Just wanted to post a quick update, I had some time in the shop today to do some small things.

Put holes in my rear mat to allow for use of the tie downs. (I botched the first two pretty bad but oh well)


Mounted my new jump starter.



Took off the stock bumper to start planning for a winch bumper I'm going to build in the next week or so for my new Smittybilt XRC9500.


And I decided not to put the bumper back on just to take it off next weekend so I went ahead and fabbed up some brackets and a plate to cover a gap that exposes the oil filter.

 

Can you post some high quality pics of the interior since you gutted it and bed-lined it? My carpet is trashed with stains and i'm considering doing the same thing. Is it harder to keep warm or louder because of the lack of carpet and insulation?

 

Ill get some better pics after I've redone it. I did a slop job the first time and did no prep what so ever besides vacuuming. It will absolutely not stick if you don't rough it up first and clean it very well. But to answer your questions, I didn't notice much change in noise but its always been pretty loud. And as far as heat? I rarely drive it long enough for it to get warm but so far I haven't got cold in it on trips of 20 mins or so.

 

Velcro is some pretty neat stuff if you get the industrial strength kind. I used it mount to my toolbox to my tailgate and it worked out as sort of a workbench, pretty convenient. It's held surprisingly well so far.

 

I love the drop gates just for that reason! I use mine as a work bench all the time too

 

Finally got a bumper made with some help from a friend! I used some 1/8" wall, 1-1/4" diameter tubing. Didn't have a bender so we had to cut notches and bend it over a jack stand but it worked out extremely well.


Here are the brackets we welded on, made of 3/16" steel, they bolt right up to the factory holes, the upper tabs also made a perfect place to mount my LED spot lights.


Here it is, bolted on.


And the finished product, painted with Rustoleum Professional Grade Bedliner. And the LEDs are mounted and wired.


I'm extremely happy with it, it seems to be good and sturdy and hopefully will hold up to some hard offroad use. All that's left to do now is fab up a front hitch receiver for my winch and possibly weld on some sort of stinger bar.

 

really like it! Mine`s similar. A year ago

last summer with rinch

 

I found 12 LED rock lights on Amazon for 15 bucks so of course I couldn't pass that deal up. I put 8 under the vehicle and I love how it looks.

Lights mounted under front bumper.


Mounted to frame rail on the side of the vehicle:


And the rear mounted next to the hitch. I wish I would've taken those pics before it got all dirty again. But oh well.


Here it is all lit up!

Pretty impressive for their size!

I also did the "quad beam mod" and it really improved visibility at night, not to mention with the LED fog lights on the bumper, I can see 100x better than before.

 

Thank you so much for posting this!! I've been fighting myself for so long as to whether I should get those kinds of rock lights I've seen on Amazon since the reviews have been so mixed. What's the company you got them from? They look great by the way!

 

The bumper looks really good. It is very basic and clean looking.