Mr. Personality -- Jeep C-J Mods & Low-Buck Paint Secrets! Low-Buck Paint Secrets

Today, it's power personality and fuel savings.

We create the Jeep, the factories should have built plus secrets on how to revive a tired paint job no matter what you drive

all this today on trucks.

Welcome to trucks. Now, as you know, Jeep has been an American icon ever since its creation. And that's been a while because the first military Jeeps appeared around 1940.

These rugged and agile all purpose vehicles go on to help us win World War Two.

Now, the reliable civilian version to CJ followed soon after. And one of the coolest things about Jeep is that its appearance has remained virtually unchanged ever since. So

who says Jeep owners can't take this great platform and give it a little personality like uh

yours? Truly?

Well, that's exactly what we're gonna do today to this 2003 Rubicon.

We really want to wake this Rubicon up not only for better performance but better fuel economy as well. Our goal here is to make this engine more efficient, to accomplish this goal. We'll use this system from edge products. All right,

edge products have always been on the leading edge of diesel technology.

And now they're in the world of gas burners and this is their trail jammer performance kit. The trail jammer also includes electronics in this larger throttle body.

First, we'll remove this air intake tube.

So why are we throwing this system on this engine?

Well, you Jeep guys know that a 4 L in line six is just a little on the sluggish side

and this edge kit is designed to give us 10% better fuel economy

and more power.

Now, all the sensors are one way plug so you can't mix them up,

then you just unbolt the throttle body from the manifold and just get it out of the way.

All right. Check this out. Here's the oe throttle body and here's the edge throttle body. Look at the difference in the throat.

This is going to move a lot more air and fuel.

The new bill of throttle body will flow better and do a better job of atomizing the air and fuel mix, which makes a finer mist out of the two that'll burn faster and easier.

You'll need to transfer the stock throttle position sensor, idle, air control and manifold. Absolute pressure sensors to the new throttle body. So the Jeep's computer can get the right information.

All new gaskets come with the throttle body. So make sure you replace them regardless of what the old ones look like.

Installing the edge throttle body is a snap and mounts exactly the same way. As the original,

then the idle control and throttle position sensors plug right back in.

We're also doing electrical upgrades. That means disconnecting the battery. This one

we're getting rid of.

Now, this is the key that will unlock the power and efficiency of this system. It's a controller, not a programmer and it's more of an electronic assistant that works with the Jeep's onboard computer to compensate for the added air and fuel. It fine tunes the fuel and spark controls to give us that extra power and response that we're looking for.

It mounts with a little velcro on the Jeep's inter fender,

then just plugs in line with the Jeep's intake T sensor

and the map sensor.

The last step in our trail jammer system,

the cold air box. But before we can take this one out,

we gotta take this strub bar off.

Now, edge claims 20 extra horses with the trail jammer

and letting this 4 L breathe is a big part of those numbers.

The new box bolts right in place.

Now, don't worry if you're not working on a TJ or Rubicon, the trail jammer is gonna work on 97 through 04 Cherokee and Wrangler style Jeeps with a 4 L in line six.

The most important part of any cold air kit is the high flow filter,

washable filters flow a lot better than the stock paper filter

and this system needs a lot more air. These kits isolate engine heat and force colder, denser air into the new throttle body.

The intake tube just looks right up to the new throttle body and you're out of there.

All right, we got one more thing we're gonna do under the hood of this Jeep. Uh, that's upside down. Einstein.

I'm just trying to prove a point.

The fact that an optima battery is never gonna leak, it's more vibration resistant and you can mount it any way you want even upside down.

Now to secure our optima, we could use this stock mount. No, I don't think so.

No, we're gonna use this.

That's

cool. Now this rocks, this is NC Ems all billet battery. Hold down. It's specifically designed to fit the unique shape of an optima.

When we come back, it's better. A Ts and wider fender flares, then

it's low buck secrets to make your paint pop. And later we're hitting the streets and the trails.

Welcome back to trucks and the waking up of our 03 Rubicon. If you're just joining us, we've already upgraded under the hood with a cold air intake, a throttle body and a performance module.

We're also adding bigger tires. So to protect our body work from rocks and mud, the stock four inch flares have got to go.

So we're gonna replace them with something that will.

The big difference here is obvious

these new wheel flares from the guys over at best

top are wide enough for the Oes to sit right inside

and on top of being a lot more strong and sturdy,

we've got the added benefit of this Rocker extension.

All our mounting holes are clearly marked. So the only thing we have to do is move this marker light over to the new one. Stick it on the Jeep.

You can use the same speed nuts

and just drop them right into the new players.

It's always a good idea to clean the dirt that gets trapped between the molding and the body.

We're using a detailed spray and a micro fiber cloth

so we don't grind this dirt into the paint.

The new flares fit great and go right back into the original location.

These rocker extensions aren't original equipment. They sit here behind the fender flares and offer a lot of protection to the sides.

These flutter extensions don't have a stock mounting location

but mounting them is no sweat.

All we need to do is mark and drill a couple of holes and use the screws and flat washers to hold them in place.

I remember

it's not step.

The rear flares go on in the factory location just like the front

and you'll be able to mount a whole set in place in just a couple of hours.

And since our Jeep is gonna be more mall than crawl, we're gonna go with these 2 65 75 16

Pro comp all terrains.

We've wrapped them around these pro comp extreme alloys that have bead lock styling and polished finish.

These 31 inches look awesome

and they're actually lighter than the factory set up.

All it.

All right. A Rubicon is really starting to shape up. Even the paint job looks pretty good from about 20 ft away. But take a closer look at this.

Now, come a little closer,

really close. Right here.

These bird droppings have been left on here way too long and the acid in them has been allowed to etch into the paint and check this out. These are your typical rock chips and road rash on the leading edges.

Ok. Here's some other things you'll see when you get up good and close. You can see oxidation. You can see swirl marks.

You're gonna see fine scratches from a dirty watchman.

Even with all of these issues, the good news is we can fix this stuff without a trip to the paint shop. But first we gotta remove some hardware and we'll do that while we're on the break. Yeah, so don't go anywhere because when we get back, we're gonna show you how to fix these problems.

Thanks for hanging out with us here at trucks while we beef up our old

three Rubicon.

So far, we've made more power with a new throttle body,

added bigger fender flares and topped it all off with new wheels and tires.

Now we'll show you how to fix some of the problems you got with your paint with our very own Martha Stewart.

Yeah, that's funny.

But we're not gonna do anything until we have a clean surface. Now, what Paul's using is a spray detailer and a microfiber cloth.

The combination of the spray detailer and the ultra soft micro fiber will allow us to remove the dirt without scratching the paint

that you missed a spot. I'm saving that for you.

All right, you're ticking me off with the Martha Stewart crap.

But I am using baking soda not to cook with though. I'm going to use it to neutralize the acid in the bird droppings.

The way I do that

is by adding about three

teaspoons. Give or take a baking soda into a quart of warm water.

Mix it up until it's dissolved

and then you simply bathe

your surface with the solution. Because if you don't do this step, there's a chance that that acid will work right through the paint

and that's never good.

Don't scrub too hard on the droppings, let them soak off. Birds sometimes eat small rocks to help with their digestion and you don't want to risk grinding a bunch of fine gravel into your paint job.

Ok? Once you've finished with the baking soda bath, you want to make sure you hit it again with the detail spray

and then you can take care of some of your other problems. Remember our rock chips. Easy fix with duplicate colors. Touch up paint ours is black, but this comes factory matched to most manufacturers paint coats.

No trouble using touch up paint. It already has a brush in the cap.

I don't know,

those chips are pretty deep. What do you do about that? I like to apply more than one coat. You wait a few minutes and then do the second one because the paint shrinks as it dries and that'll fill them up.

Cool.

And after that dries, we can get rid of the swirls and scratches by color sand. And the paint

here's how we're going to fix some of the scratches. Paul pointed out. I'm going to be using ultra

fine wet sand paper. This is 2000 grip

almost feels like notebook paper. You can pick this up at almost any auto body supply store. This paper is designed to be pre soaked. So I've got it in water with a little bit of dish soap for lubrication

here. Do something. All right,

I'm folding my paper in thirds for two reasons. Number one, it gives me a smaller piece of sandpaper to work with. Number two, it allows me to grip it like this and control it better

hit me.

Now,

some guys like to run a garden hose over their paint while they're wet sanding. But that's just a waste of water. All you really need

spray bottle, soapy water

and, uh, I will help you keep your shoes dry too.

Now, don't freak out over sanding your finished paint. You're not going to go through with 2000 grit. Just stay away from your edges and use a light touch.

Here's a great way to tell

how much progress you've made. A water blade will show you where you've sanded where you still need to work. And although it looks like we've sanded a lot, we've just barely removed surface

just like boot camp, we broke our surface down. Now we're going to build it back up again using Norton's single compound system that utilizes three different pads. A coarse wool, a medium grade foam and a fine foam pad. We're going to start using this wool pad on our sanded places.

Hey, guys, here's a tip for you. You wanna make sure you tape off all your textured plastic like our fender flares.

That way it won't get stained by the compound.

You're starting with a wool pad. Use about a quarter size drop of compound

and buff it with a low speed,

let's say about 800 RPM. On all the sanded areas,

it comes back up to a gloss pretty quick. So pay attention.

Now we'll go over the whole hood with the blue less aggressive foam pad.

This step is what gets rid of the oxidized or hazy look to the paint.

Black paint is especially difficult to buff and polish and the water mist on the pads and surface, keep things clean damp and cool. Now,

I know I gave Kev a hard time about his Martha Stewart apron,

but it will protect your clothes and your fenders if you're wearing a belt buckle

again, cleaning between stages with micro fiber and a mist of water gets the surface ready for the final buffing stage using the white fine cut foam pad and

remember not every paint job is clear coated. Our Jeep's paint is single stage which means it has color all the way through and not protected by a clear coat.

Most of the work's already done by now, but the final passes are what make the finished product. So take your time, use a slow speed and light pressure

now

to do this job, right? It's gonna take you about an hour per panel, but it's only gonna take us a few minutes to get back from break. And when we do, I'm gonna show you how to detail these windows. We're gonna put a little bling on her. So make sure you stick around

when we come back. Our ruby gets the royal treatment,

then we'll turn her loose for a little fun.

Hey, welcome back. We're injecting some power and personality into this. 03 Rubicon. We've gotten our paint job to pop with some color sanding and buffing and now we're ready to work a little magic on those rear windows.

That's all right kids.

And then we're taking her to the jewelry store for a little bling.

The great thing about these plastic side windows is that when you're off road, if a tree branch gets into it, it's not going to break the downside of that is that it's soft enough to absorb that impact, which makes it easy to scratch. There's a lot of different dedicated polishes that are made for this plastic and plexiglass, but here's one, I bet you didn't know about

this Flits ball system was designed to polish wheels and even though this is a metal polish, it works fantastic on plastic and vinyl. Now, before we start, I'm going to show you a couple of tips

like our fender flares, the top is porous and textured. So you wanna make sure you protect it if you're using compounds or polishes around it,

otherwise you end up with something like this and it looks bad.

An easy way to do it is just for some Masta

I'm doing this just to show you how well this really works

using a small amount of polish and a slow speed on your drill, work the polish into the window using light pressure.

You don't wanna press too hard

because you can smudge and burn the plastic window

afterwards. Polish by hand to blend into haze.

Excellent.

But there's another reason for doing this. This is a window we need to see through it to see who's in the lane next to us while we're driving on the street.

Sorry, Kev.

But I gotta be able to see you too. So we called our buddies over at quadri

for all these accessories for our little ruby back there to shine. Like a diamond quadri

is one of the biggest mail order jeep suppliers around,

check out these bumpers, the side mirrors, the billet fuel doors, man. That's cool. But my favorite, the shiny grill cover,

they got everything from mile to wild to get you riding in style.

You ready for this.

All right, let's get it going.

Even though the bumpers and the bling look great. It's also really easy to keep them that way.

Stainless and chrome resists, scratches a lot better than paint

and they can be polished if you do scratch them.

And with our edge kit,

this billet fuel door won't have to get used near as much.

The trail jammer we threw under the hood claims 10% better fuel economy and another 2 to 4

MPG depending on how you drive.

Now. Better gas mileage is great. But who wants to sacrifice power?

We've really got the best of both worlds with way better throttle response and a lot better acceleration all the way through the power band.

Not bad,

not bad at all, man.

It's like driving a different vehicle

and part of that is because of the wheels and tires we threw on it.

It's smooth on the road with no vibration

or no treadmills

and off the road, our Jeep feels way more torque and even with the all terrains, there's enough tread to grab onto almost anything on the trail.

It almost feels wrong. Taking this thing off road with it looking so good,

but it's still a jeep and that's what they're made for.

Now, you saw how easy it was to add power and fuel economy with our edge kit and with the work we did on the paint job, it is gonna be that much easier to keep it looking this good.

Hey, thanks for hanging out with us at trucks and we'll see you next week,

but I'll give you, I'll give you a little shout. You already give me

a.