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MrFahrenheit's Red Rubi

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MrFahrenheit

MrFahrenheit

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If I had YJ, it would be painted like Jurassic Park's in a minute. I'm also a Fire Cracker Red owner.
There is someone in or right around my town that has a Jurassic Park YJ. I do love the look!
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MrFahrenheit

MrFahrenheit

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Been a while since I updated the progress. Been just out and enjoying the Gladiator! Mid August the family rented a camper and we towed it with the gladiator. It was a Forrest River 1650BH. It's a pretty light trailer, about 3500lbs dry (which is how we towed it) and it towed great. Got about 10.5 MPG according to my odometer.

Jeep Gladiator MrFahrenheit's Red Rubi IMG_5277


We towed out to Appleton, MN and went to the off-road park there with the truck. It was a great time! We didn't do anything too crazy but it had rained hard the night before and we actually got stuck in some mud. We flagged down a couple of side by sides who pulled us out with their winches. Big thanks to those guys!

I only had a tow strap with me for recovery gear and so I had to do a couple of upgrades to make sure if we got ever get stuck again we can get out.

Picked up some X-Bull traction boards from amazon and added a Rugged Ridge Arcus front bumper with a Badlands Apex 12000 pound winch. Overall it fits nicely in there. It's snug from front to back but there is space on either side. Like others have done, I re-routed the power cable from the back of the control box to come out the side because of clearance issues between the winch and grill. I have the trailcam and I can just barely see a sliver of the top of the control box in the view.

Jeep Gladiator MrFahrenheit's Red Rubi IMG_5387


Jeep Gladiator MrFahrenheit's Red Rubi IMG_5388


Jeep Gladiator MrFahrenheit's Red Rubi IMG_5384


The shackles are Go-Rhino ones that come finished in the red matched with their red shackle isolators. I painted the aluminum fairlead that comes with the Apex, probably won't last but oh well.

A front license plate is required in Minnesota so I picked up the Tuffy flip up license plate bracket for hawse fairleads. Because of the thickness of the Apex fairlead the Tuffy brackets won't clear and sit flat so I made some brackets to extend the connection point between the two tuffy brackets out about an inch.

Extension Bracket:
Jeep Gladiator MrFahrenheit's Red Rubi IMG_5397_1


This allowed it to work as expected:

Jeep Gladiator MrFahrenheit's Red Rubi IMG_5392


Jeep Gladiator MrFahrenheit's Red Rubi IMG_5394


PS, I know my picture taking sucks.... One of these days I'll get better at it.. :LOL:
 
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MrFahrenheit

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I saw another red JT in the Firecracker Red picture thread that had these flag decals for the fender vent. I loved the look and picked up a pair from pixeldecals. It took a while to get them but got them installed today!

Merica!

Jeep Gladiator MrFahrenheit's Red Rubi IMG_5410
 

Jp32018

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As many others have noted, my JT came stock with little rocks and pebbles integrated between the flares and body. Following in the footsteps of those before me I installed some rubber welting between the flares and body. No more rocks!

It's tough to see in the pictures, which i think is a good thing, but the dark line you see between the fender and body is the rubber welting. I stopped the welting at the bottom of the side vents on the each front fender and brought it all the way around on the rears. This is the product I used:

Trim-Lok Rubber Tubing Seal – .276” Outside Diameter, .206” Inside Diameter, 25’ Length – Closed Cell EPDM Foam Tubing: Link

Front at the hood:

Jeep Gladiator MrFahrenheit's Red Rubi IMG_5410


Stopping hte welting at the end of the side vent on the front flares:
Jeep Gladiator MrFahrenheit's Red Rubi IMG_5410


Rear welting goes all the way from front to back. It's a little more visible here what I did.
Jeep Gladiator MrFahrenheit's Red Rubi IMG_5410
I got the tubing. How did you install it between the hood and flares ?
 

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MrFahrenheit

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I got the tubing. How did you install it between the hood and flares ?
I used a couple of trim removal tools to push it in. Something like these: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07R44VJHN/

The one in the middle or the 2nd from the right work well. Just kept pushing it in, working from one end to the other until I was happy with how far it was in there.

I did have one side on the front come out and I haven't replaced it yet. I might do that this week with our nice weather.
 

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I used a couple of trim removal tools to push it in. Something like these: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07R44VJHN/

The one in the middle or the 2nd from the right work well. Just kept pushing it in, working from one end to the other until I was happy with how far it was in there.

I did have one side on the front come out and I haven't replaced it yet. I might do that this week with our nice weather.
Thanks. I'll give it a try
 
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With all the rave about oil catch cans I decided to add one to my Gladiator. I used the same cheap stuff as seen in the JK Gear and Gadgets video on YouTube. After watching a few others it seemed like a decent thing to add.

I placed my catch can in the open space between the Power Distribution block and the engine up at the firewall. I made a simple little bracket that holds in place. I can easily get my hand in there and unscrew the can part off to dispose of it without needing to remove the whole catch can. Just like in the JK Gear and Gadgets video, I cut the original PCV tube to attach the heater hose. The heater hose is a bit bigger than the biggest hose barbs that come with the catch can but I just made the hose clamps bubba tight and called it a day.

Obligatory pictures:

Bracket and mounting location:

Jeep Gladiator MrFahrenheit's Red Rubi IMG_5486


Jeep Gladiator MrFahrenheit's Red Rubi IMG_5487



New Hose Routing:

Jeep Gladiator MrFahrenheit's Red Rubi IMG_5490



With the engine cover on:

Jeep Gladiator MrFahrenheit's Red Rubi IMG_5491
 
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Another project I knocked out this weekend was adding the Badge Glow Aux board.

https://badgeglow.com/product/simpleaux/

I wanted something that was going to be ready and easy to connect things too underneath the hood without having to dig out the wires and wire the connection. This fits the bill perfectly.

I did make one mistake though. When ordering you have two options, with pigtails and without. I wanted to solder my aux wires to the wires on the Badge Glow aux board so I ordered without pigtails thinking there would be wires connected to it just not crimp connectors. This is not the case, there are no wires pre-soldered onto the board if you select the No pigtail option. This makes perfect sense to me now but for whatever reason was not clear when I was ordering.

If you order without pigtails, like I mistakenly did, this mean you will need to through hole solder the jeep aux wires direct to the board. I've never done this type of soldering before so it seemed like a daunting task. It ended up not being as bad as I though (after watching a dozen or so videos on through hole soldering) but I would still recommend just ordering it with the pigtails to make things much easier.

After install, I tested each Aux connection with my multi-meter and they all have good power. Now I just need my 12v lighted wreath to show up.....

Jeep Gladiator MrFahrenheit's Red Rubi IMG_5492


EDIT:

For those that don't want to pilfer their painted fender bolts for this, pick up a pack of Dorman 964-010D bolts. They are the correct bolts for these holes and they come black which blends in with the board more:

Jeep Gladiator MrFahrenheit's Red Rubi IMG_5513[446]
 
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Little bit of an update on the oil catch can. After maybe 500 miles I am surprised at how much oil has been captured in this thing. This is just from normal errand runs, not much highway and no off-roading. This is on an almost new engine as well.

Jeep Gladiator MrFahrenheit's Red Rubi IMG_5507[438]
 

Bobbyfanman17

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Another small mod installed today, a black antenna! The entire Jeep is red and black so having a chorme-ish antenna just didn't look right. I don't like the look of the stubby antenna's and didn't want to sacrifice much in the way of reception so I bought a 31" black antenna from AntennaMastsRus. The stock antenna is 35" so it's not a lot shorter but I think it really looks like it should have come this way from the factory.

Product: AntennaMastsRus - 31 Inch Black Antenna is Compatible with Jeep Wrangler JK - JL | Gladiator: Link

New Antenna:

Jeep Gladiator MrFahrenheit's Red Rubi IMG_5507[438]


It sticks about an inch or so above the roof line:

Jeep Gladiator MrFahrenheit's Red Rubi IMG_5507[438]
I'm on my 3rd aftermarket black antenna, can't find a shorter one that gets decent AM reception (I live in St. Louis so I have to be able to listen to the Cardinal games) I can't believe how long the OEM antenna is, 35" is just too long and you are right I don't like the silver look either. I might have to try the one you bought, although it's still a little longer that I would like. How is the AM reception with it?
 
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I'm on my 3rd aftermarket black antenna, can't find a shorter one that gets decent AM reception (I live in St. Louis so I have to be able to listen to the Cardinal games) I can't believe how long the OEM antenna is, 35" is just too long and you are right I don't like the silver look either. I might have to try the one you bought, although it's still a little longer that I would like. How is the AM reception with it?
I haven't actually listened to much regular radio honestly so I can't give much of a real world opinion. I can't imagine it would be much different from the factory antenna though as It's only a few inches shorter and looks to be of the same design.
 
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Well, I've certainly been slacking on the updates.... I've done a number of things lately and figure i should update!

First is just a minor cosmetic update that I did back before Christmas by adding a blackout decal to the Rubicon power dome part of the hood. I've always liked the look. Got this from Pixel Decals but it might be my last order from them. They have great products and respond immediately when I needed to contact them about my prior decal but the lead time on these is just too high for stuff they advertise on the site. Both my flag vent decals and this power dome decal are standard items they list on the site, which I mention because they do custom work as well, and each of these things took about 2 months to get to me from the time I ordered. Again, they have good stuff, just be prepared to wait for it.

On with the pics!

Jeep Gladiator MrFahrenheit's Red Rubi IMG_5524


Jeep Gladiator MrFahrenheit's Red Rubi IMG_5523
 
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The next project I tackled was the Ace Engineering steps. I had been going back and forth quite a bit on getting these steps or the Rock Slide Engineering ones. In the end, I decided to start with these and sell them later if I decided I needed to upgrade. I took advantage of Ace's Black Friday deal when I ordered these which basically save me the shipping cost. They arrived well packaged from a FedEx delivery man which I'm convinced hated me that day.

These things are BEEFY. I actually didn't realize the size they would be, which I'm still up in the air about. The tubes are bigger than what I thought at 2". On one hand it's nice they are this big but on the other hand it really makes them more noticeable than what I was expecting. I had some Genright steps on my old YJ that had much smaller tubing that was a little more pleasing to the eye to me. Maybe it's just that my Gladiator is stock everything suspension and tire wise so they seem bigger. Maybe i'm just nitpicking.....

Jeep Gladiator MrFahrenheit's Red Rubi IMG_5593


Either way, they work great as steps, are excellent at denting other peoples doors in parking lots, and provide great protection. My kids love them and talk about how easy it is to get in and out of the truck now. I actually had to re-learn how to get out of it! Getting in is easy as I could still just step in or, more frequently, I will step on the step, with my left foot and then slide in. Getting out was another story. I had just been turning in my seat and sliding out, which I will admit, did cause me to get dirt on the back of my pant legs from rubbing against the rubi rail. Now I still turn but put my left foot on the step as I come out to sort of push me away from the truck as I get out. Never thought I would be talking about how the hell to get in and out of a vehicle. I think there is actually an entire thread on here dedicated to the subject..... (Yup, found it: https://www.jeepgladiatorforum.com/...-and-out-of-their-vehicle-the-same-way.17531/)

Anyone on the fence about getting them for a step shouldn't hesitate, they work great for it. That's my size 11 below.

Jeep Gladiator MrFahrenheit's Red Rubi IMG_55881


Giving an idea of how much they stick out:

Jeep Gladiator MrFahrenheit's Red Rubi IMG_5586


Jeep Gladiator MrFahrenheit's Red Rubi IMG_5587


Given that they bolt in below the Rubi rails, they do take up a bit of ground clearance at the expense of that protection. In the below picture, you can just barely see the bottom of the frame rail below slider. I would assume that this would probably be the same with the RockHard angled down sliders that are popular as steps as well. I think it's a worth while trade off, just trying to give a perspective of the size of them.

Jeep Gladiator MrFahrenheit's Red Rubi IMG_5601
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