Thanks! After the the lift I've started thinking a bit about 37s, but no plans to do it currently.Wow! Your Bronco looks amazing! I want to go a similar route. I think it has just the right amount of lift. Saving up for the ARB bumper and want to run 37" ko2s myself. You have a very nice build.
Wow, we have a similar setup. below is the photo of the SAS suspension. I installed the old man emu, heavy-duty both front and rear. But I don't carry the extra load on my back, and most of the time, I drive alone. The HD coil springs give me a STIFF ride quality on dirt roads or washboard roads. With any tiny jumps, the rear end would bounce so badly. Be mindful of the coil spring, and it has to match your load.Bought Frankie back in early June off the dealer lot. She wasn't quite what I was looking for (not an exact option match), but close enough
Spent June mostly figuring out how I wanted to build her out, and began ordering the parts. Most things arrived in July, and finished most of my build then, with most of the rest getting finished in August (minus the ditch and rock lights which I finished up last Friday).
What's been added (in order):
RTR Spare Tire Carrier
RTR Adjustable Tailgate Stop (later removed)
Fab Fours Premium Rear Bumper
Trailrax Modular Roof Rack with Pak Rax
ARB Summit Bumper
Aluminum Front Roll Bar Grab Handles
Aluminum Rear Roll Bar Grab Handles
Expedition One Trail Series Rocker Guards
Rigid Rock Lights
JcrOffroad Ditch Light Brackets
Mountains2Metal Tailgate Range Limiter
And of course the maxtrax, rotopax (3 gallon btw.. so 6 total, the Pak Rax is great), & hi-lift jack (and Agency6 Jack Handle Keeper just because).
I'll get into specifics about everything added (and the problems had) in later posts.
Biggest thing I have left to do with it is get the springs and I guess shocks changed on it. It's a good amount of extra weight. Been Looking at the Old Man Emu kits, and will most likely go that route unless something else seems like a better idea within the next month.
Few more walk around shots from this morning (behind my office), I'll try and add some more after it gets darker .. at this point, as much as I've been out with it (have 5k on it now), I really haven't taken many pictures of it at all other than some shots for like before and after of ride height and me trying to figure out where to place the rock lights.
My FJ peeking into that one..
Night shots!
First up... fun shot of the lights overwhelming my phone's camera sensor:
The driving lights, ditch lights, light bar and scene lights (on the back) all have amber backlights. Decided on amber because I felt like it was the color I was least likely to get grief during a traffic stop aboutWent with the amber rock lights just to have things match.
The backlights are all hooked (via a relay) to the parking/marker light circuit. So they just cut on whenever the marking lights would be on.
The rock lights are wired up to an upfitter switch, and also to the mirror puddle lights (via a relay) .. so I can turn them on whenever.. .but they'll also come on when unlocking the bronco or opening a door. Couple other things about the rock lights... I drilled holes for mounting them in the fender liners (pulled the liners out, drilled the holes I needed, mounted the lights.. put plugs in a few places to make it easier if I (or anyone else) ever needed to pull them out or the liners out or whatever). Didn't want to drill a hole in the frame or the rock sliders for the middle set of lights.. .so ended up rigging them up with magnets (got magnets with a hole in the middle, used the rubber mounts that came with the lights and found a good way to get the angle I needed on the lights, while also mounting the magnets to the rubber with a bolt ... I'm not sure I'll ever be able to get them off the frame lol... they hold really really well).
The rear scene lights, light bar, ditch lights, and driving lights are all hooked to upfitter switches. The fog lights are hooked to the original fog light wires, so just turn on with the existing fog light button. When wiring the lights on the roof rack, I did something similar to what I saw in a video by the Heretic Studio guys ... so didn't end up drilling a hole, just routed things through the weather striping (mostly). I was using a larger cable (3 wire: 1 for light bar, one for rear pods, one for back light on both .. ground was a shorter wire that didn't have to go all they way back to the engine area), but it worked out pretty well.
Last, some drivers eye view shots
Low beams (plus fog)
High beams
High beams + Ditch lights
High beams + Ditch lights + Drive lights
High beams + Ditch lights + Drive lights + Light bar
Yeah, I've noticed the bounce quite a bit on some forest roads.. airing down (generally to around 18psi) helps some but.... After the off-roading and trail riding I did over the winter, and then down at the Bronco Rodeo in Austin (took Frankie down for the eclipse), I've decided to upgrade to Fox 2.5 coil overs. Spoke with several people about them and about my particular setup. Worked up a plan for a set of springs to go with them that should work well with my build... fingers crossed.
I haven't had any issues with the intercooler... my temps look pretty good.. which wouldn't mean a whole lot just here in Virginia.. but a few thousand miles on the highway with a trailer at the beginning of the month, and then several hours of hard trail ride in texas (bronco rodeo for the eclipse.. the hard trail was harder than I expected lol). No temp or performance issues.
Right now I'm just enjoying my area
.. heading over toward the VA/WV border and riding some trails there.. I've seen some more in WV and KY that I'd like to hit, and they're close enough that it's not a huge deal just getting to them... And I'm trying to get more into landscape photography, and one thing that would help me develop my "eye" for it is shooting more of what's around me.) out to south dakota and wyoming (and all the places on the way there and back) with the kids .. was a great trip.. .really would like to get Frankie out west ... did a quick trip to oregon in Feb and rented a jeep then.. would be great to get out there with the bronco... maybe pick up or rent offroad trailer to sleep in.. or get a lightweight rooftop tent (there's a really light one (< 100lbs) that's in the $1k range.. I need to look into that one more) ... did an alaska trip 2 years ago.. flew in and then rented a bronco sport with a roof top tent in ankorage .. drove up to denali and then up to prudhoe bay ... camping the whole trip... was awesome, can't wait to go back... also probably not this year .. apparently if we were in europe there's a overnight ferry you can get in .. denmark? that goes to iceland. But, since that's not an option from the US or Canada... and I don't really feel like shipping my bronco without me... that's probably out lol ... goals lol
