Next up on my dream Jeep Wrangler 2006 LJ Rubicon list of parts are the Bumpers and Tire Carrier. The possibilities are endless in this class but I have been able to decide on one particular style. When I began comparing all the bumpers out there I kept seeing the design as this huge bumper that weight a lot and look they would be easy to get hanged up on. While it may be nice to have a massive bumper on the Jeep, it just isn’t my style. Things like gas mileage, vehicle weight, and approach angle mean a bigger deal to me than the little bit of add protection you gain.
Which is why T&T Customs has won me over because I like the approach angle, clean lines, and simplicity of their design. These bumpers are for Hard-Core off-road in mind, meaning they’re meant for some serious abuse. If you can even manage to hit them while off-road. Unlike many manufacturers, T&T Custom’s Front Bumpers has the Winch Mount, D-Ring Mounts, and Guardian tube standard on the front TJ bumper.
The Rear Bumper gets even better than the Front Bumper. T&T Custom’s designed the bumper so that it is flush with body, providing an excellent departure angle. The integration of the Brake lights, Two D-Ring mounts, and back-up lights into the bumper help finish off the design by saving you the time and effort on figuring out how to mount the them when a 37″ tire sits back there.
Hopefully you will agree with my reasoning on why I choose to go with T&T Custom’s Bumpers, because otherwise you should leave a comment below. And next time I will talk about the Body armor and Sway-bar setup I will go with on my Dream Jeep Wrangler Unlimited Rubicon – LJ.
So till then, see ya on the Trails
Eric Schwarz.
A while back I mentioned a part that would be on my dream Jeep Wrangler 2006 LJ Rubicon, which is the Advance Adapter Rubicrawler and you can read that post here. To get on track with the next item in a list of items for my dream Jeep that I plan to update more frequently is from GenRight Off-Road. GenRight is know for their amazing fabrication skills with metal, specifically tig welding.
So what is this part I desire?
The Hi-Fender Tube Kit – LJ from GenRight. This fender kit is the most important part of my Dream Jeep because I will not be putting a lift kit on my Jeep. Instead this kit allows me to run 35 inch tires on a factory TJ/LJ Jeep Wrangler 1996-2006 with no rubbing. Now if you did read my previous post you know that I decided on 37 inch tires, but fear not a simple 2″ Budget Boost will solve my problem. The beauty of this GenRight Hi-Fender Tube Kit is that I can retain factory suspension while still driving on these massive tires. Now I just said “factory suspension” and in attempt to get all of you on board with me here’s a list of things I will not have to worry about to get 37″ tires on my Jeep-
- Drive-Shaft Vibrations
- Lengthening and/or Shorting of Drive-Shafts
- Reduced Life on U-Joints from Extreme Angles
- Converting to Double Cardien Joints (But you know this only implies to non Rubicon edition Wranglers)
- Steering Alignment issues
- Caster Angle
- Transfer Case Drop Kits
- Bumper Steer
- Exhaust Modifications
- Sloppy Non-Responsive Steering
- Extended Brake lines
- etc.
Which is me just naming a few thing off the top of my Head.
But, The bread and butter don’t stop there, not yet. Unlike other Jeeps out there, my Dream Jeep will have an extremely low center of gravity (it doesn’t sit very high). Meaning when I drive down the off camber trails, this Jeep going to feel nice and secure, where others maybe worried about rolling their Jeep onto its side.
Finally, You may have not noticed it but the kit include the sliders that are in the two images above.
Look for next weeks post on what bumpers I have chosen.
Some day I plan on having a dream Jeep, that specific model is an 2006 LJ Rubicon with 2″ of lift and 37″ MTR tires and one of the parts that it would include is the new advance adapter Rubicrawler.
The Rubicrawler is a gear reduction box that allows you to have more selections in your gearing choice. Your standard Jeep only has 1:1 gear ratio in 4HI and when shifted into 4LO your generally have some where around 2.72 unless that Jeep of yours is Rubicon and in that case it would be 4.0:1. This means that your drive shaft will rotate once time every time the engine does one rotation in 4HI. Where as in 4LO the dive shaft will only rate once every time the engine does 2.72 rotations.
This where the Rubicrawler comes in handy becuase it give you additional choices for gearing. The options are 1:1, two choices of 2.72:1, and 7.40:1 for wranglers produced before 2006, and for you lucky ones with the Rubicons package the options are 1:1, 2.72:1, 4.0:1 and an impressive 10.88:1. Now some of you maybe saying that the 4.0:1 gearing is good enough, I would disagree because I think this allows you to run much better highway gears and still have a very low gear ratio. Instead of gearing my dream Jeep with 5.13 in the differentials, I will choose 4.88 and maintain reasonable gas mileage and still have a lower gear ratio than factory Jeeps. Read the rest of this entry »
