What is the appeal of a Jeep?

[Deacon]

I installed the new front bumper and winch plate today. H4 headlight conversion kit with Xenon bulbs should be in tomorrow, and two sets of IPF 968 CSG driving/fog lights are on their way to be installed on the bumper. The first pair of the 968's will be 55W halogens to the outside of the headlights, on any time the headlights are on (including high beam), while the second pair will use the 100W halogen bulbs, mounted close together high on the center bar of the bumper and will be controlled by a toggle switch in the cab. The end result should be a helluvalot of light. I still need to pull the trigger on a winch (not time critical), probably a Superwinch EPi9.0s, and I need to pick up some D-shackles for the front bumper.

Here are some pics of the new bumper in place:

[FireAza]

My girlfriend has a 2001 Wrangler because she used to live at the end of a dirt road on the top of a mountain. Although now we live in the middle of town having a Jeep still comes in handy... for other reasons.
The first time we saw the additional benefits of a Jeep was when someone hydroplaned their 4 door sedan through a stoplight and into the passenger side front corner. All told it did $250 in damages to the Jeep, and the car was totaled.
Then about a month ago some moron, I assume trying to illegal park in front of her Jeep (beyond the "No parking here to corner sign), swiped the driver's side and hit the bumper.
Now, Wrangler bumpers are completely steel except for a 4 inch chunk of plastic on the end. The bumper itself was fine, I just have to get a $25 replacement part... The car that caused the damage (which wasn't hard to identify) has a dent about 1/4 deep all along the passenger side.

Jesus! It's billf! When did you return?

[adciv]

Hey Deacon, how is this for facepalming: Those kinda bumbers were outlawed a few years ago over here.

What for?

[Deacon]

The only thing you do with those bumpers is kill things. Doesn´t matter if you run into a deer or a human. Deacon´s car would probably get -4 stars on a scale from 0 to 4 on the Euro NCAP scale

Haha, I'm pretty sure I should be proud of that Though yeah, around here we have deer, not human roadkill, and deer will royally fuck up your day if you hit them at speed.

Want to survive in modern street-life? Look both ways or/and stay off the fucking street.

THANK YOU! Besides, seriously, how many pedestrians are struck at low speeds? Because low speeds are all you can really attain in a crowded down-town environment. And if you're crossing the highway on foot and are struck by a vehicle, no bumper in the world is going to save you, and Darwin says it shouldn't. So how severe is this "problem" you'd be solving?

By the way, its true purpose is not acting so much as a cattle guard for deer but rather to prevent body and/or mechanical damage to the vehicle while off-roading, especially rock crawling, and to serve as a mounting point for lighting and a winch.

[Deacon]

Mounting point for a winch, I can see; but protecting anything?

From this picture it looks like it can protect nothing.

This picture shows both the winch plate and the protection. It protects the front of the vehicle from crunching up if it slides into boulders while rock crawling, protects the lights from low-hanging branches and other obstacles, can plow through whatever plant growth is there short of a stout tree, etc... It also will help shuttle a deer under the vehicle or at least cut it into a couple of pieces to lessen the impact

[Deacon]

Well, I installed the IPF H4 lenses and the X4 clear xenons, and MAN what an improvement! So much better! MUCH brighter light, looks a little "whiter" (not blue, just a little less yellow), and not too difficult to install. Remove outer bezel (3 screws), remove inner bezel (4 screws), disconnect factory light, and set it aside for Craigslist. Then remove the sealer boots from the new lenses, insert the xenon bulbs, replace the sealer boot, connect it to the wiring harness, replace the inner bezel, adjust beam height and left/right bias, replace outer bezel, and you're done. Easy peasy. The hard part for me was finding anything near level ground, even at only 25 feet. There's a reason they call this the Texas hill country.

I went driving around briefly under some nearby giant power lines, and man, just the low beams--even with their vertical cutoff--were sufficient (more than the previous high beams) to light up everything I needed to see, and the high beams were more forward focused, went much higher vertically, and were much brighter than before. To avoid shining the brights into the windows of nearby homes, I left the lows on for the most part and was pleased as punch. Everything works great. But man, I tell you what, you take a face full of those lights full on, even the low beams, and you'll be seeing spots. If I get an inordinate number of people flashing their brights at me, I'll adjust them a little lower than they are now, as I don't know if the instructions apply exactly to a lifted Jeep

So, is it worth it? Well, it was $60 for the lenses, $80 for the bulbs, $30 for basic ground shipping (WTF?), for a total of about $170. I don't know how much I can get for the factory lights, but I'm guessing not much, so I won't count that against the cost. So is it worth $170? I'd say so, yes. I'll give it a while of driving around with them at night before giving a final verdict, but my initial impressions are that it's an easy and worthwhile mod to make, something that should have a long service life and maybe even pay for itself by allowing you to avoid an obstacle or animal or alert another vehicle to your presence earlier. This combined with the two pair of driving lights, and I'm confident I could light up an impromptu game of two-hand tag football.

Also, I just ordered a pair of Crosby 3/4" 4.75t screw-pin anchor shackles (sometimes called D-rings or D-shackles) from Defender Marine for the front bumper. They're a couple bucks more, but they're pretty as hell and very much top quality, right up there world-renowned names like Van Beest with their Green Pin line, and they're made right here in Texas. Their trademark red pin will go rather awesomely on the Jeep, I think. I'm almost concerned people will like them so much I'll walk outside one day and find them gone.

[Guitardrumr]

<snip>

Their trademark red pin will go rather awesomely on the Jeep, I think. I'm almost concerned people will like them so much I'll walk outside one day and find them gone.

It's happened up here in MI before. If you think it might be a problem, and you have a welder, just put a spot on the threaded end, where it would exit the shackle. Should be easy enough to break with a grinder to remove, but nobody will be able to five finger discount it.

[Deacon]

I might do that, actually. Thanks

EDIT: It was suggested elsewhere that I can just use some blue loctite on the threads. I don't know why I didn't think of that in the first place. A whole lot easier, and it's removable without any special tools or heat, but not something people can just unscrew and take with them if the come across it in the parking lot...

[Deacon]

Well, since I needed to do some rewiring anyway with a little bit of experience under my belt, I rewired up the pair of 55W halogen driving lights. For now I just ran the relay switch line up into the low beam part of the back of the driver's side head light connector/harness, holding it halfheartedly in place with a strip of electrician's tape, which was enough to supply switching power when the lows were on. I have to say, I'm impressed! They compliment the IPF X4 (clear xenon) conversion very well, and I'm pleased to see that neither the plastic light guards nor the tube bar from the bumper itself actually got in the way of much of the light as I feared might happen. I drove around a little where there were no street lights, and while I've got everything pointed properly low for the sake of other drivers' eyes, I could see a definite difference with the lows/55W combination. The area immediately in front of the vehicle is lit up quite well I'm really looking forward to getting the 100W wired in, now (I used the previous 100W test runs to do the 55W pair instead), and getting all six lights blazing together when the brights are on!

For now, here are a few pics in my driveway after the test drive:

With flash...


At a high enough angle that I hadn't quite hit the focal point of the fogs yet...


At a lower angle, catching both sets of lights full-on...



MAN it looks so much better with driving lights on...

[Terrene]

when do we get to see pictures of your wang in the tail pipe, christ

[Deacon]

What is your problem?

[Terrene]

automobilaphilia is against my religion

[JermCool]

Terrene'd.

[Deacon]

To be honest I'm getting a little tired of Terrene's constant thread-shitting.

[adciv]

Deacon, you need about 20 more lights.