New Wipe Blades

The wiper blades on the Jeep were starting to be a bit streaky so trying out a new set of Rain-X 810357 Repellency wiper blades in a part of 15" size.

Maintenace Update:

Mileage: 85,611 miles

- New pair of 15" Rain-X 810357 Repellency wiper blades 

Oil change time for the Jeep

 Just the annual oil change for the Jeep

Oil change

Maintenance Update:

Mileage: 83,314

- New mopar oil filter

- 6qt Castrol Edge 5W-20

Washer Fluid Pump Strainer

Over the winter I noticed a pool of fluid under the Jeep. Thankfully it wasn't oil but rather just washer fluid draining out. Turns out the strainer for the washer fluid pump has a plastic "seal" that distorts over time. I read that I can replace it with a BMW part number equivalent that uses rubber instead. Easy 2 minute fix and no more leaks. 

pulling the washer fluid pump out - 
leaking strainer at the bottom

Replacing the failed strainer with the new BMW part

Maintenance Update:

Mileage: 82,120

- New washer fluid strainer - BMW Part Number 61667006063

Jeep Oil Change

Just noting maintenance done on the Jeep.

Maintenance Update:

Mileage: 80,982

- New mopar oil filter

- 6qt Castrol Edge 5W-20

J&L Oil Air Separator

After discovering oil in the PCV when I had it replaced recently, I decided it might be a good idea to put a catch on the Jeep to prevent that stuff from getting back into the intake. I picked up a J&L Oil Air separator which was an easy enough install. Reviews seem pretty good. I'll see how much oil this catches at the next oil change. 

J&L Oil Air Separator installed

Hard line disconnected

Catch can plumbed in.

New oil cooler and Jeep maintenance

In the past year I've noticed a burning oil smell after driving the Jeep for some time. Given its mileage and the fact that I couldn't see any visual leaks from around the engine bay I suspected the leak was from the oil cooler which is a common failure point on the 3.6L Penestar engine. I had ordered a spare cooler a year ago in anticipation of this potentially happening so it was now time to get it done. 

New OEM oil cooler assembly with sensors

I dropped the car off with SJF so he could take care of this along with a laundry list of little maintenance items that has been on the backburner. One unfortunate discover after removing the intake manifold was the existence of an old mouse nest. That had to get cleaned out. 

Little mouse nest

Then, it was confirmed that there was indeed a small leak from the oil cooler that was just enough to pool some oil in the valley of the engine but not enough where it would drip off onto the side. It hadn't reached that catastrophic failure level yet that is well known among JK owners so I'm glad we got to this early. The old oil cooler was removed, replaced with a new OEM cooler I bought in late 2022 as a spare. New Fel-Pro gaskets were then applied to the intake manifold. 

Confirmed oil under the oil cooler

Fresh IM gaskets

While he was in there I had him also replace the spark plugs with fresh NGK iridium plugs. Iridium is probably overkill here but I'm a big fan of these plugs in general. 

Some of the old plugs

New NGK SILZKR7B119723 plugs

At this mileage I also suspected the PCV valve was on its way out so I got a new Mopar OEM PCV valve. The old one was definitely oily and getting some oil into the intake so I'm glad that was replaced.

New Mopar OEM PCV valve

Since a little bit of coolant spilled during the removal of the old oil cooler, it was prudent to do a full oil change even though I just did one in the fall. Oil is cheap enough and it's not worth the risk of having contamination. 

Some fresh Castrol Edge 5W-20

The battery is now also almost 8 years old and the negative terminal wasn't a snug fit anymore likely due to terminal corrosion over time. Don't want my wife getting stranded due to a dead battery so a fresh Duralast Platinum AGM battery went in. I have a preference for AGM to not have to deal with any spilling issues you might get from traditional lead acid batteries.

New Duralast Platinum AGM H6 battery

I had also purchased some Delrin door hinge inserts from Quadratec last year. This really helps for both smooth door operation and also to make it easier to remove the doors if/when we want to. The old metal inserts were seized in there pretty hard. SJF definitely had to give it a bit of a beating to give up the ghost. 

removing the door

Old metal door hinge inserts

Fresh Delrin inserts installed

Maintenance Update:

Mileage: 79,228

- New OEM oil cooler, sensors and associated seals

- New OEM PCV valve

- New Fel-Pro intake manifold seals

- New Duralast Platium AGM H6 battery

- New Delrin door hinge bushings

- New set (6) NGK Laser Iridium SILZKR7B119723 spark plugs

- 5.5quarts Castrol Edge 5W-20

- New Mobil1 oil filter

- Top off coolant with Mopar OAT purple coolant

Maintenance Update: Oil Change on Chopper and Fluid Film

We always get the undercarriage fluid filmed before the winter but it really smells like farm animals when you do that so I wanted to get the oil change done first.

Dirty oil filter out

Then took the Jeep to my friend Steve DeRosa to get the undercarriage covered in fluid film for rust prevention.

Another year, another coating of fluid film

Maintenance Update:

Mileage: 78,262

- New mopar oil filter

- 6qt Castrol Edge 5W-20

- New OEM drain bolt 

JL Rubicon Steel Bumper

The factory plastic bumper on the wife's JK was quite scratched up by the previous owner and I had been looking for the 10th Anniversary steel front bumper for some time now but it's selling for a premium. After I learned that the JL Rubicon steel bumper is a direct fit, I went that route instead and saved several hundred over the 10th anniversary bumper in the process. 

Hooks scratched from shipping

Unfortunately the red hooks got scratched during shippping. It wasn't bad enough that I wanted to go through the process of shipping it all back for it to maybe just happen again. Instead, I picked up a can of Dupli-Color Perfect Match Chrysler in Flame Red (PR4) from Autozone and it's a perfect match. 

Perfect matching paint for the hooks

Perfect matching paint for the hooks

I sprayed on about 5 coats, waiting 30 or so minutes between coatings and you can't even tell I did anything.

Paint fixed

Installation itself was straight forward. I removed the OEM JK bumper and this one bolted right into the same place. It did come with OEM JL LED fog lights but apparently these don't work properly if your car is coded for LED lights. I also just recently installed the nice amber LED fog lights that I wanted but it doesn't bolt up directly to the JL steel bumper. To get around this, I picked up an adapter bracket from Amazon that allows you to bolt up OEM style bolt pattern fog lights into the JL steel bumper setup. The other advantage to using the aftermarket fog lights is that they already have longer cables meaning I didn't need to buy yet another pair of extension wires to make them work in their newer location further away from center.

Connect the amber LED fog lights to the adapter brackets

Bumper and foglights installed

Lights work great

Wiring loom zip tied to bumper

Clean install, even OEM plastic cover fits back in place

Also installed the Mopar bumper bar for it

LED Foglights

The previous owner of the JK had fitted LED headlights to get better illumination but it's still not bright enough on dark roads with little to no street lights. The factory foglights don't do much illuminate just the little area in front of you so I bought a pair of Raxiom Axial Series Tri-Bar amber LED fog lights to assist in getting more light out there without blinding other cars.

Raxiom Axial Tri-Bar LED fog lights

Unfortunately I've been a bit busy/lazy so it sad in the box for over a year until I finally got to install it. The installation itself was pretty straight forward. Although it's theoretically possible to unscrew the OEM foglights without removing the bumper, it's far easier to do it if you do remove the bumper first. 

Front bumper removed

Comparing the LED fog light (left) to OEM fog light (right)

Once you get the bumper off, just remove the four screws holding the OEM foglight in place, screw in the new foglight and connect the wiring. It's all plug-n-play.

Foglights installed and front bumper bolted back in

The color is perfect for a foglight and the added spread illumination really makes quite a different on dark roads so I'm very happy and mostly annoyed that I waited so long to get this done. 

Remote Start for the JK

After my wife's Jeep's doors basically got frozen shut a few weeks ago, I decided to stop procrastinating about putting in a remote start system so that it could be warmed up from the inside even if we can't get in. Picked up a Kleinn plug-n-play unit and took under an hour to install taking my time. I didn't have any issue getting the plastic panel covering the steering column unlike others have described for the 16+ JK so I consider myself lucky. 

Lower plastic panel removed to access wiring

Remote start module

After following the instructions carefully, to pair the unit with our keys, three clicks of the lock button starts it up right now. 

Maintenance Update: Oil Change on Chopper

Chopper was due for an oil change so got that quickly taken care of. Note that the drain bolt uses a 1/2" wrench/socket, not a 13mm. Ended up rounding the bolt a little so decided to replace it with a brand new one to avoid future issues.

Oil Change - 8-26-2022

Maintenance Update:

Mileage: 73,027

- New mopar oil filter
- 6qt Castrol Edge 5W-20
- New OEM drain bolt 

Eyebrow

My wife wanted the angry eyes look but without the over the top grills that seem to be popular so we agreed that the UnderCover Night Hawk molded and painted eye brow would fit the bill. Fairly simple install, just remove the factory weather stripping, tape into place then use two zip ties to hold down the front piece to the grill. The edges are held down factory clips but they also shipped brand new ones which I used to make sure it was a nice tight fit. The hardest part was removing the adhesive residue from the old weather stripping but otherwise a simply install. I took the grill off to make it easier to line things up and also get the zip ties mounted. Hopefully it doesn't fly off at speed but it seems pretty secure. 

Eye brow

Hopefully it doesn't fly off at speed but it seems pretty secure. Reviews seem pretty mixed on this part so we'll see how it fairs in a few months. 

Hunter Mountain Adventure with NORA 4x4

When my wife got the Jeep last year I thought it'd be important for her to experience it in the environment they're designed for and learn a thing or two. Jeeps make decent daily vehicles but it's off road where they really shine and when I saw that Northeast Off-Road Adventures (NORA 4x4) was hosting a Hunter Mountain off-roading tour specifically catered as a family event suitable for even beginners, I knew I had to sign her up. 

Hunter Mountain Snow Tubing Lodge - 5-30-2022

The day started off with everyone meeting up at the base of the mountain by the snow tubing lodge. There were 32 vehicles participating in this tour, mostly Jeeps but several Toyota 4Runners as well. It was a hot but overall gorgeous day so it was perfect for opening up the new Bestop Sunrider to get as much open air as we could. Scott, who runs these events, was very good about making sure everyone was safe. We broke up into two groups with an experienced lead and trailing vehicle and everyone had FRS radios to get heads up on trail conditions and tricky sections at all times. 

Heading up the mountain

Once the convoy started going and we got everyone on gravel, they had all driver shift to 4WD Low. The vast majority of our drive was going to be at 3-5mph in rough terrain but nothing overly difficult for these vehicles. We ventured up and then through the woods until we hit the mud pit. If you didn't want to get your vehicle dirty there was a "chicken ridge" you could take off to the side. Some people took the out but several did decide to have some fun. Due to the rain the day before it was a thick muddy soup and the first vehicle through immediately got stuck and had to be recovered to get out. This continue on with the vast majority of the vehicles ahead of us needing to be recovered by the car in front of it. My wife was insistent she was going to get through so I gave her the game plan of maintaining momentum and cutting a wider line to avoid the giant rut every vehicle before us kept making deeper by getting stuck and spinning tires. "Whatever happens", I said, "don't hesistate and lift, just keep at it with steady power". She got a nice run into the pits and maintained a solid 3-4mph through it all and just like that she was clear of it all. It was pretty amazing actually since about 80% of the vehicles that attempted the run in our group needed some recovery or assistance. She did that with her Jeep with no lockers!

Talk about getting muddy

Successfully through the mudpit with no assistance

The big smile said it all. One more achievement unlocked. Just 6 months ago she had barely driven her entire life despite getting a license some 20+ years ago and here she is now in her own Jeep wheelin' it and getting all kinds of dirty and having fun. After about 3 hours of driving (well including 30 minutes or so of pulling vehicles out of the mud), we made it to the summit.

At the Summit

At the Summit

We stayed up in the summit for about 30 minutes so people could eat any food they had packed with them and get a bio break. We then spent the next 20 minutes doing the summit loop which consistent of some fairly tight, rocky trails that required a bit of careful maneuvering. It was important to keep the vehicle in front and behind you within eyesight so no one took the wrong turn and ended up trying to drive down a black diamond instead. 

Navigating the tight trails of the summit loop

There were definitely a few sketchy spots here and there and I was glad we were in a 2-Door JK making it a bit easier to squeeze through. Once we completed the loop we took the steep road down then across the ski slopes to get back to our starting point.

Heading back down from the summit

We had a great time and I was glad this Jeep isn't just another mall crawler. There was mud in all kinds of crevices and we had all kinds of branches wedged under it that I had to go and yank out but overall Chopper did really well. No issues whatsoever during the entire ride. We had the AC blasting to help take some of the edge out of the humidity and not even a tiny issue with cooling. The BFG K02s were fantastic in making sure we could get through anything with no drama. My wife and I had a great time. Yes, even me, even though I was riding shotgun the entire time. We've gone wheeling before in Jeeps in Hawaii and Colorado with me as the driver and I loved it and it was great that my wife could experience this for herself in her own Jeep. The event is so well run and organized, we're going to be signing up for their Fall drive as well as maybe some additional off-road courses with NORA 4x4. If you're in the NY area, have a 4WD vehicle and want to get a taste of going off the beaten path, this is a great way to do it with experienced people that know what they're doing.

All done for the day....dirty but so much fun!

I took the Jeep today to car wash in Secaucus just to get as much of the mud off as I could. The undercarriage still probably needs another solid pressure wash which I can do myself but it's looking half-way decent again. 

Cleaning up the evidence - 5-22-2022