2018 JLU Sport S - Fireball - A Mild Weekend Warrior build

[AA_Jeeper]

In today's edition - what's in my trunk.

I've spent some time putting together a toolkit, med kit, some recovery gear, and some EDC stuff. My goal is to keep most of it either off the floor or in the duffel and storage case so that everything can be taken out quickly for camping, hauling things, etc.

I'll break down the kits. First the overall storage all fits on one half of the trunk. The Med Kit is attached to the side saddle bags, and the rest is on the floor. I may decide to move the bulk of the stuff in the storage box under the seats at some point, but we'll see how things go.

The overall storage:

Details on the toolkit

• 12" pry bar
• Ball-peen hammer
• Socket set - 3/8" drive metric and SAE
• 3/8 drive Torx set
• Expanding 1/2" and 3/8" breaker bar
• Metric ratcheting box-open-end wrenches
• 12" and 6" adjustable wrenches
• Vise grips
• Flush cutter
• Regular pliers
• Needle-nose pliers
• Lock Jaw Channellock pliers
• Box cutter knife
• Metric and SAE Allen wrench sets
• Measuring tape
• Electrical tape
• Teflon tape
• 550 paracord
• OBD code reader
• Electrical tester
• Tire Pressure gauge
• Screwdrivers - Combo driver, Klein multi driver, and a skinny straight blade
• Tire hole patch kit
• Sidewall repair kit
• Valve stem repair kit
• Extra wire
• Zip Tie assortment
• Trim panel tools
• Assortment of trim panel fasteners
• Assortment of Metric bolts/washers/nuts
• Assortment of fuses

Still want to add to the toolkit:

• Duct tape

Med kit:

I'm and EMT, so I like to have a fairly significant med kit with some extras in it.

• Tourniquet
• SAM splint
• Self-adhesive ACE bandage/wrap
• Instant cold pack
• Assorted large gauze pads
• Burn Cream
• Antibiotic Ointment
• Alcohol Pads
• Antiseptic swabs
• Wound cleaning gel
• Rubber gloves
• Trauma shears
• Long Q-tips
• Puke bag (backup, I keep another one in the glove box)
• Triangular bandage and safety pins
• Notepad and Pen
• Medications - Tylenol, Advil, and Dramamine
• Tape
• Assorted large and small bandaids
• Mini tweezers

Storage Bin:

I don't love this yet, and I'm thinking I might move a lot of this to the under-seat storage over time. But, I do like that it's fairly easy to take out as you just grab the handles and it all fits on the front seat for camping.

• Leather gloves
• Folding military-style steel shovel
• Snow shovel (winter only)
• Windshield brush and scraper (winter only)
• Folding saw
• Woobie blanket
• Tarp
• 3 soft shackles
• 2" ratchet strap
• 1" x 20ft Kinetic rope
• Quick dry towel
• 8' Tree Saver

Still want:

• Tow strap
• Seat towels
• Snatch block (when I get a winch)

Other:

I keep a few other things around the Jeep in other pouches and areas including some compressed towels, a jet lighter, folding pocket knife with seatbelt cutter, and a magnetic flashlight.

The under-floor storage is still pretty empty too; I just have a hitch shackle and a battery jumper/air pump backup combo under there. When I get offroad, I'll take my Milwaukee inflator as the main air-up tool.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with things so far. My saddle bags are still empty, my under-seat storage is empty, and my under-floor storage is only about 1/3 full. I think with some extra arranging I can get more out of the trunk area and hidden away.

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[AA_Jeeper]

Lift Day - The first real upgrade

TLDR – I put the JKS J-Konnect 2.5 spring lift with Fox shocks and standard duty spring rates on my Sport S and yielded 3.5 inches of lift as well as a level Jeep. So far I'm 50 miles in and the ride is superior to the stock Jeep in that it feels more planted and absorbs bumps on road much better.

Big thanks and shoutout to Terry and the guys at DirtLifeFab 4x4 for all the consultation and installation of the kit, and @Wabujitsu for some hands-on experience and pics of his JKS kit. Side note- Terry runs the Jeep Life Podcast, which you should definitely check out. The installation by DirtLifeFab 4x4 shop was really well done; I got great updates, pics, all the bolts were marked after torquing, and it will get a torque check at 500 miles.

So, the time finally came- the lift is installed. I spent hours upon hours researching in preparation, so I hope to shed some information on why I picked my kit as well as some good before and after photos in the post and data that may help others.

Overall I was looking for a good mid-level kit that would be good on and off-road (looking to do green and blue trails), was complete in correcting geometry after the lift so that driving manners were well behaved, and would look good with the current 285/70R17s as well as future 35's.

I picked the JKS J-Konnect kit for a few reasons- mainly because it's the most complete kit for the price; it includes longer front AND rear LCAs, a new adjustable track bar, a rear track bar relocation bracket, quick disconnect sway bars, and a drag link flip kit for a little less than $2k. Others I considered were:

• Mopar 2" lift – doesn't have adjustable track bar and seems to yield a lot more than 2" lift on a Sport.
• JKS J-Venture kit – This kit requires slotting the LCA mounts and reusing the existing LCAs, which I did not like
• JKS J-Kontrol kit – This kit has LCA drop brackets rather than front LCAs. After discussing with Terry at the 4x4 shop, he recommended going with true longer LCAs rather than the drop bracket.

1.5" hub centric spacers were ordered at the same time. The reason was because after talking to JKS, they said that the rear sway bar would likely contact the 17" Rubicon wheels once the rear sway bar link was adjusted properly. I did not want too much poke so went with 1.5" spacers all around.

Next the spring rate- I went with standard duty rate rather than the higher spring rate. This was at the recommendation of Terry and his crew, and was spot on; it does not look too "leggy" to me with the 285s, and the ride is excellent so far. Also to note- JKS said this was not a leveling kit, but in the end it seems to have leveled the Jeep nicely. Before and after measurements are below along with some before and after comparison photos.

Overall I'm super happy. I had some reservations about JKS after some less-than-stellar responses to questions, but the kit is solid, the Jeep looks great, and the ride is perfect.

Floor to fender measurements:

Ground to fender measurement	Before Lift	After Lift
Driver Front	35.5"	39"
Driver Rear	36.5"	39"
Passenger Front	35"	38.5"
Passenger Rear	36.25"	39"

Now the before and after pictures:

At the shop:

 

[jcruse64]

Nice!!!! That was a sweet '78 D100, hate to see you sell it.

 

[AA_Jeeper]

Saturday Testing and Offroad Prep

With the first nice weather in some time, I spent Saturday learning and testing the new lift and other equipment in preparation for the trails this spring. This edition will cover trying out the JKS sway bar quicker disconnects, testing some Alltop auto tire deflators I got from Amazon, testing the Milwaukee M18 inflator, and setting my tire pressures properly with a chalk test. I also got a bonus visit from a friend with another Firecracker Jeep which made for a great pic in the sun.

Flexin' with the JKS lift and Quicker Disconnects

Can't be a real Jeeper until I test out flex, right? After getting the shed and garage cleaned out so I could get my ramps out, I got the sway bars disconnected and the Jeep up on the ramps. Once disconnected, I climbed the ramps as seen below. Ramps are 11" high, and the Jeep maintained contact on all 4 tires pretty easily. I think there's probably another inch or two of flex in the system. I checked all 4 sides and the brake lines still had plenty of "slop" left, and there was plenty of clearance to all the other components with the 1.5" wheel spacers.

Few notes/findings on the Quicker Disconnects:

• I found a moderate amount of force was needed to get the disconnects off with a lot of wiggling. I'll be tossing a pry bar in my toolbag to help with this out on the trail.
• Once off, I had to adjust the angle of one of the perch holders to get it to slide on. It took me a minute to figure it out, but there is only one bolt that holds the perch in place, so it looks like it's meant to be adjusted, and about ¼" of adjustment and a little bend brought it into place.
• Getting the sway bar links reconnected was a bigger challenge and I could not do it without a short prybar. I put the prybar on a spring wrap and pulled the sway bar about 1/8" lower and it slid right on. Again- the prybar will become part of the necessary tools for this kit.

Deflation

I picked up 2 tire deflation options:

1. The Alltop settable quick deflators. These let you set the pressure, screw it into the valve stem, and it stops at the set pressure. My plan is for these to be the primary deflation as they come in a set of 4, and you just screw them in- set it and forget it deflation of all 4 tires in parrallel. At the recommendation of my Jeep buddy, I'm setting these at 15psi, confirming the pressure, and locking them in. Link.
2. The Jaco rapid tire deflator. This is a 1-at-a-time deflator that I will use if I want to deviate from the standard 15psi above. Link

For the Alltop quick deflators, they were pretty spot on to their setting- within 1-2 psi each time. Deflation was pretty quick, going from 37 psi to 15 psi within about 2-3 minutes (I forgot to set a timer). After checking the accuracy with a second gauge, I made a final adjustment and locked them in with their lock nut. Overall I'm pretty pleased with them.

Inflation

I'm already bought-in to the Milwaukee tool line, and already have the M18 inflator, so I was really hoping the inflator would work well for my offroad trips, and decided to test it here. TLDR- it was perfect.

I used an 8.0 AH battery which is the largest I have. The inflation time from 15psi to 33 psi on the 285/70R17 tires was timed and 1 minute 57 seconds. All 4 tires inflated on the same battery and at the end of all 4 tires, the battery still had 3 of 4 bars left.

Chalk test

I did a quick chalk test to see if 33 psi was right. It seems pretty good from this result. The dealer had the tires set to 37 psi and there was a slight amount of wandering on the highway. Reducing this pressure seems to have tamed that almost to the point of not feeling it anymore.

Conclusion

1. I'm feeling much more confident in the amount of flex I have as well as the process I will have to go through when I get to the trails.
2. I'd estimate I can be disconnected and deflated comfortably in 10-15 minutes.
3. Definitely going to add a short prybar to my kit, probably a 12" one. Also going to throw a small ground tarp in as it was easiest to disconnect the swaybars laying down on the ground.
4. Reinflation can be done comfortably in 10-15 minutes as well. I like being able to set the inflator for a pressure and it auto stops, so I don't have to stay bent over at the tire the whole time.
5. M18 inflator on one 8.0 battery will be plenty to reinflate with some margin. I will probably take a spare 5.0 battery as a backup just in case, but that will just be for my peace of mind.

Finally, my favorite pic so far: 2 Firecracker Jeeps in the sun. Mine is much less impressive

I can't wait for more consistent nice weather!

 

[AA_Jeeper]

Ground Clearance:

Last night I documented some ground clearances as measured from my garage floor to different components. I'll drop them here in case it helps any others:

Component	Measurement (in)
Rear LCA/Shock mount	8.5"
Rear differential	10.25"
Front Differential	10.5"
Front LCA axle mount	11.0"
Steering damper	12.25"

 

[AA_Jeeper]

First "Dirt"

Continuing prepping for offroading for the first time, and with some spare time on my hands (and nicer weather), the kids and I hit up some very light trails around us, mostly consisting of gravel roads with some potholes. That said, it gave me a chance to shake out OnX a bit (found an issue with interference from the magnetic mount posted separately).

Also got the suspension retorque completed as there was a clunk in the front end when turning the steering wheel left and right about 10 degrees, and a rattle from the suspension when going over washboard roads. These turned out to be a loosening bolt on the right front shock and loosening drag link- both fixed and back to normal.

Coming up soon:

• I'm building a tablet mount for the rear rollbar
• Installing the Flashcal+. I'll post those separately and reference them here.

Until then, here are some pics from the weekend:

 

[AA_Jeeper]

A few quick fun updates this week. I'm getting ready for my first real offroading trip to AOAA, so prepping camping gear, etc. I'll make a separate post about the camping setup when I have it squared away.

Fender filler rubber:

As the weather's getting better, I gave it a good wash and noticed some winter road rocks between the fender and hood. Searching the posts, it seems like putting in a rubber filler is common, so that was my small project this week. Here's the material I used: Link. I used a plastic panel tool to push it into the groove, and trimmed the ends nicely. So far after highway driving it's staying in place just fine.

Battery Tender:

Another was testing out what another forum member suggested for keeping the battery topped off. I've been thinking about how to install a battery tender as this JL is my "fun" vehicle, so sometimes goes a week or two between drives. It was suggested that you could get an adapter to plug in a Noco charger via the rear trailer wiring- so brilliant I wish I would have thought of it. So, with a few Amazon purchases, it worked!

I very much like that I did not have to do any wiring for this. It also has the added benefit of popping out pretty easily if I forget to disconnect before pulling away.

Stickers:

Easy way to show off the stickers that come with every mod, and some stuff that I've been collecting.

 

[AA_Jeeper]

First Real Offroading Trip

This past weekend I got to take the first real offroading trip with the Jeep as part of my local Jeep club's yearly spring trail ride. We went to AOAA. I got there mid-day Friday and spent 2-3 hours on my own with my daughter on some greens.

Overall, I was pretty impressed with how the Jeep performed; we did some decent climbs through rocky areas, encountered basketball-size rocks, and did a puckering (at least for me) decent that measured -21 degrees on the inclinometer. With sway bar links disconnected, tires aired down to 15 psi, careful line picking, and no lockers, the Jeep was able to navigate relatively easily. We did a few medium size puddles, but avoided deep mud when possible. There was not a time where I didn't feel in control, traction was more than adequate, and I was able to practice some 2-foot driving, climbing the smaller rocks carefully, and lowering off of rock shelves in a controlled manner. I'm super please so far.

The biggest pucker for me was going down this trail called the "pipeline."

We setup the Jeep that evening for camping- I'll probably make a separate post about the camping setup at some point. Unfortunately, my daughter got sick overnight, so we had to break down camp in the middle of the night, reconnect sway bar links in the dark, and air up away from the campsite to not wake others. We made it home in one piece, but missed out on the full day of wheeling with the group.

On a positive note, though, it was a nice confidence booster doing some things that were a little scary and seeing the Jeep handle it just fine.

 

[AA_Jeeper]

RedRock Fuel Filler Door:

After buying enough from Extreme Terrain to get some points, I bought their fuel filler door for a little sprucing up (link). The install was very simple but did require taking out the taillight to better release the old plastic surround, but the whole thing only took about 30 minutes.

The quality is okay- the door is aluminum, the rest is plastic. The door closes but needs a little nudge to fully close as the door seems to droop a bit. Nothing major or noticeable, but quality could be a little better. I don't hate it, love the price over the Mopar one, So I'll keep it.

 

[AA_Jeeper]

Top and Doors Off

In preparation for National Topless day, I did a bunch of preparations that I posted separately:

Top lift: LINK
DIY Door Carts: LINK

I also found a set of well-priced Rugged Ridge Fortis tube doors on Facebook that I couldn't pass up. Here are some pics of the different configurations.

Top off:

Doors off and top off:

Fortis Tube doors on and adjusted:

Tube doors and soft top in safari mode:

Top in safari mode with front folded back:

Soft top folded fully back with Tube doors on:

 

[AA_Jeeper]

National Topless Day 2026

Our local Jeep club had a great drive to a winery through all backroads and some forest roads. I got very sunburned but it was a lot of fun.

I loved this pic that another member posted- Mine is the one in he middle of the mirror.

 

[AA_Jeeper]

The Unlucky Memorial Day Trip to the Canaan Valley, WV

We just got back from a trip to the Canaan Valley in West Virginia. Unfortunately, most of the long weekend was swamped with rain and most of my offroad plans were squashed.

We were going to stop at Wolf Den Run on the way down, but it was pouring, and had been for at least a day. Since I don't like mud, didn't feel like getting stuck alone, and it didn't seem like it would be much fun to do in the pouring rain, we decided to skip.

Trail 2 was intended to be the Canaan Loop Road, which would have been an easy trail to complete. Saturday had spotty showers, so we went. BUT as luck would have it, we got there and discovered the trail was closed for maintenance. We did get to hike down to the Blackwater River Falls which were beautiful, especially with all the recent rain. A little bit of a consolation. The falls are at one end of the trail and I'd highly recommend if you're in the area.

Sunday- finally some sun! Trail 3 was going to be the "Road Across the Sky" in the Dolly Sods wilderness area. I was expecting some beautiful views and the trail is basically a decently maintained forest road. Well... as goes with my luck on this trip, by the time my family was ready to go, it started to drizzle. No matter, we're going- except instead of 100 mile views we climbed directly into a cloud. I did get some cool pics at least, and Fireball got to touch a little dirt, but no stunning views beyond 150 feet.

I did get to have some fun making AI mods to the foggy pictures though... not sure which one I like better.

 

[AA_Jeeper]

Alpine Park Off-Road Experience at AOAA

This past weekend I got to get out on some more trails at AOAA, attending the Alpine Park Off-Road Experience event. The weather was perfect, a little chilly, mostly sunny, and just perfect. I couldn't make it out in the morning, so went out solo for a few hours until I met up with a group from my local Jeep club.

On the way out, I did my first blue on trail 109. With some good spotting and a good line, the Jeep made it up remarkably well; minimal slipping, and great articulation over the larger rocks. The trail is a short, steep climb over 12-18" rocks. I was shaking at the top, but this was a great confidence booster as the Jeep made it seem fairly effortless.

And the aftermath- an early Father's day gift for myself of a power washer from Harbor Freight to get the mud off.

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