Jeep TJ on Steroids Part II

Previously on search and restore this near stock TJ was ripped apart by our volunteer build team with the goal of taking it from Maller to Crawler.

Today, it's a one of a kind roll cage, bomb proof axles. And our hot roder host gets a lesson on four wheeling

the floor buckling

32 hours into our Jeep build. And our guys have a plan in hand to not just restore a Jeep but make this one over the top better than new.

The phone calls went out and donated parts began rolling in for our deserving owner,

Motion industries. Jason

Jason Smelser is his name, a salesman who puts in his 40 hours at his desk job but lives for his wife and four girls. And the weekends

he's an off road enthusiast who asked if we would help beef up his Jeep, breathe some new life into a tired engine. Give it a lift throw on some bigger meats.

Well, we're gonna do a whole lot more than that.

It started with the suspension

by taking an engine three quarter 120 wall slee it with an inch and a half, 120 wall. We end up with a quarter inch wall thickness. LA

super strong and some consider overbuilt for a Jeep. But that's the point

bigger is better in our shock choice too.

Bill Stein donated 14 and 12 inch coil overs from their 9100 rock raw

series with reservoirs to keep them running cool in the South summer swelter.

Speaking of Big

Maxus, not only donated big tires for Jason's Jeep, they delivered them in their big race r,

check out those meats, huh?

Wow.

They're 40 inch tall, creepy crawlers. Almost a foot taller than what came off the

ship.

All right, once you get these mounted up, we got some good wheels for them. How about a set of Allied Rock Aon monster? Bead locks?

Look

at that,

man. They're all aluminum with an integrated bead lock, flank

and 32 bolt steel bead lock rims.

King and his crew travel to racing events across the country.

They mount about 130 tires.

A so they've got this drill down

pat.

We like to pull it up to really high air pressure seat to beat really well.

And then we'll put the core back in it and we'll probably run it more

down that 15 to 20 area,

by the way, that took less than six minutes. And in case you're counting

with five wheels and tires, that means 100 and 60 bolts.

The build that you guys are doing here with the max's creepy crawler. I think his buddy is gonna have a hard time keeping up. Thanks a lot, man.

Thanks

my pleasure.

John Bouchard

builds high powered engines, but Tim thought it would be fun for him to trade his precise instruments for something. A little more

uh dangerous.

The plasma cutter, I'm gonna have John here uh

learn the finer points of cutting the heck out of the body.

You ready? Yeah, let's do it. I'm down. You just keep talking. You don't wanna get up and do that.

Let's go.

Let's go.

We can pull it off

and we'll cut that just a little bit inside of that. Mark

Tim kind of takes you in. You know, he didn't,

he didn't give me any problems. You know what I mean? If I didn't know what I was doing, I just asked him, I bought my 1st 55 Chevy when I was eight years old

and my great, great grandpa by selling my 48 P

right on.

It was like 200 bucks.

Tim cuts one side as an example for John.

I

miss that. I pay attention.

I gotta weld that baby back on and show you how to do that again. Ok.

Want that one.

And now it's John's turn.

Does he feel anxious about torching the side of Jason's Jeep?

Yes, it makes me very nervous. I'm not a, I'm not really a cutter

when the metal gets a little stubborn. Tim takes over.

Oh, this has got a tab.

What bad was it?

Look at that, John looks like an old pro welding sheet metal.

I think you wanna quit helping galley and you wanna come help me more, don't you? It's not too bad.

It's a little different. It's different

in

the

face

with the body work going so smoothly. Tim's ready to hand over the paint gun. We had a little downtime today waiting on them to finish welding on some chassis. So I was like, come on, John, let's go, put some primer on the hood. That was really cool. I've never done that before. It took me a little bit to get, you know, the distance and, you know, making sure I don't uh

you know, get some runs. I got a few runs in the beginning I got a little worried about, but

Jim said it was all right. We just send it out later. He picked it up that quick because, you know, he's a smart guy. He's an engine builder. He just listened and did it, did it awesome

ahead. Our hay seed host flips out on his first four wheeling for

way. But up next hardcore parts find their way into Jason stock PJ. Stay tuned.

We're pretty fortunate to have all these people and all these tools to basically build a vehicle from scratch right here inside the tech center. With one exception, we're not a machine shop. So to get a jump on the power plant, the horsepower guys took the original straight six to a friend with a generous heart,

Mike and I knew we could count on bow shackle to handle all the necessary machine work on the Jeep's 4.0 engine.

His shop may be small but bow knows machining.

They can handle engine work for everything from daily drivers to full on race cars.

Bow

and his son John have the right equipment and experience.

I got something for you. Plus they know a worthy cause when they see one,

I believe we ought to pressure test it, mill it

most likely install guides

and do a complete valve job on it.

Like us. Bow

was impressed with the condition of the block which you'll put through the entire process, boring it 30 over. We can take it

uh machine clean to the max,

uh turn to where it'll be 100% in addition to the cylinder head block and Craig Shaft. Mike also brought a complete rebuild kit

but first things first

for the block, that means a high temp baking session in the oven.

Good to go

back at the shop.

It's time to give the axles some attention

first. They need to be cut to length, fitted with brackets, knuckles, hubs and brakes. So in came the crew from Spider tracks with a tough name like that. You'd expect a face like this surprise.

These are the co-founders, Tom and Eddie.

This is their muscle ross,

the cool thing about the spider tracks guys is

there are a couple of geeky engineering kids from New Jersey

so they really sort of focus on like the science behind it. They're not just building an off road part because

bigger is tougher and thicker is cooler. There's a lot of math inside one of those housings. Mechanical engineering is my background. So I, I love,

I love solving puzzles. That's kind of my forte

and that's good for us because while in college their off roading fate was sealed,

this is one of these things that I just completely stumbled upon, you know,

having a little vehicle that was capable and somebody

telling me about going four wheel and trying it out. And next thing, you know, I'm hooked pretty

awesome.

Hence the birth of the original nine inch axle set up, specifically designed for rock crawling and racing. We got the name spider tracks because back in Jersey, people thought our vehicles look like spiders. A lot of articulation

on the trails

when you get a spider tracks housing, you know that it's gonna be lightweight, so it's not killing you

but still super strong. All at the same time. This would be one of the few Jeeps that's actually gonna have these parts living under it. So I think there's a home for this stuff under a Jeep as well. But with all this girth and 40 inch tires, the steering is an issue. You need a lot of power to turn big tires.

You're out wheeling. Of course, this thing has a RBS in it and

that's basically when A RB is locked, it's a spool up front.

So Lance from PSC Motor sports brought a ram assist steering system.

It works with the new steering gear that when needed diverts fluid to the ram on the front axle

that helps turn the tires and it'll help turn him when he's driving on the street.

But more importantly, when he's got the Jeep on its side,

he'll be able to use the power from that ram to actually turn the tires and get him out of that hole and keep wheeling on the way without rand

forties. You couldn't even pull this thing out of the parking lot.

We're also gonna put a dual cooler kit on it. You put automatic transmission cooler and a power steering cooler all in one bracket

and the TJ, it's 100% bolt in uses factory hardware actually to hold it in all the work that's done here. All the professional help that we have here on this Jeep. I mean, Jason is just gonna be thrilled and his friends, they're gonna be happy for him. I know they will, but a little jealous maybe.

Yeah,

he builds race cars and custom cages and knows firsthand what it takes to be safe.

We'll meet this fabricator and volunteer when search and restore continues.

Woodley builds some of the toughest trail buggies around.

He also makes his own parking space.

Hey, man. Thanks for coming.

Thanks. That's not really a parking spot right there. You know that. Right. Yeah, I kind of just

put it there. Anyway,

Adam operates wide open design, a custom fabrication shop that builds everything from this 800 horsepower trail rig

to show buggies like this one based on the 38 Chevy. But his love of everything off road isn't limited to flashy trucks and powerful engines. His one off custom roll cages, blend, science and art. The cage, I guess is up to you because I hear you're the man for the cage. That's why you're here. Yeah, I can handle

that.

He likes to do the rolled arc tubing, which I think just looks amazing no matter what type of vehicle it's on.

I really like it. So I'm looking forward to seeing what he whips up for this thing.

I sit down with my first little preliminary sketch and, you know, just kind of do it around on paper and it doesn't really look like anything to

anybody else. But really me, you wanna start designing around something that's gonna be safe for everybody to be in because I mean, we're building a roll cage. So I mean, you've got parameters there that you work too so you may get safe and then you make everything fit and then you go to what I like to do and that's the actual style of it. We do have some roll tubing in it and little bins here and a little flare there. That's what sets your product apart from anybody else. You know, most people knock down those first two

and they do it and it's a respectable deal. But whenever you come in and you add the design element of wrapping all three of those things together and you pull all three of them off, that's whenever you really got something that's pretty cool,

you can't build a cage without seats and seat belts. And thanks to Mastercraft safety, we have a full set of both for Jason's G.

What we brought up today is our flagship seats. It's the bahas

full suspension seats from a safety point of view. We're going to tie in the

restraints.

Mastercraft also protects people in truly dangerous places. We've got close to 30,000 vehicles

out in Iraq and Afghanistan

with our seats and it actually reduces the blast on the roadside bombings. We've actually saved a lot of lives

because of the the seats.

Mike and Lizard will utilize the factory mounts to get these seats bolted in

and with an adapter kit,

Jason will be able to retain the slide and tumble mechanisms for easy access to the back seat.

There's one sure thing that will ruin your off road experience trying to break rocks with your drive shafts due to a low pin.

Enter Mike Qu,

the developer of the high Pinion nine inch third member. The advantage of it is, is

the pinion yoke is now above the axle tubes instead of below the axle tub that's 4.5 inches of additional ground clearance.

Now, the benefits to having a high pinion in both the front and rear is it not only lifts the drive shaft up out of the,

but when you're dealing with a short wheelbase like we are here, it really improves all your drive shaft angles. So how did Mike come up with this cure all for the lifting? I knew about this product that was used in stock cars that was used in reverse rotation. So I then went over and flipped it upside down and said, are we going forward again? And he said, yes, you know, and uh

he says, what are you thinking? And of course, I'm thinking the off road market

and with the best components, an A RB air locker and Daytona Spacers from Yukon,

he's been selling them for eight years now,

but he's not a solo act. His son Dakota holds his own. Yeah, between seven and eight. Some people are like, oh, don't you hate that? Your dad is, you know, hard on you and makes it work. And it's like, no, because when I'm, you know, when we're working and we're doing stuff together, I find it interesting and, you know,

he's everything to me. He's just, you know, my one hero, he's just great good job, kiddo. I think we're all ready to go

over at the cage. We're really making some progress.

I spend an hour and a half notching one tubing that goes down and over. It's back and forth on the hand grinder, the belt sander. Sometimes you hit it, sometimes you have to fuss with it and grind on it. You want the gaps really tight and consistent. So when you weld it's really strong if they have to roll this baby over. So the roll cage you're gonna cut bend,

notch, notch, notch, notch,

and then finally weld it in.

So if you don't have patience for that,

it's not really your cup of tea.

It'll take, you know, five or six hours maybe. Finish welding.

We take the cage out for, uh, just the ease of welding is the main thing. You can kind of crawl all over it. You don't have to weld upside down and stuff like that. The welds turn out a little bit nicer.

Then we'll actually go in wire wheel all the welds down to get all the spatter off. Not necessarily take any of the weld away, but just clean up the cage and clean up the foundation.

Where are we going next? Ian introduces hot rider Tim to the world of four wheeling a trip. He won't soon forget

it's final assembly time for the chassis crew

and the rattle can brews it.

This is where the high nine

meets the spider tracks

and soon to be booked

by these will wood brake calipers. I didn't really read the instructions but I did look at the pictures, Tim fine tunes, his teaching skills

while making room for these tube fenders.

A lot accomplished. But a long way to go. You could almost sense the pride in the air along with the paint view. This axle will be tougher than woodpecker lips.

Oh,

this week was honestly a pile of work. Everybody had a lot of work to do and they kind of knocked it out of the park.

We don't care how hardcore you are. New parts are pretty enjoy them now

because they won't look that way for long. We all know the real fun is in trashing them out. Well, everybody but Tim

ready to go wheeling.

I got my sleeves on. I got my bib overalls. I borrowed from my dad

and a curl bill. Very important camouflage hat. You know what finishes it off though

is the fact that your tan only goes on

tan going on too. Tell my mom I love her.

Is that enough yet? Is that enough? Help me? Where are we going? Ian, there's no road there. This is just the way to the trail. This isn't the trail yet. Ok.

This is why we go four wheeler.

Like look at the view man.

This is exactly like a roller coaster. Click, click, click, click, click, click, click and then down

how Is this possible?

Have fun yet. Dey.

Hello, girl,

how are you doing today? I think you're scratching the paint. I feel the floor buckling

wheels on your side, like off the ground.

Yeah, we're totally off the ground. On the driver's side.

It's kind of like having a sleepover and you're on the top of,

I thought you were trying to plow

a new, rough with my forehead.

Oh, yeah, we caved that show

again.

This size M

oh, that's totally fixable.

I guess I'm not getting out quite yet. Climb over. You can drive. Now.

Do you want me to go to the? Right? No, I want you to drive over all those big rocks, right?

But there's rocks in there.

You

know, it's called a rolling boat

as soon as the truck starts to roll, give it up. Who?

And this

will pop out?

All right, back up.

You wanna be moving when you hit that led?

Oh, you're right on the top.

Ok. Well,

there we go.

There we go.

All right. We fell off. Let's back up and do it again. Punch it.

Which way am I trying to go,

man?

Just punch it.

Punch it. Yeah.

When do you say get out of there and let me drive,

hit the switch

right in between two rocks and we got to try to get on one of them.

Here we go.

Are,

I

think we scratched something down a carriage

on the next search and restore.

We'll see why Jeep owner Jason Smelser stood out as we travel back to Louisiana for a weekend of four wheeling with these special needs kids.

And the Jeep gets a big splash of blue.