Slave II Build Progress...

Bubba Fett · **Posted:** Mon Jul 14, 2014 12:28 pm

Now that I have a plan in place to modify my Jeep from stock to awesome, I figured I need a place to chronicle my build-out. Now like many of y'all my budget is super tight and all of the upgrades will have to be done on a budget over an extended period of time. This means a lot of scrounging around local junk yards for wrecked Liberty's, eBay hunting, and looking for sales on Amazon / other online retailers.

I need a good plan because I'm on a tight budget. So in a nut shell I have broken out my plan into four phases, the first phase will be the cheapest and easiest stuff, while the fourth phase will be the most expensive and most difficult stuff. Used a snowball plan if you are familiar with personal finance (smaller expenses first, and larger expenses at the end).

Here are the stock pictures of Slave II when I bought her earlier this month. Slave I was my Ford F150 which can be seen in the photo...

Here are some more pictures of the fully stock Slave II at home...

Bubba Fett · **Posted:** Mon Jul 14, 2014 12:36 pm

Now for some light modding :frankie:

Since we live in Florida, and its currently hot as the surface of the sun outside we decided to go with just plan ole window tint as the first mod. Nothing fancy, but necessary. I literally got a sun burn on one arm and on half my face while driving Slave II from my house down to Tampa and back on Saturday. Brutal.

I wanted to go full limo tint or atleast illegal, but was talked out of it. Apparently the Georgia and Alabama Highway Patrol have figured out that Floridians tint their cars illegally and the Florida Highway Patrol doesn't seem to care too much about enforcing the law. I've read online where the GHP and AHP have been pulling over cars left and right that are leaving Florida with Florida tags to give out meaningless and costly tint tickets. Worst yet they make you peel off your tint. So not only do you get a nasty ticket but have to pay for your windows to be re-tinted.

Since we plan on driving out of Florida, and since I doubt Slave II can ford the Gulf of Mexico, I decided to keep it legal. In all I paid $140 out of pocket which includes the front strip and the back cargo window. I checked around and this is the best price in the Tampa Bay Area.

Stay Tuned... My next slated modifications will be the addition of OEM tow hooks to the front bumper, AVS window vents for the side windows, mounting of a fire extinguisher, addition of cruise control, and of course stickers (LOST Florida Stickers), assuming you can consider stickers modifications at all :mrgreen:

Bubba Fett · **Posted:** Sat Jul 26, 2014 4:10 pm

I added my fire extinguisher to the inside of my drivers door, used fat and short screws I had laying around to mount the holster to the door. Not sure of the exact size since they were just extra screws I had laying about

So far so good! Tested the window to make sure that the screws didn't rub and it doesn't mess with my leg while driving.

Up next is mounting the cb radio.

Gageraid · **Posted:** Sun Jul 27, 2014 12:20 pm

Seems like a good spot for the extinguisher. Keep up the mods.

Bubba Fett · **Posted:** Sun Jul 27, 2014 2:38 pm

Gageraid wrote:

Seems like a good spot for the extinguisher. Keep up the mods.

Thanks!

I'm hoping to get outside and mount my CB radio today. I have a few ideas as to where I can put it and will play around with its placement. If I can find a good spot then I will mount it.

TheBlueKJ · **Posted:** Sat Aug 02, 2014 11:46 am

Keep the mods coming!

EDIT: I also like the Star Wars themed name of it too

Bubba Fett · **Posted:** Sat Aug 02, 2014 5:44 pm

Thanks!

Today I got cruise control installed in my KJ at a local shop, and got my LOST Florida stickers in the mail. I hope to put them on before we head back out to take advantage of the tax free weekend down here in Florida.

I'm also researching where the CB radio can go and think I have it figured out. I'm going to likely mount my Cobra CB into the cubby hole at the base of the center instrument panel. To do this I will have to unscrew it and cut the back of the cubby out so it can slide through. Once through I will ground it and run the hot wire to the fuse panel where I will use a fuse tap. I will run the antenna wire back through the cab of the Liberty to the cargo area where I will install a mountable firestick antenna on the back right passenger side of the cargo opening. I will just run the antenna wire under the floor mats.

Will post pictures soon.

Bubba Fett · **Posted:** Thu Aug 07, 2014 9:36 pm

Picture of my new LOST sticker and my cruise control mod

Bubba Fett · **Posted:** Sun Aug 10, 2014 8:13 pm

Installed half of my cb radio today, just the reciever and mic. Tomorrow I'm going to radio shack to look at firesticks. I hope to be able to get the entire system up by weeks end.

Bubba Fett · **Posted:** Tue Sep 23, 2014 11:02 am

Good News! I have been having an issue with the Rack and Pinion on my Jeep since I bought it, apparently the dealership tried passing it off as a "small leak" and refused to fix it under the 90 day warranty. Well I had to take the Jeep to two other local dealerships, another Jeep dealer and a Ford dealer to keep it scientific and both confirmed that the rack needed to be replaced.

Well after cussing out the Sales Manager, calling the owner of the Auto-group, and threatening a law suit I'm proud to say that Slave II has a brand new rack and pinion that cost me $0.

So basically we negotiated a free cruise control addition that cost $750.00 and we paid $0 for it, and then we got the rack fixed free of charge which would had been $1,000+ easy to replace.

So now that all of this crap is behind me I'm gonna finish my hunt for CB parts to complete the antenna portion. My goal is to get the CB done next month, and then over the holidays squeak in two other mods to finish out 2014.

After the CB my first mod will be a cheap camping/off-road canopy mod... I have done estimates and some research and after the tarp and the collapsible tent canopy stakes it should only cost me a total of $40 to get this done. This is a must for us Florida Crackers... it stays hot down here until well into late November / early December and our winter which is nasty, only lasts about 3-4 months out of the year. Keep in mind I'm from Florida so nasty to a cracker is 20-30 degree temperatures during the middle of winter.

:CAMPING:

I plan on adding my canopy to the back of the Jeep vs the side of the Jeep because next year I intend to use it for tailgating next college football season. We are big USF Bulls fans, and Cowboys fans as well, so next season we plan to take the Jeep and use the canopy on the back vs. hauling around a 10x10 popup tent. Not sure if Dallas will come back to Tampa, but who knows if they do I'll be there.

Outside of football I plan on going on some hog hunting trips in 2015 and would prefer to use my Jeep as a base camp vs. hauling around a bunch of tents and extra shelter stuff. Depending upon how the back canopy works I plan on also adding a drivers side canopy as well for next hunting season, and I will be experimenting with adding tarp walls to both canopy's so I can use these areas.

To secure the tarps during transit I plan on using heavy duty nylon rope to tie up the canopy rolls to the existing stock OEM luggage rack rails. In the back I will have to make it very tight since I don't have any middle support yet. On the side it would work fine with the support. When I get to a location I just undo the rope, unroll the canopy tarps, setup the posts, tie down a tension line to some cheap Rural King tent stakes and bam, cheap canopy.

Most of the parts will come from Rural King or Harbor Freight, the stakes will be the most expensive part and will come from Cabellas, or Gander.

I'll post pictures when its time to work on this.

The last mod before 2014 will be luggage rack rails and a roof basket, and maybe a rear cargo area mat. I'm also going to drain and refill the front and rear diff, flush the radiator, grease the ball-joints (my dust jackets are bad) and service the transmission. I will post pictures of these service items in this thread as well.

I'm trying to do all of this on the cheap-cheap so I'll share my tricks along the way. Next week I plan on calling all of the area junk yards to see how many Liberty's are in my area, and I plan to visit them to hopefully pick up a lot of spare parts from wrecked Liberty's.

Stay Tuned.

Bubba Fett · **Posted:** Tue Sep 23, 2014 11:25 am

While I'm on the subject of mod's, my big mod, which probably won't happen until 2016 or until I get a job closer to home that pays more $$ will be to paint Slave II. I've asked around and everyone has said that if I plan on adding a heavy duty steel off-road winch bumper, then I need to paint my Liberty first rather then doing it after the fact. Everyone I've asked has said its easier to remove the front stock bumper than the heavy duty off-road bumper, and apparently cheaper as well.

I don't know about y'all but I use this thread as a way to help others like me who are noobs figure out what they want to do, track my own progress, and keep a pin in my modding ideas. So I apologize for the wordy posts... a bunch of picture posts will be coming soon I promise.

Going back to the paint, I plan on painting Slave II's body Boba Fett green-grey and her fenders with black Line-X. The color combo should look awesome, especially when I add in black JEEP and LIBERTY logo's, black gas tank cap, black rims, black rear tail light guards, and of course a pair of black angry eyes slants for the front head lamps.

The Boba Fett "green-grey" looks like this...

If I have to add some color to it, then it will likely be a splash of Yellow somewhere... maybe on the side of the hood where others have "Renegade", or on the back rear cargo area. I have many options.

If done right this will look awesome... if not done right like anything this will look like shiz.

Bubba Fett · **Posted:** Tue Feb 10, 2015 2:14 pm

Well its been a while, life happened.

I'm proud to report that since I last posted I replaced my Universal Joints (they were worn out), installed a trailer light wiring harness, and I have hooked up my CB radio system. I still need to modulate the frequency to improve the range and reception, but it works well enough. Instead of dropping a ton of money on a mounted rear whip antenna, I used my old magnetic roof mounted antenna.

I'll post pictures soon :wink:

My last project with the CB will involve modifying the mounting bracket to allow for more wiggle room between my drivers side door and the CB. I changed the configuration as well so I can see whats on the screen while I'm driving. Basically I'm going to drill 2 new mounting holes into the side of the bracket, so I can push the CB radio further in, which will allow me to move it further down and into a nice spot.

Once I do this I plan on looking for a nice off-road all in one roof rack. I don't plan on using the one on the Liberty, and instead plan on removing it and replacing it with an after market basket.

After the basket comes the lights, new tires, new springs, new shocks, new arms, and a lift kit. Nothing crazy, just looking for a more rugged look and more ground clearance. Might go with a 6 inch lift.

Once I lift I'll likely be close to painting the Liberty. Instead of Boba Fett green, I'm likely going to go with Foliage Green and black line-x fenders and front grill.

tommudd · **Posted:** Tue Feb 10, 2015 3:04 pm

Go for a 3 inch lift, less issues all around with 6 inch more problems, then you'll want larger tires so regear needed with steel front diff more than likely and so on
if going for an ARB front bumper or similar go heavy enough on the springs
or go JBA adjustable coilover

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