test out your suspension

We had a blast spending 4 hours going about 70 miles exploring the foothills in Boise's backyard.

Half Door Saga

A huge reason I love Jeeps are the top-down doors-off days of summer.  I wanted a set of half-doors that would give a nice look and a feeling of security when the hard doors are off.  I want the doors off and my wife to be willing to ride with me.

First I looked into Mopar OEM factory half doors: they wanted $1000 for a pair, a bit out of my price range.  I then called around to local wrecking yards and found them wanting over $300 each for slightly dinged-up half-doors from wrecked TJs, ridiculous.

So then I ended up looking into the tubular half-doors that I had heard about from a fellow "Jeeper".  He had bought 2 sets for his JK unlimited.

I settled on the ones I felt looked the best and had the best bang for buck:  Smittybilt SRC Tubular Doors.  http://www.smittybilt.com/product/index/56.htm  These are a heavy, beefy set of doors that only set me back $250 for the pair at local retail (Bucks 4x4 in Boise).

Installation should have been a snap.  I stress should.  Little did I know that there is a little thing called a door hinge bushing that needed to be removed from inside the 8-year-old door hinge that has been there for 8 years and was as stuck in there as if it was there for 8 years.  These needed to be removed before the half doors would go in.

After perusing Jeepforum I found people talking about how to remove them and proceeded to pound them out as they did with a flat- head screwdriver and hammer.  With those removed I found the new doors relatively easy to install after that.

I do find that the look is excellent.  They have a powdercoat black finish with a nice design.  The door handles that are inside mount take a bit to get used to.   The latches line up relatively well but could probably use a bushing of all things to get them to seat 100% correctly, what are the odds?  When latched the doors are very sturdy feeling and my wife seemed at ease on our first couple of drives.

We have been hitting an awful patch of rain through May and into June forcing me to just swap back the hard-top and doors.  They too could use the aid of some bushings to seat correctly now.  I have found a company that sells bushings for TJs and I'll have a review up when I get them installed.

For now I am listening to the rain against the window and wondering if it will be July before we get 5 nice days in a row.  La Nina is what is to blame, according to the weatherman.

Off-Roading and the Oregon Trail

Today I loaded up the boys, packed a cooler with snacks and drinks, strapped it to the rack on the Jeep and set off to find a place to play with the Jeep and have a picnic.

We wandered our way to Gowen Road where there is a Oregon Trail observation point where the wagon ruts of the actual Oregon Trail still reside.

As I am making the way up the hill I notice the sign that shows who is doing the trash pickup on this stretch of road.  It says that a local 4x4 group has sponsored this section.  I put 2 and 2 together and remember that there is some dirt trails off the road a half mile up the way.

We spent 10-15 mins tooling around in the dirt roads going through mud puddles and up some steep approaches.  I am very pleased with the clearance my Jeep has.  It can do more than I am willing to try, which is a very good thing.

We stopped off at the Oregon Trail observation and had some lunch, just after we went down the paved highway kicking up chunks of mud for a quarter mile.  The boys liked that.  We all liked that.

My First Jeep!

May 2011, I finally succumbed to my perennial springtime Jeep lust.  In years past, I'd see a beautiful spring day in the 60s with clear skies and totally jones for a Jeep with the top-down.  I live in Boise, Idaho where we have something like 200+ rain free days a year.  It does get rather hot but the heat is dry and the summer nights are some of the best top-down weather there is.

I am a father and husband so a Jeep was beyond impractical for a few years while my boys were small.  Now that they can sit in boosters and buckle themselves up, the Jeep idea became more of a possibility.

When choosing a Jeep I looked at several factors:  price, ease of maintenance, safety(rollcage design), and last but not least, round headlights.  This led me to the TJ.  Built from '97 to '06 it would definitely be reasonably priced, the rollcage fully covered the rear seats(not so with the older CJ models, YJ's have square headlights but have an improved rollcage from the CJ).  The TJ was also old enough to possibly still allow a weekend warrior to to his own maintenance.

I did not expect to do a lot of off-roading.  This was to be my daily driver.  I don't need anything flashy, just a jeep with maybe a 2-3 inch lift and a little larger tire purely for looks.   This is what I bought:

I had gone and bought a full-on rock crawler.

It's got a cold-air intake, front and back rock crawler warn bumpers, 33 inch mudders, and a 4-ton winch!  It's a Rubicon!  The beefiest Jeep you can buy off the assembly line:  upgraded axles, upgraded transfer case, ARB air-lockers for climbing and I planned on taking it to work everyday on pavement!

I have had this Jeep for several weeks now and what I am finding is that I love the fact that this thing is over-engineered for the way I drive it.  Now I have been getting more and more brave with it as the weeks go on and who is to say how far I will go?  I'd be a shame not to try out the lockers to make sure they work....