Project Green Machine - 1 Year Review

hey guys I'm Tim with bleep and Jeep in today's video I'm gonna be doing a one-year review of my green Jeep and all the aftermarket parts on it it's already been a year since I built it I've made a few small changes in that time which I'll touch on also but basically in this video we are just gonna be taking a look at the aftermarket parts that have been on there for a year see which ones have held up and which ones haven't and which ones are worth your money let's get to it [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] I'm fortunate enough to live about 30 minutes a 30 minute drive from where I just parked the Jeep this is one of my favorite spots I do some shooting up here and some camping up here and amongst my friends we've we've named this spot the campsite and we can set targets out there on the hillside it's probably about I say about 150 yards to that that last rock and Misty likes it up here particular particularly when she's chasing lizards and anyway it's just a great place but let's start on the Jeep and before we look at any aftermarket parts let's check out some of the custom stuff starting with the top here this roof rail roof rack whatever you want to call it I made these I get a lot of questions on it non-stop questions and I'm sure somewhere I have some pictures when I made it it's some one and a quarter tube probably oh nine five maybe thinner and it works fine a customer of Greg's at rockin Road had these heavy-duty Yakima bars they are actually underneath this rubber coating they are quarter wall do em so these are probably about an inch around really thick really heavy-duty and like on most things I do I was I wasn't under under the gun trying to get it done and the welds really suck on this coating this is a probably 1/16 of an inch thick rubber coating and I just had to sand it away and burn them on here the best I could this is some more tubing right here that I weld a little pieces of flat bar to and then I just through bolted them it's a long way from perfect but it is fully adjustable I can slide these brailles anywhere I need to up and down the bars and when I first when I first built these bars I just bent the little turn downs on the end of the rail and it didn't match very good at all because the roof is actually curved so I've had to pull him back off and I rolled them in the tube roller with just I mean barely anything this is the smallest little radius to kind of curve that and that's basically it you know it's it uses all the factory mounting points I did drill those out and weld in some quarter 20 weld nuts or weld washer or something like that after you watch my table build video they're the same thing they're quarter 20 I used them in that so but you saw the factory holes and not a whole lot to it works great if I've had a lot of weight up there pretty basic I think it looks really good kind of looks like a rock slider I'm real happy with it so we just got back from Easter Jeep Safari Moab and on the way back on i-80 about in Reno my shock tower like my ghetto shock tower like built for Moab last year it actually fell off the Jeep on the highway and well I didn't come completely off but it sheared the shocks sheared off and they were bouncing around smashing the tub and so I from last year I had these brand new 10 inch travel rough country shocks and they were way too big but when I got back to the shop in Sacramento Greg and I just came up with something just to slap him on there so the shock towers on the bottom of my axle right now are really low to the ground that's not long-term that was just something we had to do but what I want to talk about back here are all the rough stuff parts starting with the brakes the brakes were pretty controversial this rough stuff disc brake conversion I had to then these brackets get him to fit and then since then I believe rough stuff is actually updated the design but a lot of you guys were saying how how crappy these were gonna be and that they're just autozone parts this and that well wherever they get them from I don't know but I can tell you these brakes have been on here for 12 months almost 20,000 miles and they work really freaking good I'm super impressed with with everything the calipers the rotors are fine all the hardware that came with these soft lines everything's holding up great and they work really good sincerely my brakes now after lifting the vehicle and swapping these axles in my brakes work better than they ever did stock that worked really good that being said they are biased to the rear and I need to put in a proportioning valve if I have a lot of weight in the Jeep it's actually really nice the brakes seem to be pretty pretty well set up but when the Jeep is empty and I don't have any gear in it if I stab the brake pedal I can definitely lock up the rear tires on pavement not a problem the times I have locked it up though it's interesting to look at the skids because they may both walk up exactly the same time so these brakes work exactly the same this truss on the Ford nine-inch axles the rough stuff part and it's not I mean it's just metal it's not really anything that can go wrong there but that's obviously held up fine it's not cracking off or anything as far as I know my axle still straight and so that's fine there it's got a few leaks that's there's nothing to do with rough stuff all right so here's the rear drive line this is a rough country drive shaft this is actually the front drive shaft for a Jeep JK aftermarket drive line for a lifted Jeep JK for the front and it works freaking great I'm actually super impressed with this drive line from Rough Country it showed up and fit really good the u-joints on it we're made in the USA I believe I don't know who makes their shafts were more if they make him in-house I don't know but they're they're made in the USA as well and after the Utah trip I did change you joint out on it but that was after a week of wheeling in Moab and almost 20,000 more on this one maybe 18,000 miles on this driveline and no issues with that at all so I'm pretty stoked on that that definitely works good the leaf springs he's a rough country as well it's a little bit tough to see but as you can as you can tell by looking down that they are still arced they haven't really worn out at all actually and that is fairly surprising to me reading comments and forums a lot of people talk about how crappy the rough country leaf springs are and that that's gonna be a theme of a lot of this reviews you know I read so much stuff online and a lot of what I read online it just simply has not been my experience the Jeep is not sagging at all let's go out and take a look at it actually alright so if you've been following along with the project Green Machine playlist you will know that I ordered a three and a half inch leaf spring for the rear and three and a half inch coils for the front for the first Moab trip that we did with this cheap immediately after that I actually upgraded to a four and a half inch coil springs up front after that trip but I kept the same three and a half Leafs in the rear and as you can see the front is a little bit higher but that's a four and a half inch spring and this is the three and a half inch spring I can't really see that it's settled at all after 12 months of driving and two wheeling trips in Moab and wheeling here in Oregon throughout it's basically right where it was at I still have the stock shackles on there the ride is a little stiff kind of rides like a pickup unless I've laid in it just the way it is so maybe some longer shackles or some improved shackle angle maybe a slider box I don't know something like that might help the ride but as far as the leaf spring just immediately wearing out like a lot of people were saying that just hasn't happened while we're talking about Rough Country let's take a look at the front shocks here real quick these have been on here since the beginning after lifting the Jeep they're ten inch travel I forget what they call and think they're the 2.0 s something like that I'll put a link to everything I'm discussing in the description below if you're interested they they ride just fine they've rode great when they were new and now that they have about twenty thousand miles on them and twelve or thirteen months they still ride pretty good no issues there the stainless steel extended drive excuse me stainless steel extended brake line this is a rough country part as well no issues there no issues at all alright let's see there might be a few other if I'm forgetting anything I apologize but let's talk about the winch look at this thing really color that now this this has definitely gone downhill this winch from rough country the funny thing is it actually works just fine but I cannot believe how much the anodization faded I swear to you this was jet black that being said it works fine I've used it quite a bit and I've towed forerunner in the snow actually ended up towing out a guy who was stuck in a Duramax this is their 12,000 pound winch with the synthetic line the line is held up fine the winch works great but after being outside for one summer the red line is basically pink it they really need to work on their UV protectiveness that's for sure but like I said I've used it a lot and it works perfectly fine now if you've built a bumper that this if you got a bumper or built a bumper that housed the winch in it and it was a little more protected from the elements I'd expect it to hold up fine but it has definitely faded a lot in 12 months the front bumper of my Jeep is a victory bumper they are not available though anymore it looks like they decided to only make them for Toyota's so I have probably one of the few victory bumpers and the end caps bolt on and off I have I had to take them off ie well a year ago in Moab because they were hitting the tires and I just never put them back on so looks kind of funny to some people I I don't care works fine doesn't protect the front corners very good but if I bolted my corners back on with a little trimming to them should be should be fine but anyway I'm going to do something different here in the future with the bumper The Rock sliders they are made out of some some rusty old do em that I got for free from buddy they are 1.75 so 1 and 3/4 inch do em 120 wall they work really good this is a I don't know if it's my own design I kind of just did it didn't put a whole lot of design thought into it but they work really good I have these pop outs on there so if you're rubbing against a tree or a rock and going forward it'll kind of just pop you out right to the back tire there and then it doubles as a step which works really good so you can just step right here and then reach up and grab the roof rail and that way you can tie stuff on a ratchet strap down your load whatever you're doing works pretty good they are really secure actually they bolt to the pinch seam all the way down the whole length of the Jeep with five bolts and then they also just bolt to the unibody and I don't have a frame stiffer on here anything but because of the pinch seam which you can't see but right behind us there and then just these few bolts actually neglected to bolt the middle one here last time I had these off and looks like I got one bolt in the back but whatever even so they are super secure because of a pinch seam it kind of creates a a wedge going up or down so these things they just absolutely do not move whether you're hitting rocks upward or stepping on them going down and they're just spray-painted I clean the metal and spray painted them with some rust-oleum I like the I think they call it painters touch 2x I don't know it's pretty cheap but it I have not retouched these in a year and I mean of course it's you know scraped off here and there where I step on it all the time but it's easy to touch up because it is spray paint and they they look perfectly fine so anyway so the roof rack and the sliders are custom as is the links and the suspension but that's all that's all rough stuff and rock and road parts but let's go ahead and get down there and take a look so basically if you're not familiar thrust stuff which I would be surprised if you're not but they sell kits and basically you just buy all the parts so you get rod ends and heim joints if you're doing links and whatever and they give you enough length of video em and parts to make something work so they this is a Y link rough stuffs Y link GM one-ton steering setup I went over the knuckle with it and I had their cure on here for about 11 months and then they they just came out with these instead of a cure on one side you're supposed to put the Cure right here I have been running it here but instead of a cure we are running I don't even know if they call these yet but if they're on their website they may not be but if they are I'll put a link below of course anyway running one there and one over there they were just fine as skiers just like it did with the cure steers great you may notice I do not have a steering stabilizer on here I haven't for 20,000 miles I don't have any scaring issues wandering issues no bump steer or nothing like that at all and that a lot of that is due to the geometry that that Greg Rock and Road helped me with and you can see the drag link and the track bar panhard bar are exactly the same angle and exactly the same length and that's why there isn't any bump steer it works really really good so back to the rough stuff art so this is a rough stuff diff cover I think there are three eighths of an inch thick there they're ridiculously beefy I haven't really hit it front on yet but I have hit the bottom of it a lot I've actually gotten the Jeep stuck on it it's not leaking nothing it works really good these are all their tubes this is one and a half inches around but it's quarter wall do em all the steering the drag length panhard bar all that stuff super beefy I went with the one and a quarter Himes they're really freaking big really beefy some people say that the rough stuff Himes come brand-new worn out that's not the case at all let me go to the other side all right some on the other side of the axle here and this time I can't there's it's not worn out it's absolutely no play in it at all and these have been through to summer now one full summer is 110 degrees two wheeling trips to Moab a complete winter outside and organ exposed to the elements they're not rusty they're not loose they don't squeak I hit them with wd-40 I don't know if that's right or wrong we're going some wild him with wd-40 I have what one two three four five six on my three link to be honest with you there is one it's the rear hime this one right here on top the rear hime on the the third link of the axle for whatever using the nylon liner and this one is loose just a little bit it doesn't make any noise I wouldn't have even been able to tell except for we with Greg we just upgraded the ends of my cross member after the last Moab trip and we had to unbolt that and we noticed it was a little bit loose I haven't even talked to rough stuff about it though but out of the I'm sure how many I have here but let's see one two I don't know maybe 10 10 Himes one of them is a little bit loose so it could be just be a fluke I don't know but I haven't had any issue so my entire for an axle being a three link is linked to this crossmember available from Rock and Road performance now these ends that we just upgraded to I don't know if you recall but I had my Himes like down here for the first Moab trip they hung down super low and the ends on this crossmember were never meant to have the tabs and the Himes down low like that but it was a time crunch issue that's just what we were what we had to do to make it all work but before the last Moab trip about a month ago that we did two Easter Jeep Safari 2018 we upgraded these ends on Rock and roads modular crossmember here and they are really working good well it's nice about it is they bolt on to the unibody rail and then you can actually drop the transmission whole drivetrain out of here if you need to because the center section of that crossmember comes out then your links will remain on the ends which are which is bolted to the unibody so your whole front axle will stay in place so here's a side profile of the back of the the crossmember here and this like I said I don't have any unibody stiffener on here or anything and those ends are just bolted on with the factory stud in the front and then the factory bolt in the rear and it did not move at all with the entire front axle going through the crossmember on the way it's set up here it did not shift it did not move now ideally I would like to have unibody stiffener just to make it a little beefier right there and then maybe I'd weld the crossmember ends on or at least they'd have something a little thicker to bolt to that being said just bolted to the factory holes there the rock and Road crossmember absolutely did not move and held up really well in Moab some of you guys were asking where to get these from they are available you just need to get in touch with Gregg at Rock and Road and I will put his email address in the description below that's probably the best way to get in touch with them more from rockin Road are these Rock rings these are really nice they help stiffen the rim and kinda act like a wheel stiffener if you're running low psi and you hit a rock the wheel won't Bend they also if I can find it where to go also they protect the valve stem which is tucked away in there it's not a big deal you can just bend it out if you need to fill it up with air works fine but if you're rubbing on rocks and stuff like that they really protect it well and honestly I haven't touched them a whole lot even we owned in Moab I think I scraped one of them somewhere these are available for different sized steel wheels and you just weld them on yourself I have a whole video on this these are I think the cheapest steel wheels you can get from Summit Racing I bought those and I got these Rock rings from Greg and I just welded them right here to the wheel and sanded it d8 it and again that rust-oleum spray paint no touch-up at all in a year still it still looks just fine and that brings us to something else let's talk about these tires all right so these are the dreaded retreads people are calling them from tread right and they are actually a remould meaning from one bead this side all the way across the tread the other side is all remoulded so it's not technically a retread and if you guys watched those those videos I slashed these things right out of the gate I drove from Sacramento or I mounted them out to Moab and I didn't have my bump stops at the time setup right I thought I did and I actually sliced these all the way through the lugs which were brand-new into the carcass of the tire and the tires at that point were basically not safe to drive on they were pretty much pretty much destroyed so I ended up getting a new set of these remoulded tires the same ones and when they arrived I thought well I don't really want to swap them out I think I'll just run these a little bit longer and then swap the new ones on no sense and wear him down at these were still working even though I had cut all of them well time went on and I never swapped them out I still have a rainy set of five of these things down at rocking road and coming up on 20,000 miles on these tires on these mud terrains several trips to Utah we own in Moab and actually aired down this last time to about less than 15 pounds about I think 12 pounds what I went down to squishing these things out nice and soft driving around at 12 psi even on the interstate for a week going in between trails in Moab no issues with them at all so I have put in tire bouncing beads I had lead weights on here when we first bounced them but after I I'm not sure if I can find it but on one of the tires must be on the rear now one of the tires I ripped out a whole section of a tread where it was contacting the body the first time out and the lead weights just weren't really able to keep up with that anymore and they became out of bounce so I bought some ceramic tire bouncing beads off Amazon loaded these things up and they are not bad at all there's still a couple little vibrations but I can't really say it's a fault of the tire because they're missing they're missing a lot of tread in random places I can't find you right now but I'll put a picture up of it Oh stuff like this that's a whole section of lug missing from from a high rpm screwing around on dirt roads and stuff like that but anyways I Drive him pretty much every day no issues at all and like I said once these were worn out I got a brand new set of these that'll be going right back on so one of the newest upgrades on the Jeep is this bump stop and Greg basically came up with this I may have helped with some aspect of it but basically it's all Greg's designed from rock and road and rock and roll with what they're all about is one-off custom stuff that's that's what Greg loves to do he doesn't lie repetition and making same thing over and over again so that that rubber bump stop on there is available from rough stuff specialties but then all the steel work all the the bracketry up here itself from from rock and Road and this bump stop tower or bump stop shock tower call it whatever you want doesn't have a name it uses the factory sway bar holes right there and then is a tube welds onto the inside of that goes underneath the exhaust with a polite little bend over to the other side and the shocks they mount right to that tube as well and it's really freaking trick really clean and doesn't take up any room in here the axle still has full travel up and down works really good and I'm super stoked to have really good nice bump stops in the back so it's a big shout out to rock and Road there huh this thing's awesome works great well if I'm forgetting something which I very well might be I apologize but that's that's basically the majority of it my Jeep is pretty simple there's not a whole lot going on and I like it that way these are the stock gears out of the truck so they're there for 10 F wealth well at 4:11 rear 409 front I don't know whatever for did they did some weird mix-matched gear sets like that for all intensive purposes there for ten gears it has the Ford limited-slip in the rear which is completely worn out so it's basically open diff lockers in the future are high on my priority list for sure so something coming up that I'm really looking forward to is the Panama City Jeep beach Jam out in Florida I've never been to Florida it's coming up right here in the middle of May I'm gonna put exact dates down below in the description so be sure to check that out I'm gonna be there I'm flying out to Florida like I said I've never been and we're gonna have a meet and greet my understanding is for the first time they got permits to actually drive on the beach out there in Florida which we do here all the time in Oregon by the way but I guess it's a big deal out there sounds like a lot of fun the Comanche is going to be there so if you guys want to see that in person that's Matt's Comanche build be sure to come out and check it out it's gonna be a great time and I look forward to meeting you and come on by and say hi alright guys that's gonna be it be sure to check the description below for any information that you need to know we'll see you in the next video [Music]

Channel: BleepinJeep

Views: 252,391

Keywords: bleepinjeep, xj, jeep, cherokee, 4x4, offroad, jeep cherokee, jeep grand cherokee, grand cherokee, ruffstuff, rough country, rock and road, oregon, utah, moab, treadwright, tires, long arm, lift kit, lifted, drifting, winch, 9 inch, dana 44, axle swap, full width, custom, rock sliders, diy, how to, made in usa, 4.0, i6, over the knuckle, walk around, jeep beach, florida, drone, 2 door, green machine, aftermarket parts, 1 year later, 1 year review, project green machine

Id: bo2OJ9JTGD0

Length: 25min 44sec (1544 seconds)

Published: Wed May 02 2018