Sinking Creek 4WD Association

Well since I've been in the club for a semester now, i figured it would be time to start my jeep's build thread. Yes i know that this has a very similar name to the Shitrunner but i have a very valid reason. I got my Jeep in March of 2016 and have basically only had problems with it besides the couple months of it actually working. In my Jeep's defense i have abused it from the start but not to the level that it should be having so many problems. When i first got the jeep it looked like this: Then within 24 hours of owning it, it looked like this:
It was an offroad park about 40 minutes from my house and i definitely broke it in in the mud and rocky terrain. I was loving the jeep. A couple days later we took a road trip to arkansas for spring break and the jeep did great on the highway and on some old logging trails. I got to take off the top and doors for the first time here on those trails:
After that it was basically limited to day to day driving with the occasional dirt road and water crossing at swimming holes. For graduation, I put a rough country 2.5 inch spring and shock lift kit on it which was a nice addition since the jeep severely needed some more articulation:
The lift kit worked and felt really good on the jeep and overally i really like it. That summer i took the jeep to Moab, Utah for a mountain biking/4x4 trip. Had a great time and did a lot of stuff that i probably should not have done with a barely modified jeep. I took it on trails such as Hells Revenge and the rim trail. Later that summer i got a new barricade bumper and 9500lb winch which added a lot of functionality and made it look pretty nice. When i got to VT this year i did a lot of mudding over at the fire road right down the road from VT and at Mountain lake. At one point at mountain lake i had the jeep submerged up to about a foot below the door handles and the inside got flooded with mud. Some locals came by and pulled us out and we ended up having a really fun night. For the first two months or so at VT my jeep looked like this:
Throughout those two months, all of my belt tensioner pulleys went bad and had to be replaced, with one time causing me to break down right in front of lane and I had to be rescued by some friendly SC4WDA members and a VT cop that pushed my car while i steered it into the small parking lot right in front of lane.
On the way to the Harlan, KY trip the jeep was having some crazy death wobble about 3 miles from VT on the way to I-81. We couldn't fix it only make it a lot smaller before we went to KY. On the way back from KY every time I would turn left the jeep would go into death wobble which made the 4 hour drive home quite harrowing. When i got back i took it to motor mile as the jeep is still under warranty. There they proceeded to replace the whole front differential, left wheel bearing, and some minor engine components. A week after i got it back, i was having a really bad screech coming from the engine and the death wobble came back. So i took it back to Motor Mile and they proceeded to replace my oil pump, water pump, belt tensioner, timing belt, and some other assorted engine parts. After that i didn't have any problems with the jeep until christmas besides the absolutely terrible good year wranglers that come on the jeep jku sports. They were dry rotting after two years, chipping, and wearing extremely fast. They desperately needed replacing at 25000 miles which is half of their life span. So, at Christmas i bought 5 new 35" BF Goodrich KO2 tires and the wheel spacers to make them fit on the stock rims. My grandparents also got me a 50" light bar that i installed as well. Right now it currently looks like this:
. About a week before i was supposed to drive back to VT i took the Jeep to get it inspected because it was going to expire while i was at VT this semester. After that they said something was extremely wrong with my jeep and that i needed to take it to the dealer. I did right after that, and a couple days later they still didn't know what was wrong with it. So I had to take my dads Station wagon back to VT or i would miss classes. The day classes started i got a call from the dealer and they said that they were replacing the engine in it because of unusual camshaft wear, timing chain wear, and piston wear. So FCA shipped them a new pentastar and they had it replaced 3 days later. As my dad was driving it later that week, on his way home, the back right wheel came off as a result of the spacer not being tightened to the right amount. As a result of the crash/skid on rear suspension mount, the rotors, rear wheel, both calipers, both rear wheel spacers, and the plastic part of the rear bumper were all replaced by 4 wheel parts who installed the tires and wheel spacers. As a result my jeep is basically new at 25000 miles and i am meeting my parents to pick it up this weekend. Pics of the new engine and other parts that got replaced will follow this weekend.
Even though ive had so many problems with my jeep, i am still so happy with it and can't wait to keep driving and modding it.

Just as a clarification all repairs were done under warranty so i've had about $15000 worth of work done under warranty, about half the value of the jeep. Also that last picture is my grandfather and with our jeeps. He liked mine so much that he went and bought himself a 75th anniversary edition as he is 75 as well.

Tires look good. Can't say the same about the light bar

That's the way to do it. Wheel and beat your vehicle while it's under warranty so the dealership has to fix it after a wheeling trip, not you

Have they given you any grief about modifications or "abuse"?

Fucking dammit, do I need to start putting a copywrite on my shit now...

Almost thought we scared you away after Harlan, but I guess your jeep was just in the shop all the time.

BadAssEddie wrote:Tires look good. Can't say the same about the light bar

That's the way to do it. Wheel and beat your vehicle while it's under warranty so the dealership has to fix it after a wheeling trip, not you

Have they given you any grief about modifications or "abuse"?

No none at all. I made sure to always clean it before i limped it into the dealership to get fixed. When they fixed the front diff in their report they said "due to the copious amounts of mudd in the differential the oil was no longer very effective."

FJCcrawler wrote:Fucking dammit, do I need to start putting a copywrite on my shit now...

Almost thought we scared you away after Harlan, but I guess your jeep was just in the shop all the time.

Haha no not scared away. When i thought of the name the Shit Brick i didn't even think of your runner until like 2 weeks later when i realized that you already had that name. Gave you acknowledgement though so im safe.

Hitting some bullet points:
- Tires, muchhh better! Those tires that were on there were junk, as you know.
- Glad you are coming back.
- Wow, talk about some quality products coming out from FCA... Damn Fiat. I've seen the 3.8 blow up more times than I can count on two hands but not the 3.6, surprising. As Alec said, beat it while under warranty. Did they ever say there was a cause for the motor wearing like crap? (Was there oil in it? )
- Hah, that is pretty funny about the front diff. Mud doesn't do well as gear oil. (Check your breather tubes and make sure they're good.)

Mr.WJ wrote:Hitting some bullet points:
- Tires, muchhh better! Those tires that were on there were junk, as you know.
- Glad you are coming back.
- Wow, talk about some quality products coming out from FCA... Damn Fiat. I've seen the 3.8 blow up more times than I can count on two hands but not the 3.6, surprising. As Alec said, beat it while under warranty. Did they ever say there was a cause for the motor wearing like crap? (Was there oil in it? )
- Hah, that is pretty funny about the front diff. Mud doesn't do well as gear oil. (Check your breather tubes and make sure they're good.)

They never told me how the engine was destroyed, Just the unusual wear. They did find a stick about an inch by a half an inch inside the engine. The reason there was mud inside the differential was because the rear seal was gone so mud got in but ended up sealing it up which allowed me to get home.

Since i got the new tires, i no longer have enough clearance on my fenders for any decent amount of articulation. I was thinking about taking off the fenders until i find the type i want/ have the money for them. Any thoughts on taking off the fenders? Yes no?

hoveyg wrote:Since i got the new tires, i no longer have enough clearance on my fenders for any decent amount of articulation. I was thinking about taking off the fenders until i find the type i want/ have the money for them. Any thoughts on taking off the fenders? Yes no?

I know a lot of guys just trim the sides of them to make them like flat fender which actually look pretty decent. I know hughes and patrick did it.

FJCcrawler wrote:I know a lot of guys just trim the sides of them to make them like flat fender which actually look pretty decent. I know hughes and patrick did it.

Yeah that's a good way to go.

FJCcrawler wrote: I know a lot of guys just trim the sides of them to make them like flat fender which actually look pretty decent. I know hughes and patrick did it.

Did it with a jigsaw in the driveway of the TC house. Eyed and taped the front flares, didn't even tape the back. Pulled the inner fender lines and not even sure where they are right now. There is a thicker plastic support too, I just removed and cut it small. Gave it some support, but tucked away enough to not notice it.

I think trimming is the way that im going to go. Have been researching it a bunch the past couple days and it looks pretty simple overall.

Last night i put my light bar back on and installed new rocker panels that came off my grandfathers 75th anniversary sahara. Slowly but surely my jeep is looking more and more douchey which is very exciting.
Also, the longblock engine replacement they did had a huge effect. The engine is way quieter, and doesn't make any of the weird awful noises that it used to. Also it has a lot more power than the old dying engine, which makes sense, but leads to me getting 19.5 mpg now instead of 18 which is a nice benefit. Hopefully this engine will last a lot loner than the 25000 miles of its predecessor.

Over the weekend i went to snowshoe, and on the way back i ran over a log that was in the road, which caused my tire to rip off the back rear fender. I was planning on trimming the fender on Sunday, but since the rear was destroyed and the others were cracked, i just decided to take off the rest of the fenders to wait until I got new ones. Still have to put the fender liners back in, but this is the state of the jeep currently.
Doesn't look amazing, but doesn't look terrible. It'll get the job done for a month or two.