Yoda? Build Thread

[AVGeek99]

I drove my new Jeep home yesterday, 900+ miles. I got a great deal at Fowler Jeep in Boulder, CO. It was the exact build I was looking for: 2.0L, XR, Alpine, Tech Group, Conv Group, Active Safety Group, Hard Top, Cloth. The thing that sucks about buying from so far away is that I've only owned it 2 days and I'm already over a thousand miles.

Now the work begins. I am moving all of my aftermarket parts from my 2021 (The Yeti) to Yoda, as well as a few things my '21 had that the new one didn't come with. And then reinstall all the new stock parts on my 21 before I sell it. Here's the full list.

• Soft Top - Completed today
• Full MC 3.5 GC lift
• Fox 2.5 DSC Shocks
• Front Drive Shaft
• Steer Smarts Yeti TR and DL
• Fox 2.0 ATS Steering Stabilizer
• Rock Hard 4x4 aluminum bumpers, front and rear
• Superwinch 10k winch
• Teraflex Alpha HD hinged tire carrier and mount
• ARB Diff Covers
• Mopar HD Rock Sliders w step assist
• Mopar Trail Rail system
• Mopar All Weather Floor Mats
• Mopar Stainless Door sill Guards, or I may just buy new ones
• Light Bar

I'll be doing this over the next few weekends. I'm not sure exactly how long it will take me. I guess it'll be done when it's done.

This afternoon I swapped the soft top from my '21 and hung the new hard top in my garage. Tomorrow the plans are to swap the rock sliders, and spare tire carrier, and maybe the rest of the small stuff time permitting and if the 95 degree temps and high humidity haven't done me in.


Yoda: My wife came up with the name. I kinda like it. '41 is a pretty decent color match to Yoda.

The Yeti

Side by side comparisons

Top Swap

Sponsored

 

[AVGeek99]

This little compartment is genius!! I never liked that little connector my '21 had to store the wiring harness and wiper fluid hose when you had the soft top on. When did they add this?

 

[KJ’s 2025 JL]

This little compartment is genius!! I never liked that little connector my '21 had to store the wiring harness and wiper fluid hose when you had the soft top on. When did they add this?

Omg so glad I ran into your post. I removed my hard top off my 2025 for the first time yesterday. I tried to open this but I guess I didn’t pull hard enough. I thought I was missing the holder that my 2021 had for the connector and washer hose.

 

[Bravo 33]

Nice Jeeps but do you know that "Yoda" is slang for Toyota and or Toyota builds?

 

[Aonarch]

The best color, but I'm biased.

 

[SadRobot]

Sad to see The Yeti go but the new one is going to be so awesome when you get everything moved over.

Here's some Yeti memories I have:

 

[AVGeek99]

Sad to see The Yeti go but the new one is going to be so awesome when you get everything moved over.

Here's some Yeti memories I have:

I will certainly miss the YETI. It gave me a lot of good memories. But I can already tell, Yoda will be a good successor!

 

[AVGeek99]

Omg so glad I ran into your post. I removed my hard top off my 2025 for the first time yesterday. I tried to open this but I guess I didn’t pull hard enough. I thought I was missing the holder that my 2021 had for the connector and washer hose.

Theres a slot at one end. Just stick an interior panal removal tool in there and pry on it a little. It should pop right out. The little compartment is very covenient!!

 

[AVGeek99]

The best color, but I'm biased.

I'd have to agree.

 

[AVGeek99]

Nice Jeeps but do you know that "Yoda" is slang for Toyota and or Toyota builds?

Yeah yeah, but before all that Yoda was a little green Jedi. How about OG Yoda?

 

[AVGeek99]

Today was a great day. I was able to complete everything on my list today. Not bad considering it was 95 with tropical humidity.

I started in the morning swapping my HD rock sliders w step assist on the YETI and moving them to Yoda. The rock rails I pulled off Yoda I installed on my wife's 4xe Rubicon. She put some pretty big gouges in them a few weeks back when we did the Mesabi Mtn BOH trail. Now she's got brand new ones. I'm going sand the gouges down and paint them before I put them back on the YETI. Swapping out the railes couldn't have been any simpler!.

Another pic from this morning. All three lined up in a row. The neighbors must think we're crazy.

Next was the big task of the day, swapping spare tire carriers; moving the Teraflex Alpha HD carrier from the YETI and the Mopar Hinge-Gate Reinforcement from the Yoda. I just installed a Teraflex carrier on my wife's Rubicon a few month back so it was pretty fresh in my memory. This time swapped the two carriers in the time it took to install carrier on wife's.

The only part that slipped me up is I didn't pay close enough attention to how the Mopar kit went together so I had to mess with it for a while until I finally got it right. The frames around the vents in the tailgate were a little different. On the YETI, a 2021, there were a couple tabs or clips on the bottom of the frames that interfered with the Mopar carrier so I got out the dremmel and took them off.

Before

Here's the tabs I had to take off with the dremmel, one on each of the outside bottom corners.

The finished product:

Since I had the cargo area all tore up I moved the trail rail tie down system to the Yoda.
View attachment 1000575

After that I swapped in the Mopar all weather floor mats and then on to the biggest PITA of the day., unplugging the wiring harness for the security gateway so I could connect the ODB2+ so I could get JScan set up and adjust the TPMS. The low pressure warning has been on since I left the dealer. I wasn't about to drive 900+ miles at 40psi! I think they made some changes to where the sec gtwy wiring harness plugs in. That little area seems smaller than on the 2021s. I noticed this when I got connected on my wife's which is a 2024.

Overall, very satisfied with what I accomplished today, especially considering the heat !!

 

[AVGeek99]

I’ve been working the last couple days so nothing completed since Sunday. Here’s where I am with my list:

• Soft Top - Completed today
• Full MC 3.5 GC lift
• Fox 2.5 DSC Shocks
• Front Drive Shaft
• Steer Smarts Yeti TR and DL
• Fox 2.0 ATS Steering Stabilizer
• Rock Hard 4x4 aluminum bumpers, front and rear
• Superwinch 10k winch
• Teraflex Alpha HD hinged tire carrier and mount
• ARB Diff Covers
• Mopar HD Rock Sliders w step assist
• Mopar Trail Rail system
• Mopar All Weather Floor Mats
• Mopar Stainless Door sill Guards, or I may just buy new ones
• Light Bar

All the easy stuff is completed. The next big item will be the lift. Since my Jeep is my daily I am laying out a plan that will hopefully minimize downtime.

I’ll be starting on the front end, tearing down the YETI and then once I have it torn down, I’ll tear down and reassemble the front end of Yoda, and then reassemble the YETI with the stock parts from Yoda. The one part that is worrying me a bit is getting the drag link disconnected. When I installed the Steer Smarts TR and DL everything went smooth except disconnecting the stock DL at the Pitman Arm. That one step took hours of exhausting labor and I destroyed the rubber boot on the stock DL. Hopefully the Steer Smarts DL will come off easy, but if it’s as difficult to remove as the original stock DL and I end up destroying the boot on the Steer Smarts I’ll just leave the stock DL on the Yoda until I can get a replacement end for the Steer Smarts.

I’ll start by removing the RH 4x4 front bumper from the Yeti to get it out of the way and leaving the winch and light bar connected to the bumper so I don’t have to reinstall those. Then remove the TR and DL and then the track bar. With the track bar out of the way I’ll remove the ARB diff cover and reinstall the stock one.

Then I’ll move on to the lift. I’ll remove the control arms, springs and bump stops. To hold everything together while I’m taking apart and reassembling the front end of Yoda, I’ll temporarily install the original stock Rubi suspension. Then I’ll move on to the rear removing the bumper, track bar, suspension, and then temporarily install the stock rubi suspension.

Once I’ve pulled everything off the YETI, I’ll then move on to Yoda, doing everything in the same order. I’m planning to start this weekend after golf league on Saturday (priorities). I’ll see how far I get with tearing down the YETI. Hopefully I’ll be ready to jump right in on Yoda next Friday and complete on the three day weekend.

 

[AVGeek99]

I changed up my plans a bit, hopefully to minimize downtime being without a vehicle. Going into the weekend my plan was to first pull off my RH 4x4 bumpers and teardown the Yeti, pulling out the MC lift, and reinstall the stock suspension that I have sitting in a plastic tub. I would get started after golf (priorities) on Saturday morning.

I had to help my wife with some things in the house so I didn't get out to the Jeep until about 2pm. Everything started out fine; I started by pulling the electrical for my winch and light bar. Then I went to pull off the front bumper. The front bumper is bolted to the frame ends with 8 allen head bolts. 7 of them came off with little effort; the 8th, not so much. I ended up stripping out the allen head so my only option was to drill it out. I made some progress but quickly dulled three drill bits. Thankfully my wife was kind enough to go to the hardware store and get more bits.

Here's where the bumper sits as of now. The lower left bolt on the driver side is the one giving me such grief. Hoping I can get it off some night this week.

While she was gone I got to work on the suspension. The rest of Saturday was a bit of a disappointment. I learned everything not to do when replacing the suspension. By last night I only got the front driver corner disassembled and put back together with the stock parts. Before going to bed I downloaded the installation instructions from MC's website and looked them over.

This morning I got to work on front passenger. Following the instrucions (stunning concept) things went much smoother. While I was working on the front passenger I pulled the drain plug on my ARB diff cover to let it drain. When I was done with the front passenger and before installing the front track bar I reinstalled the OEM diff cover.

When done with the front it looked rather commical, almost like if the Munsters had a Jeep. It;s a bit hard to see in the picture but in real life, the back to front rack was very obvious. In the picture, what looks weird are the tires. It looks like I have 40s in the front and 35s in the back.

Moving to the back I started with the diff cover when it was fully clear. Then instead of doing one corner at a time in front I followed the instructions and am doing the both sides together. It is going much smoother. But after I got the coils out I decided to call it a day as I was worn out.

In the end I didn't get as far as I wanted to this weekend, but things are going easier now. I was hoping to have the Yeti fully torn down and have the stock suspension reinstalled. What remains is switching out the control arms, installing the stock coils and then putting the rest of the rear back together. With all I'm learning on this teardown, I think (hope) the install will go a lot smother on Yoda.

 

[AVGeek99]

Great progress today!! I left work about an hour early and got right out to working. My daughter even came out to help. It's amazing how much time you save with an extra set of hands and a tool fetcher.

I completed the rear end and now the YETI is back to stock. The only thing that gave me the slightest bit of trouble was connecting the upper control arm to the frame on the passenger side. It's tough to get the bolt started on the hex flange locking nut inside the frame. On the driver side my daughter got under the jeep and looked through a hole in the frame to help me line it up. But on the passenger side there's the gas tank, so you're working blind. Thankfully it only took a few minutes. Is there a trick to doing that?

Now it (the suspension anyway) is completely back to stock. Makes the 37s look like 40s. Now I'm pretty much back on track with my plan. I'll work on the last bolt holding the front bumper on tomorrow. And I have to clean up the MC parts. They are covered in red dust from a trip up north to the Iron Range ORV park. The entire park is built on tailings and other discard from an iron ore mine. It gets everywhere and is virtually impossible to get rid of it all. Everything in the photos that looks like surface rust is actually just red dust.

From the wide camera angle the front tire still looks cartoonishly large.

Friday morning I start the MC install on Yoda.

 

[AVGeek99]

As planned I started the MC 3.5 GC install on Yoda yesterday morning. Progress is going slower than I hoped, but I should be done, with it fully driveable by EOD tomorrow.

Before getting started yesterday I put the YETI back on the jack stands and swapped tie rods. I wanted to get my FOX ATS steering stabilzer installed so I needed my SS Yeti TR. I took one last before picture, and then I got started. I often forget to take pictures. So I don't have a lot.

Before: Last picture at stock height

Part of my slow going progress was due to my own stupidity. The tear down was easy. Then I went to MC's website to get the installation instuctions for the Prolignment front drop brackets. While on the site I noticed they came out with updated brackets for 2024+ model years, so I ordered them. I wasn't about to put everything back together so I continued with control arms, and here's where my stupidity stepped in.

The driver side LCA was relatively easy. The passenger side gave me all sorts of trouble geting the holes aligned for the bolts. As I was snugging them up I noticed the passenger side at the frame was at a weird angle. Then I realized the adjustable end had done a half turn so it was at an angle. That explained why it was so difficult to get in. So I pulled it out, reset the length and then it took about 3 mintues to get it in. Amazing how easy they go in when you do it correctly. Then walked around to the driver side and noticed the angle in the LCA was pointing out instead of in.

After that things went a little better and I ended the day with just the track bar, TR, and steering stabilizer; everything else in the front end was completed.

End of Day 1

Today I got a late start after golf, but things went a bit more smoothly. I started with the track bar on the axle side. Enlarging the hole in the axle side track bar bracket was tedious. Thankfully I got it big enough on my second try. Then I moved on to the TR and SS so I could get everything set with the SS relocation bracket on the axle track bar mount. It looked nice when I got it in.

One thing I learned... Installing a lift from scratch is not as easy as working on or modifying something that already has the lift installed. Everthing fits tighter, the rubber mallet is getting a work out.

One final picture of the front before putting the wheels back on.\

Here's the picture I was most looking forward to. The Carolina Squat; lifted in front, stock in back. I was a bit dissapointed with it. With the XR suspension in back it really looks like it is just weigted down with something.

I forgot to get a picture when I called it quits for the day. The back end is torn down and I've replaced both LCAs. Will finish up with the rear tomorrow, torque everything down, and take it for a test drive. I did check the caster and it was a little low, so I'll be lengthing the LCAs a bit before torquing everything down.

Sponsored