RocketScientist
Well-Known Member
- First Name
- Tom
- Joined
- Jul 15, 2018
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- 239
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- 260
- Location
- Massachusetts
- Vehicle(s)
- 2020 Ford F150
- Vehicle Showcase
- 1
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- #1
Here's some info I compiled from personal experience:
Splash Guards: As others have noted rear splash guards require you to remove and retain one bolt from the inner fender liner on each side. Problem is, this bolt is not long enough to go through both splash guard and inner liner at same time. I just used the rivets for now, all seems well. Note splash guards are not removable - unless you have a supply of plastic rivets. Of course, most off-road adventures will remove these for you! I have some plastic push-pins of various sizes. I may try them to see if they adequately secure the splash guards to make removal a little easier.
Mopar all-weather mats: Instructions would have you cut out the little piece of carpet above drain, remove drain plug in floor, insert drain plug in floor mat. I see this as a recipe for allowing water to get up into the Jeep and under the carpet. Alternatively, leaving the hole in the floor mat unplugged, allows crap to get to the carpet. Dry crap, fine. Water or spillage (Sh!t happens!) not so good. Solution, order additional floor plugs. These are available on Quadratec, etc. about $3-4 each (too much).... Yes, leaving the floor plug in leaves a bump in the carpet - I hardly notice.
Mopar Headliner: Take your time with this. Test fit all panels, look to see where Velcro will attach. Scuff up area with fine grit sandpaper, clean thoroughly with alcohol. Keep greasy fingers off of it. Either take your hard-top off, or put some type of plastic over your interior. This will create dust. Dust you don't want to breathe...Use a mask. For the pieces around the windows, if I did it over, I'd look to see where the Velcro will sit, and maybe position it more optimally. Some lined up right on a stepped piece of the hard top and I had to remove and reposition. As I removed it once, adhesive may be compromised and problematic in the future. The rest went fairly easy. Follow the directions and let the strips cure for two hours or more....Verdict - looks good. Noise reduction? Maybe. Heat reduction not noticeable. Probably a better insulator in the Winter, though.
Aux wiring - getting all those cables through the firewall grommet is a PIA. Only part of the installation where you will be cursing. Particularly if it is 90+ out, and 90% humidity. If you are also installing the Mopar trailer wiring - do both at same time. Save yourself at least one swearing, knuckle-stripping episode. View the video from CJ PonyParts - far more useful than Ikea instructions. Use the correct tools for pin removal and do not force anything. This is not a difficult install if you follow directions. Actually one other PIA is tie-wrapping wire under hood. Instructions have you tie-wrap this to trim at front of engine compartment. Yeah, try doing that with provided tie-wraps. As has been pointed out before, you will need longer ones.
Receiver hitches - I originally went with the draw-tite offering from e-trailer. Listed as compatible with JL. It is actually a carry over part from the JK line, as the mounting holes are the same. I wanted the longer receiver tube so that a bike rack would clear the spare tire. Problem is ALL the after-market hitches are simply being relisted as compatible with the JL. They are NOT compatible with the 7-pin MOPAR wiring harness. The hitch(es) will block the mounting bracket holes and/or not allow you to open the connector covers. There is no acceptable work around. If you only need an after-market 4-wire harness, or are only using the hitch for racks, these aftermarket hitches will be fine. The draw-tite would have been my choice (and $100 cheaper!) had I not needed the factory wiring.... I'll have this unused draw-tite hitch on Marketplace. E-trailer won't take it back, claims it was "direct fit"...
Trailer wiring - MOPAR harness. Again, running through the firewall is a PIA, beyond that it is just removing trim panels, routing wires, a couple of re-pins. Nothing major. Follow directions, don't force anything. Again, CJ Pony Parts has a great video on this install.
Upgrading your Uconnect - I have a Sahara with 7". I upgraded to 8.4". Plug-n-play. All controls work as they should, navigation directions show up in instrument cluster. Sirius was fine. The one I picked up was a take-out, probably from a newly wrecked vehicle. Unit was brand new. Still had just about 1 year of Sirius trial. TravelLink was not working. Previous owner had disabled with Tazer JL. What you will not be able to do is register your vehicle with SiriusXM Guardian/Uconnect. As the vehicle did not come with this option, the VIN is not in their database. They will not budge on this. You also won't have the auto-dim mirror with Assist/SOS buttons. You can get the unit to be a wifi hot spot and make a connection over 4G, however you will not have the GSM antenna (or at least I could not find the connector buried in the dash). Makes 4G a little spotty. I believe the 4G only works, because the radio is in a trial period. Note this was NOT 4G from my iPhone. I disabled cellular data on my cell to be sure, connected to the WiFi hot spot, and was able to surf the web. But as you will not be able to register with Uconnect/SiriusXM Guardian, you won't get vehicle health reports....
Dash-cam: I have a Magellan/MiVue front/rear dash cam. I mounted the rear cam, high inside rear window, and ran the cable to the front while running the trailer wiring. I removed the upper windshield trim to route the cable down the passenger side and behind the trim where I connected to the Aux wiring.
Auto-dim mirror: I added the interior auto dim mirror. Removal of old/installation of new is a five minute job. I was hoping there would be a wiring harness already there. No such luck. AllMoparParts provided me the part number for the right harness, which is not available yet. Note the auto-dim mirror does NOT come with the Assist/SOS buttons. Just a blank stalk where these would be.
Tazer JL - This install took less than 5 minutes. Remove the lower dash panel (pops right out) for easier access to bypass plugs. I was able to re-enable TravelLink (note you cannot just disable alerts, the whole thing is either enabled or disabled). I do not get the alerts that other people get - or at least not frequently at all. I was able to enable AUX setting easily. For now I unmarried, and do not leave plugged in. My Valentine 1 gets power from OBD connector, so I need that available for that connection.
Splash Guards: As others have noted rear splash guards require you to remove and retain one bolt from the inner fender liner on each side. Problem is, this bolt is not long enough to go through both splash guard and inner liner at same time. I just used the rivets for now, all seems well. Note splash guards are not removable - unless you have a supply of plastic rivets. Of course, most off-road adventures will remove these for you! I have some plastic push-pins of various sizes. I may try them to see if they adequately secure the splash guards to make removal a little easier.
Mopar all-weather mats: Instructions would have you cut out the little piece of carpet above drain, remove drain plug in floor, insert drain plug in floor mat. I see this as a recipe for allowing water to get up into the Jeep and under the carpet. Alternatively, leaving the hole in the floor mat unplugged, allows crap to get to the carpet. Dry crap, fine. Water or spillage (Sh!t happens!) not so good. Solution, order additional floor plugs. These are available on Quadratec, etc. about $3-4 each (too much).... Yes, leaving the floor plug in leaves a bump in the carpet - I hardly notice.
Mopar Headliner: Take your time with this. Test fit all panels, look to see where Velcro will attach. Scuff up area with fine grit sandpaper, clean thoroughly with alcohol. Keep greasy fingers off of it. Either take your hard-top off, or put some type of plastic over your interior. This will create dust. Dust you don't want to breathe...Use a mask. For the pieces around the windows, if I did it over, I'd look to see where the Velcro will sit, and maybe position it more optimally. Some lined up right on a stepped piece of the hard top and I had to remove and reposition. As I removed it once, adhesive may be compromised and problematic in the future. The rest went fairly easy. Follow the directions and let the strips cure for two hours or more....Verdict - looks good. Noise reduction? Maybe. Heat reduction not noticeable. Probably a better insulator in the Winter, though.
Aux wiring - getting all those cables through the firewall grommet is a PIA. Only part of the installation where you will be cursing. Particularly if it is 90+ out, and 90% humidity. If you are also installing the Mopar trailer wiring - do both at same time. Save yourself at least one swearing, knuckle-stripping episode. View the video from CJ PonyParts - far more useful than Ikea instructions. Use the correct tools for pin removal and do not force anything. This is not a difficult install if you follow directions. Actually one other PIA is tie-wrapping wire under hood. Instructions have you tie-wrap this to trim at front of engine compartment. Yeah, try doing that with provided tie-wraps. As has been pointed out before, you will need longer ones.
Receiver hitches - I originally went with the draw-tite offering from e-trailer. Listed as compatible with JL. It is actually a carry over part from the JK line, as the mounting holes are the same. I wanted the longer receiver tube so that a bike rack would clear the spare tire. Problem is ALL the after-market hitches are simply being relisted as compatible with the JL. They are NOT compatible with the 7-pin MOPAR wiring harness. The hitch(es) will block the mounting bracket holes and/or not allow you to open the connector covers. There is no acceptable work around. If you only need an after-market 4-wire harness, or are only using the hitch for racks, these aftermarket hitches will be fine. The draw-tite would have been my choice (and $100 cheaper!) had I not needed the factory wiring.... I'll have this unused draw-tite hitch on Marketplace. E-trailer won't take it back, claims it was "direct fit"...
Trailer wiring - MOPAR harness. Again, running through the firewall is a PIA, beyond that it is just removing trim panels, routing wires, a couple of re-pins. Nothing major. Follow directions, don't force anything. Again, CJ Pony Parts has a great video on this install.
Upgrading your Uconnect - I have a Sahara with 7". I upgraded to 8.4". Plug-n-play. All controls work as they should, navigation directions show up in instrument cluster. Sirius was fine. The one I picked up was a take-out, probably from a newly wrecked vehicle. Unit was brand new. Still had just about 1 year of Sirius trial. TravelLink was not working. Previous owner had disabled with Tazer JL. What you will not be able to do is register your vehicle with SiriusXM Guardian/Uconnect. As the vehicle did not come with this option, the VIN is not in their database. They will not budge on this. You also won't have the auto-dim mirror with Assist/SOS buttons. You can get the unit to be a wifi hot spot and make a connection over 4G, however you will not have the GSM antenna (or at least I could not find the connector buried in the dash). Makes 4G a little spotty. I believe the 4G only works, because the radio is in a trial period. Note this was NOT 4G from my iPhone. I disabled cellular data on my cell to be sure, connected to the WiFi hot spot, and was able to surf the web. But as you will not be able to register with Uconnect/SiriusXM Guardian, you won't get vehicle health reports....
Dash-cam: I have a Magellan/MiVue front/rear dash cam. I mounted the rear cam, high inside rear window, and ran the cable to the front while running the trailer wiring. I removed the upper windshield trim to route the cable down the passenger side and behind the trim where I connected to the Aux wiring.
Auto-dim mirror: I added the interior auto dim mirror. Removal of old/installation of new is a five minute job. I was hoping there would be a wiring harness already there. No such luck. AllMoparParts provided me the part number for the right harness, which is not available yet. Note the auto-dim mirror does NOT come with the Assist/SOS buttons. Just a blank stalk where these would be.
Tazer JL - This install took less than 5 minutes. Remove the lower dash panel (pops right out) for easier access to bypass plugs. I was able to re-enable TravelLink (note you cannot just disable alerts, the whole thing is either enabled or disabled). I do not get the alerts that other people get - or at least not frequently at all. I was able to enable AUX setting easily. For now I unmarried, and do not leave plugged in. My Valentine 1 gets power from OBD connector, so I need that available for that connection.
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