What's the hardest Jeep mod/install you've ever done?

[catang5oh]

I can’t just choose one, these both suck balls.

Mopar Aux switches
Replacing front dash speakers. The pops and cracks while pulling the dash bothered me., and I have been tearing cars straight off the assembly line apart for years.

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[20Gladiator22]

Great thread. Love the credit card comment.
Installing my Icon lift was a real treat. At least 14 hours by myself, on the garage floor, on my back (which isn't the best), with jack stands....well, you know the rest if you've done it yourself. The satisfaction of doing it yourself and saving a grand was worth it.

 

[Rusty PW]

As I'm sure you're aware, it really all comes down to what each person's life experience is I suppose.

For me, I started out as a mechanic in the service and would literally go home on the weekends and tear something on my car down to parade rest and back just to "gain some experience" (that car was an '81 CJ7 BTW). Fast forward 40 years and I retired as a Director of Maintenance & Reliability for a multi-national corporation overseeing 70+ manufacturing sites in North America.

One of the best things going right now IMHO is all of the YouTube videos out there where someone is showing how to work on whatever it is you need to work on. Sometimes it's better than a Chilton or Clymer manual (that's how old I am, lol). The best thing you can do is just get in there and start bendin' wrenches. I generally don't even worry about whether the task is "within my scope" because it will either work out or it won't. And...whether it works out or not, I'm sure I've learned a better way to do it for the next time.

In fact, my wife actually benefits from that very thing: My wife is a "wheeler", so we own 2 Wranglers. Whenever I do a mod/upgrade/repair to my 2016 JKUR, she decides whether she likes it/wants it on her 2018 JKUR and then I get to spend double the money and twice the effort; HOWEVER, her benefit is that the install on her Wrangler is always cleaner, better, etc. because of everything I screwed up in the install on the first Wrangler.

So don't be intimidated by any of the work on your vehicle; just educate yourself as best you can with the resources available, and get after it. If you don't like how it turned out, you can always try a second time with a little more experience under your belt.

Started out as a mechanic. Then welder, ASE Cert Master Tech, welder/mechanic, exotic metals welder, machinist, fabricator, blacksmith, metal coatings, BOP at a power plant then retired as the senior CRO there. Along the way. Pick up a degree in welding engineering and mechanical engineering. Not counting my time I spent with the DoD. Hate working with wood and wiring, but still do it. Wifey says that I can fix anything but the crack of dawn and a broken heart.

 

[Rusty PW]

Automotive? It’s a toss up between the belly skid system on the Gladiator and a driveway 4” lift install and t-case lower on an ‘80 CJ7.

Automotive adjacent? Full rebuild of a ‘96 Merc 3.0 Liter 2 stroke 225hp outboard inside my old condo living room. Crank, all pistons, all bearings, three 2 barrel carb rebuilds, oil circulation system, fuel pump, stator, oil pump, etc, etc. I removed the engine with the boat still floating in my slip. Engine hoist was attached to the building with a 30ft tow strap to make sure it couldn’t go over the sea wall. My neighbors hated me. It ran perfectly until I sold the boat though, 500+ more hours later. That was definitely the hardest job yet.

When I first got married to the first wifey and was living in an apartment. Wifey comes home and finds me doing a valve job on the kitchen table. And the rest of my race bike torn apart in the living room. That went over real good with her. LOL

 

[BlueScapegoat]

On the JT? Nothing has been hard yet.

Hardest single mod on any Jeep was probably the ultra high clearance belly skid plate on my TJ. Getting that bottom flat with a big ol' 241 tcase required a lot of metal massaging, plus the required supporting mods, ie motor mounts, low profile trans mount, moving the muffler and adjusting exhaust hangars, cable shifter kit, etc. A lot of on and off with the transfer case.

The resulting belly clearance was totally worth it though:

 

[cb4017]

Engine Swap in my 12 Rubi. Motech kit with an L83.

Nice! I did my JKU the easy way. Dropped it off at Motech and picked it up a few weeks later.

 

[HooliganActual]

When I first got married to the first wifey and was living in an apartment. Wifey comes home and finds me doing a valve job on the kitchen table. And the rest of my race bike torn apart in the living room. That went over real good with her. LOL

LOL. My wife came home one day to find her espresso machine laid out on the kitchen floor like an exploded diagram. She just shook her head and walked off to the next room. Good times

 

[Rusty PW]

LOL. My wife came home one day to find her espresso machine laid out on the kitchen floor like an exploded diagram. She just shook her head and walked off to the next room. Good times

Back in high school. My first real big motorcycle. A Honda CL350. It dropped a valve on me one night, about 2 blocks from home. I took it down the basement steps into the basement. Took the engine out and had it all apart across the basement floor all laid out that night. Mom goes down to the basement to wash clothes the next morning. See's what is left of my bike there. Goes back upstairs and tells my dad, "that bike of his is never going to run again." Dad goes down, takes a look. comes back up and ask me what happen. I told him, and he went back to reading his newspaper and never said a word. I bet he was thinking, "how much is this going to cost me?" It didn't him a thing. I bought all my parts and put it back together myself. My first engine rebuild at the age of 16. I have helped on rebuilds before, but I did this all by myself. No outside help.

 

[Uparms]

Deposit Check. 8/10/19. JT

 

[Elff]

Passenger front Airbag.
You drill through the lower spring perch, and then have to get a nut onto all thread via that tiny opening on the the track bar bracket.

I now know how to do it in a real easy way

 

[Alaska-HWY JK]

On the JT? Nothing has been hard yet.

Hardest single mod on any Jeep was probably the ultra high clearance belly skid plate on my TJ. Getting that bottom flat with a big ol' 241 tcase required a lot of metal massaging, plus the required supporting mods, ie motor mounts, low profile trans mount, moving the muffler and adjusting exhaust hangars, cable shifter kit, etc. A lot of on and off with the transfer case.

The resulting belly clearance was totally worth it though:

I put that UCF ultra high on my LJ Rubicon.

 

[Jefe1018]

Wife compliance mod.

I'd shoved Dave Ramsey's baby steps so far down her throat that getting her to agree on the JT was one of the harder things I've ever done.

 

[cb4017]

To answer the OPs question.

Most recently would be installing the Mopar 2" lift in my garage. The job itself wasn't really hard. I just discovered that at almost 70 years old working on the ground and under a Jeep is much tougher than it used to be. Did it by myself and took almost 2 days.

 

[Tommyd]

Installing the poison spyder hood louver on my JK takes the cake for me. It wasn’t exactly the hardest in terms of overall difficulty, but it was oh so hard to take drill bits, a hole saw, and cutting wheel to my nicely painted bright yellow hood.

That said, it came out wonderful in the end and is one of my favorite mods to date even after 5 years of ownership. I have one for the gladiator sitting in the garage but haven’t worked up the courage to install yet.

other than looks do the louvers have function?

 

[Tommyd]

its going to

LT-1 motor and electronics from a wrecked Corvette into a 1988 XJ Wagoneer

its going to be hard to top this!

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