Jeep Green LJ Build

[Natander]

The plan for the day was Kane Creek. I always get nervous for new trails, and this was no exception.

We had told the other parts of the group that we'd be back by 5.

Slamche booty shot

The lineup. That stock Land Cruiser made this a real adventure...

Notice the lack of a spare on the back. Lesson learned

I managed to snap a rear-most body mount bolt right here.

Much cooler looking!

And that's when things started to get silly. This is the bottom of Hamburger Hill... We'll be back by 5 though!

The stock Land Cruiser was having a real tough time. Makes sense. He ended up blowing up a steering gear, and literally almost died a handful of times on the easy lines that put him with a tire off the ledge. Very high risk. I had a perfectly fine time up the harder sides, thanks to front and rear lockers!

And the limit on a Ford Dana 44 was found on the SAS Tacoma.

Luckily he had a spare shaft.

I didn't take any more pics that night. It started snowing on us before we got off Hamburger Hill. Slickrock in the snow is really something. I ended up making it up everything but the waterfall at the end. We ended up getting back to camp at 2am.

 

[Natander]

We froze our butts off all night, and the next morning we woke up to this.

As soon as we started to cook breakfast, we were instantly soaked and freezing. Lovely desert trip! We ended up going to town for breakfast and warmth.

The rest of the day was spent huddled around the camp fire and drinking whiskey to stay warm.

When we left, the desert clay was so soupy. We hit the car wash before we left town.

Moab tradition says that you always have to take HWY 128 if you're heading west. It's always worth it.

We spent the night with family in Montrose, then took the long way back to Denver.

 

[Natander]

The funny thing about fighting with the brittle soft top in the cold was that I picked up a really nice back window later that week for $20.

The funnier thing is that I found a hard top on Marketplace. Just like the purchase of the LJ, this was also very lucky. It was $200-300 cheaper than any other hard top I had seen, and the guy said he turned down multiple offers for more money. Just like the previous owner of the LJ! He even delivered it to my house from Grand Junction!

Super clean. Not a single issue with it!

And it looks damn good too.

The funny thing about putting the hard top on is, now I kinda miss having the soft top on. It's one of those "grass is always greener" scenarios. I suppose I'll run the soft top in the summer time.

 

[Natander]

I'm trying to get caught up on this because I'm currently prepping for a big broverlanding trip through Utah, Arizona, Nevada, and a bit of California next week.

For Thanksgiving of 2024, we went back to the western slope for family things, then back to my home for the rest of the weekend. I ended up picking up a winch on Black Friday at the Harbor Freight in Montrose, which was good timing!

The same shots on the Blue Mesa dam.

Bathroom break in the northern San Luis Valley

I'm really starting to realize that I take the same exact pictures every time...

This was a light four wheeling journey we went on with my mom. Look at all that country!

 

[Natander]

I believe I'm getting soft with age because:

All jokes aside, we did a toy drive Jeep event in Denver with both running rigs. The GF got to have fun driving the Manche. Plus it's an auto, so that made it better for her.

Kinda dream lineup here, if only the MJ worked consistently!

I left that stuff on both Jeeps until after Christmas and got a few thumbs up from the silver fox crowd. Mission accomplished!

This was at the show. Look at all of those AEV parts!

And I tried torturing the MJ. You know what they say: leaf springs party harder!

 

[Natander]

I ended up rebuilding the JKS track bar at some point in December after getting moderate death wobble going to the toy drive. It's been a while since I had to deal with that!

This has seen better days.

The track bar was only part of the issue, as we experienced death wobble again right after.

The second annual New Years Day wheeling trip was a success with the LJ! Last year we took the Power Wagon snow wheeling, which was an adventure.

This year we hit up the Gulches.

I got a drone for Christmas, so I'll have plenty of sub-par videos to add to my "same every time" pictures of the LJ.

Like I said, there's a learning curve to this!


Later that month, we did a hut trip near Winter Park. I got a few things for Christmas that got strapped to the roof rack.

A few photos from the hut trip

 

[Natander]

We did a unique thing for Valentine's Day of 2025. I bought good ribeye's, tortellini, alfredo sauce, and a bottle of wine. We took the Jeep up towards Central City. Of course it was snowing, and the wind was blowing hard. She was a great sport about the whole thing. You can't really ask for anything else!

Some more drone footage

It's amazing that a four year old Samsung phone can take night pictures like these:

 

[Natander]

I made another trip back home at the beginning of March. The plan was to take the MJ and put one of the multiple 4.0's I have in the garage in storage, but with the stress of work lately, I didn't feel like having that kind of adventure.

On the way, I picked up another stock spare tire carrier, as the PO had done some work on the original one that was starting to fall apart. I was real close to losing that tire on the freeway.

Same damn picture, different setting.

 

[Natander]

And that brings me to right now!

Sometime in March, I did a Currie steering setup. I have ran that on the MJ for years, and I can second everyone else's praise for the kit. And, that completely eliminated the rest of the death wobble I was experiencing.

The plans for upgrading the LJ at the beginning of the year involved the steering and doing a belly skid, but that got derailed by unexpected expenses and life. I hope to do the belly pan soon, as that's the biggest limiting factor to the capability of this. I believe I can keep the LJ low and protect the underneath, while making it high clearance.

In other upgrades, I started a platform for camping in the back. Every 4x4 I own has a setup like this, but the LJ was a bigger challenge than the same setup in a truck bed. All of this is in preparation for the big trip we leave for in a few days!

Here's a teaser. I'm finishing this up this weekend, and am taking better pictures as I go.

 

[Natander]

I'm calling this a success! I haven't used it yet, but still.

The cross bars are 80/20 (extruded aluminum). I used the 2x1 stuff for extra strength. The original plan was to orient it vertically (for optimal bending stiffness) but deiced to get the most surface area on the hard top to disperse the weight.

I used four supports because the rear most section can stay in with the back seat up. This should help with security when running with the top off in the summer time, as well as adding two layers to the rear storage.

I used construction adhesive to glue foam on the bottom of each point that touches the hard top. I really don't want to damage that!

I also added supports parallel to the length of the Jeep between the biggest span, as it was a little flexy. See pic 1.

For reference, I am 5'10 and this gives me exactly that amount of length. If you're taller, you can make the passenger removable panel longer, as that seat goes forward farther. I kept both of those panels the same length.

The biggest drive for building it this way is shown in pics 6-7. Everything important fits underneath with little wiggle room, and it's out of sight for leaving your vehicle or traveling in a city.

Overall I'm pretty surprised this turned out this well! Despite being a mechanical engineer, I tend to "do before thinking" on some of these projects, as my day to day life involves lots of detail oriented design work.

The front panels attach by using these M6 studs as locating pins. They are the perfect length, so they don't protrude through the panel.

The front panel that drops in with the seats folded forward. I may change the legs in the future.

This is the reason I built it off the tub vs building a frame off the floor. All of my builds rely on the cooler and camping box to fit underneath, which they do perfectly!

And with all of the spare road trip stuff in the middle, there should be room in the front for clothing bags.

 

[Natander]

Alright, trip recap!

We ended up doing over 1,500 miles of driving in the LJ.

Day one. A long drive from Denver to SW Utah. We had wind the entire time, which, at one point, gave me a record low of 12 mpg! Definitely didn't calculate range or fuel costs for mpg's that low. But, it makes sense considering how heavy the Jeep was.

Stopping for lunch in Green River

One of the rest stops in the San Rafel Swell

Final gas station stop of the day in Orderville

A little pre-bed exploration

 

[lBasket]

Alright, trip recap!

We ended up doing over 1,500 miles of driving in the LJ.

Day one. A long drive from Denver to SW Utah. We had wind the entire time, which, at one point, gave me a record low of 12 mpg! Definitely didn't calculate range or fuel costs for mpg's that low. But, it makes sense considering how heavy the Jeep was.

Stopping for lunch in Green River
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One of the rest stops in the San Rafel Swell
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Final gas station stop of the day in Orderville
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A little pre-bed exploration
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Where is that cave?

And does your jeep lean to the passenger side or is that just the pics

 

[Natander]

Where is that cave?

And does your jeep lean to the passenger side or is that just the pics

That cave is called "Belly of the Dragon", near the east side of Zion National Park.

I believe that was how it was parked, but it did seem to be leaning to one side for the whole trip. I think we may have packed more weight on one side.

 

[Natander]

The camper setup worked really well! There's plenty of room side to side, and it was pretty comfortable. The biggest challenge is getting in. I'm fortunate to be nimble, so crawling through the front wasn't an issue. However, I'd still like to modify the tailgate to open from the inside.

Day two led us to Zion National Park.

Funny sign if you know about Utah

Driving in the east side is my favorite way to do it

We luckily got a parking spot at the museum, cooked breakfast in the parking lot, then jumped on a shuttle to start the adventure. Our goal was to hike to the start of Angels Landing (I didn't apply for a permit to do that part).

View of Angels Landing from the bottom

View from the top!

We made it down and set out to find another place to camp on the west side. It turns out that the BLM has cracked down a bit on that area, as there are more regulations to camping than I remember in the past.

We found this epic spot with amazing views. I got the drone out to play around, and ended up getting some amazing footage.

 

[Natander]

Day three led us to the Hoover Dam. We had originally planned on driving into California or going wheeling in Arizona somewhere, but I was pretty done with driving by the time we got to the dam.

Mesquite, NV. At this point I realized this is the farthest I've ever driven one of my own cars!

A view of the bridge from the visitors center

We took the full tour. If you're ever in the area and have an infatuation with infrastructure, I'd absolutely recommend this!

Here we are standing over one of the charge pipes for the turbines. The floor shakes like crazy from the water flowing below your feet.

This little guy generates power for the dam.

A view from a vent about halfway up the dam.

The same view from the top

And of course, a Jeep pic on the Arizona side.

We headed for downtown Vegas after this, where we quickly learned that we didn't fit in the parking garage. We took the traction boards off the top, but still managed to hit 3-4 concrete cross beams with the traction board mounts. That was a big surprise, considering how I don't view this thing as tall. We ended up taking all the stuff off the top while we were in town. And we managed to only bend the bolts holding the traction boards on, which were easily bent back.

 

[Natander]

Day four involved Vegas things. No Jeep pics except for this thing. Makes me glad I have some taste. Or I'm poor. Either is fine with me.

 

[Natander]

Apparently I didn't take many pictures for the rest of the trip! I think I was getting tired, and was trying to focus on our destinations.

Day five was supposed to lead us to another adventure in Utah on the way home, but the wind in Utah was horrible. And, we started looking at the weather and decided to get as close to Colorado as we could for an easier day six. Turns out that was a good idea.

We camped that night somewhere west of Green River, UT. We found a spot late at night, and quickly set up the camper. At about 3am the next morning, it started raining hard, along with the constant 40+ mph wind. Because desert roads can get questionable in the rain, we packed up at 3am and decided to head for home. Running on little sleep meant that the drive was much harder than it should have been.

And then we ran into this.

Although icy roads don't bother me at all, the fact that I-70 wasn't plowed made the trip interesting. Lots of accidents. Lots of stuck cars. We ended up making it home early in the afternoon.

 

[Apparition]

Day three led us to the Hoover Dam. We had originally planned on driving into California or going wheeling in Arizona somewhere, but I was pretty done with driving by the time we got to the dam.

Mesquite, NV. At this point I realized this is the farthest I've ever driven one of my own cars!
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A view of the bridge from the visitors center
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We took the full tour. If you're ever in the area and have an infatuation with infrastructure, I'd absolutely recommend this!

Here we are standing over one of the charge pipes for the turbines. The floor shakes like crazy from the water flowing below your feet.
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This little guy generates power for the dam.
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A view from a vent about halfway up the dam.
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The same view from the top
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And of course, a Jeep pic on the Arizona side.
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We headed for downtown Vegas after this, where we quickly learned that we didn't fit in the parking garage. We took the traction boards off the top, but still managed to hit 3-4 concrete cross beams with the traction board mounts. That was a big surprise, considering how I don't view this thing as tall. We ended up taking all the stuff off the top while we were in town. And we managed to only bend the bolts holding the traction boards on, which were easily bent back.

Where are the pictures from the bridge?

 

[Natander]

Where are the pictures from the bridge?

That...is an excellent question. It would have been one hell of a walk, but the pics of the Jeep in the parking lot from up there would have been next level!

 

[Apparition]

That...is an excellent question. It would have been one hell of a walk, but the pics of the Jeep in the parking lot from up there would have been next level!

Worth the walk from the bridge parking lot.