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00:00Today on Build for Off-Road, we start by driving this perfectly good two-door Jeep JK into the shop,
00:09cutting it into three or more pieces to build the ultimate combination of Jeep and Rock Bouncer.
00:19Today in the shop, I have this Jeep right here. This is a two-door Jeep JK. Now, I'm going to say
00:25something that might be controversial, but hear me out. It's going to make sense in the end.
00:29This Jeep right here is the best deal if you're looking for a base vehicle to turn into a hardcore
00:36off-road brake, and here's why. Two-door Jeep JKs right now, first generation, 07 to 11,
00:42you can pick them up for around $5,000. That's an acceptable price for something that you're going
00:47to chop up. Newer ones like this, second generation, 12 to 18, they're going to cost you somewhere around
00:53like that $10,000 mark. The nice thing is, is all the parts that are on this Jeep, they're still
00:58sought after. So even though you buy this Jeep, and maybe you drive it for a year and enjoy that
01:02life of the top off, doors off, you know, being cool owning a Jeep, you can then sell all those
01:08parts, recoup some of your money. When the JK first came out, I was not for it, and that's because it
01:13was so expensive to turn into a hardcore off-road rig. The two-door JK is the perfect base vehicle,
01:19like I said, because it's so cheap. That's what we're building today. Now, this isn't my Jeep. This belongs
01:24to my buddy Ricky. I've been trying to get him to grow up and give up the side-by-side life for
01:28years and step into a real buggy. So that's what we're going to build them. We're going to build
01:32this Jeep into the perfect combination of hardcore Jeep and hardcore rock bouncer. So creature comforts
01:39inside, lots of horsepower underneath the hood, giant axles, and big old 42-inch tires. That's where
01:45we're going to end up. This is where we're starting. Step one, body comes off, and then we cut the frame
01:51in half twice. Oh, it's going to be a good day in the shop, because we're cutting things up in the
01:57world. Now, as I said before, if you want to basically maximize your profit potential, starting
02:19with a good Jeep, you're going to want to sell some of the parts. And if you're going to sell parts,
02:24the last thing you want to do is have a bunch of broken bolts on those parts, because that's just
02:28going to make the new owner somewhat upset. So when it comes to things like exhaust studs that we're
02:33working on right now for this little motor, you're going to want to get a good penetrating solvent,
02:38like CRC Knocker Loose. What this will do is it basically sprays onto any rusted fasteners,
02:45and then it soaks into the threads. And because it's a penetrating solvent, it's going to dissolve
02:50the rust that's basically holding that nut on there, and then it will help lubricate it when
02:54it's time to take it off. Appears to have knocked it loose.
02:58One of the reasons why the JK is honestly such a good platform to start from is the frame.
03:11Back, front axle. These frames are very good frames from the factory because they are hydroformed,
03:19fully boxed, with four-link front and rear from the factory. That's what kind of made the JK
03:23really a game changer when it first came out. We are going to use parts of this frame because
03:29the whole point of this build is to make the ultimate throwdown combination, rock bouncer
03:33slash jeep JK. So we're basically going to be cutting this frame somewhere in this area right
03:37here. But since we're going to do that, we need to go ahead and remove these motor mounts because
03:42we're not reusing the motor. We're going to remove these coil mounts here. I don't know if I'm going to
03:47get all the way up to the actual coil mount. I think I'm just going to get the shock mount off.
03:50But I basically need an empty section of frame right here because all that goes away.
04:05Now to convert this jeep over to, as I said before, this ultimate off-roader that we're building,
04:10we basically are replacing the front half of the frame section. So this is a complete kit. It comes
04:16with two new frame rails, a new front bumper with an integrated hoop at the front as well as a winch
04:21plate, and then a new crossover bar at the top. That's what this section is right here. That's
04:25going to integrate into two new coil over towers. Now this is obviously not a bolt-on suspension
04:31system. This is a lot of custom fab, but it did come with some templates that I marked on the frame
04:36to show me where to cut. So the first step here is going to be to cut this entire front frame section
04:41off and off. And then we're actually going to use the body mounts that are built into these frame
04:45rails to basically key into these old body mounts. So we'll put the body back on the frame to line
04:50everything up and then weld it in place. We'll cut this first.
05:04Boom. Bye-bye frame.
05:20Yeah, but you got to go that way.
05:29Well, let's throw a bolt at her. So we've made good headway on our Jeep JK that we're basically
05:34turning into a Jeep slash rock bouncer type of shenanigans. The frame has now been completely
05:39stripped and prepped for all the new frame parts. The front frame section is on. And essentially what
05:44we've done here is we've used the Jeep body as a jig. So even though we cut the frame off right here
05:51according to the templates to ensure that the front frame is still square, what we're doing is we're
05:56basically bolting it onto the factory body mounts. We bolted the Jeep body back onto the rest of the
06:00body mounts on the frame. And then we basically just shoved everything on. We'll go ahead and do some
06:05cross measurements to make sure that it's square. But at that point, then we'll be ready to weld it in.
06:14For today's welding tip, we're going to talk about a couple of things. We're going to talk about some
06:23tips for welding stainless pipe. And then I'm also going to give you some updates on the ESAB Rebel
06:29and why you would add a water-cooled torch to that machine. Now I've told you before, and we've shown
06:35you how much I love the ESAB Rebel being a multi-process machine. You can make, you can take, and you can
06:40stick with it. It takes care of all the jobs inside your shop. But now you can add the
06:44new ESAB Cool Mini 2 to the bottom of your Rebel. What that does is allows you to add
06:50a water-cooled TIG torch to the entire package. Now the way a water-cooled TIG torch works is you
06:57basically have three lines coming up the torch. You have the line that carries the gas, like always,
07:02and then you have two additional lines. One that will take the coolant to the torch and one that
07:07returns it back to the small radiator and fan that sits underneath it. And that is what cools the torch
07:13head down. What a water-cooled torch does is it allows the torch body to get smaller and smaller
07:19and still operate at high amperage. This particular torch is rated for up to 250 amps, even though it
07:25is incredibly small. So if you're doing a lot of TIG welding and you need to get into super tight
07:29places and you want the torch as small as possible, it's a great time to upgrade to that
07:32water-cooled torch. So now let's talk about welding stainless. Now what I have here is a small set
07:38of stainless bellows that we are going to weld onto this pipe right here. And I think we'll just go
07:43through the process of how to set it up, how to weld it. So step one, whenever you're welding
07:48stainless, is going to be clean it up. For that, we use acetone. Most important part when TIG welding
07:56stainless is making sure that you keep the arc length as short as you can. So what I've done is I put
08:02this giant cup on here to allow me to stick the tungsten out really, really far. That also floods
08:08the area with the shielding gas and just ensures that the weld stays covered. When you stop welding,
08:15don't move anything. Make sure that you leave the torch alone. Keep that shielding gas flowing.
08:21That will ensure that you end up with that rainbow color that you want to get with stainless.
08:26Another thing that can help with this is back purging inside of the stainless. And for that,
08:32you actually need another tool. This tool is pretty specific to automotive stainless exhaust.
08:38This is a heat sink and back purge valve that screws into the O2 sensor in your exhaust. So if I had
08:46an O2 sensor bung right here, this would simply screw into it. Then I use this quick connect, connect it,
08:51and then the other end goes into my double feed regulator that's on the back of the TIG welder.
08:58And what that will do is it will flow argon into the inside of this pipe. We want to plug either end
09:04with either tape or you can actually buy rubber plugs that plug it with a small little hole. And
09:08you basically fill the inside of this pipe with argon. That way, while you're welding it, the chromium
09:14doesn't boil up on the inside as well because it's also protected with that shielding gas. This is just a
09:19handy tool to have. Practice, practice, practice. Get a good quality welder. If you want that small
09:24torch, make sure you get a water cooler for it. Get the proper PPE, good helmet, good gloves,
09:29comfortable place to work. And then just spend time behind the hood. I like doing it every day.
09:34There's no way that we can take a Jeep and talk about turning it into half Jeep, half hardcore
09:53off-road rock bouncer and leave the V6 engine underneath the hood. So this is going underneath
09:59the hood of this truck. This is a pretty much brand new. It's 2024 Ram 6.4 liter Hemi engine
10:07with an 8 HP 75 behind it. This, in my opinion, when it comes to a Jeep JK, is probably one of the
10:15cleanest swaps that you can do. And we'll talk about why a little bit later. But whenever you are
10:21planning a project and you're going to use a used engine, make sure you get it from a reputable
10:26salvage yard, we were able to actually see video of this engine running in the truck before they
10:31pulled it. So we knew that it was good. And they did tell us that the water pump was bent. So we
10:37ended up going and replacing a brand new water pump on there. One thing that I think you should do
10:41before you swap in one of these is swap out the exhaust manifolds. This new manifold design has like
10:47a little bit of a kick to it. So we're going to try and take advantage of that to make it easier to
10:50get the exhaust out of the truck. But these manifolds showed up obviously bare cast. And yes, we could
10:57bolt them on and everything would be fine. But this is the time when we should paint these so they don't
11:02end up looking all rusty underneath the hood of our super cool Jeep. I'm going to paint these manifolds
11:09with this VHT flame proof paint. Now this is specifically designed for exhaust components like
11:14manifolds, headers, turbo downpipes, or pretty much anything that sees a lot of heat. It's designed to
11:20handle that high temperature that exhaust sees. Once it's coated though, you do have to follow the
11:25curing procedure with VHT and there's instructions on the back. You want to heat the item up for about
11:3010 minutes and then let it cool down. Heat it up for 20 minutes, let it cool down. That helps basically
11:35bake the paint onto the exhaust item. This will basically prevent these exhaust manifolds from
11:41rusting and it'll just keep it looking good underneath the hood. If you wanted to dress it up even
11:45further underneath the hood, Duplicolor has a full range of engine enamel. Now this paint is
11:51specifically designed to paint under the hood engine components and engine blocks so it can
11:56handle the heat as well as the chemicals that are underneath the hood. They have them in 34 different
12:00colors. I had them send me some of this hemi orange because I may just do a couple touch-ups on the
12:05block here and there because you know hemi, hemi orange, it's got to happen. And basically so if you
12:09wanted to make the truck look even fancier, you can go ahead and coat the block like that. To start with
12:14right now I'm going to go ahead and spray these with the flat black and then bolt them on the motor.
12:18First step is to clean any of oils or impurities off the cast. I'm using this Duplicolor foaming prep
12:25spray. I'm just going to spray it on there and then wipe it off.
12:32So we're going to apply two light coats and one medium coat. You want to apply all those coats within
12:38one hour and give yourself about 10 minutes between each coat.
12:58That's probably pretty darn close. Now the engine is in between the frame rails obviously it's just
13:04mocked up into place and that is because fitting these hemi engines into the JK engine compartment
13:10is a little bit tight. Even more so with the truck engine because the intake is so tall. Misunderstanding
13:16a lot of times when it comes to engines is that they have to be in the center of the frame and that's
13:21actually not true especially an off-road vehicle even from the factory. Some of these engines are offset
13:26to the passenger side or driver side depending on where the front drive shaft goes. In this particular
13:31vehicle the front drive shaft is on the driver's side so we're going to be offsetting this engine probably
13:36one to one and a half inches towards the passenger side of the vehicle to give me more room. It's also
13:41going to give me more room for the front pumpkin on the axle. But before we can even figure out if this
13:46engine's in the right spot we got to drop the body back down. Body down. Body's going down. Down, down, down.
13:56For an initial installation I'm pretty happy with where we're at. The one thing that you have to
14:01watch out for with these hemis is the fact that the cylinder heads are so large they don't necessarily
14:06fit into this sort of like recess in the firewall. So the head is really close on that passenger side
14:13at the bottom but I'm probably going to just hammer the firewall in a little bit there. I think that'll
14:17solve that problem. I can then slide this engine back I think maybe about an inch. That's what I'm after.
14:22My concern is how close the throttle body is to the radiator because I still need to fit
14:26a fan down inside of there. But I think another solution for that is going to be to basically
14:31raise this engine up a little bit. That will basically pull the throttle body up and back
14:36at the same time. I've already closed the hood and checked it. There is still plenty of room there.
14:40So I think if we basically come up and back I think that'll be the finished spot for this engine.
14:46You do need to watch out for a couple other things. In this particular vehicle we are going to be
14:49running an actual steering gear. So there will be a steering gear over here mounted to the frame rail.
14:54There's provisions for it on our frame rail kit right here. So it's going to bolt on and there is
14:58a shaft that has to run down from the obviously steering wheel down to there. So we got to make
15:03sure that clears by the cylinder head as well. But the Jeep engine bay is fairly large. So putting these
15:08V8s in here is not that hard. You just kind of got to fine tune them around back and forth and then
15:12we can start making some mounts. Right now, body comes back off. Up, up, up. Jeep body going up.
15:25Let's try that.
15:25Quite often when I'm building mounts, I'll just go ahead and cut the holes on the plasma table,
15:43but that's when it's for a very common size fastener and I can run a reamer through it that I have.
15:48These mounts, because I'm reusing the engine side mounts from the Hemi, it uses a weird metric size
15:53bolt. So what I've done is I've matched that up with one of my drill bits and I'm just going to
15:58drill the hole through it, make life a lot easier. I'm using my new Woodward Fab benchtop drill press.
16:04I kind of like these benchtop drill presses because they don't take up a whole bunch of space in the
16:07shop. You can simply move them out of the way when you're not using it. This one has a 450 watt motor.
16:12It's variable speed, which is nice. It has a half inch chuck, so it fits pretty much all the large size drill
16:18bits. And the nice thing is, is it has a readout to tell you the speed that the drill is actually
16:24turning at so you can set it for the size that you're drilling. And then it also has this little
16:28laser guide so you know exactly where it's going to punch the hole.
16:37Tip for you. You know that the drill is running at the correct speed and the correct pressure
16:44when the chips that come off make these small little spikes. When you get that, perfect speed,
16:49perfect pressure.
16:56Huzzah! All right, now I gotta build the other side.
17:09Over my time of building custom vehicles, I've swapped many engines into
17:13many vehicles that they weren't in there before. I think I've put LSs in basically everything.
17:18I've put Toyota engines in things. I've put Jeep engines in Toyotas. I've done all those things.
17:22I've even put an LS engine in a BMW for my kid, even made it a manual transmission. Don't be a bad
17:28dad. Teach your kid how to drive a stick. But the hardest part about getting an engine to work
17:34inside a modern vehicle is the communication between the engine and the rest of the car. And that is because
17:41modern vehicles use a lot of CAN bus communication. So it's not like the old days where you just
17:46turn the key and 12 volts goes down to the starter and it starts the motor. It doesn't work that way
17:50anymore. Everything it goes through the powertrain control module or ECU or whatever you want to call
17:56it, basically the computer. So when it comes to dealing with one of these modern Jeeps and you want to
18:02get a Hemi underneath the hood, which in my opinion is the best swap and it's because of that communication,
18:08the best place to call is Hotwire Auto. Hotwire Auto will build you a completely new wiring harness with
18:15all new OEM style connectors. They will re-flash the computer to work with your vehicle. They can
18:20even take care of the TCU in the transmission. And the key to all of this is the fact that they
18:26will build this harness, flash the computer and set it all up so everything inside that Jeep works
18:32like it did from the factory. They can build you a harness like this in a hot rod setup. I have that
18:38in a couple other of my vehicles. That basically means you just hook it up to like a 12 volt power
18:42and a ground and you just switch the key and you can run the vehicle. But when you want everything
18:47to work inside the Jeep, gauges, AC requests, all that stuff, you need to have a harness and more
18:54importantly, a company that understands how to make that communication work. And Hotwire can do that for
18:58you. Plus on top of that, they offer great phone support either before, during or after the install.
19:05So if you're planning a project like this, honestly, the first call you need to make is you call Hotwire,
19:09you tell them, hey, I got a Jeep. I'm going to put a Hemi in it. They will tell you what motor to buy,
19:14what transmission to get, what computer to choose from. They'll steer you right, right from the very
19:19beginning. And the best part is in this application, 100% plug and play.
19:35When you're trying to combine basically a Jeep and a rock bouncer, you'd think that the right
19:39decision would be to go with full hydraulic steering. But if it's going to be a dual purpose vehicle like
19:45this, it is nice to have a mechanical connection between the steering wheel and the axle. So that
19:51means that you're going to be wanting to use some type of steering gear. The good news is, is you can
19:55get upgraded steering gears like this bad boy right here, often referred to as a big bore box because
20:00it's much larger in size than a traditional JK steering box and a lot stronger. So this way, we're going
20:06to get that mechanical connection between the steering wheel and the axle, thanks to the steering shaft,
20:11through the sector shaft, down to the pitman arm, and then a drag link down to the front axle.
20:15But at the same time, we're going to get all the additional power of a full hydraulic steering
20:19system because the box has more power and we're going to be adding a cylinder assist cylinder
20:23down to the axle. The frame already has provisions to bolt us into place.
20:27Then there's the last thing we want to check before we make sure that the motor mounts
20:31are where they're going to be.
20:35So we accomplished a lot today by driving this two-door Jeep JK into the shop, completely disassembling
20:59and cutting it into multiple pieces, and now it's completely unusable in any way, which is okay
21:04because that is always the first step in building the perfect off-road vehicle, basically making it
21:10completely unusable for a certain period of time while you throw parts at it and a whole bunch of money.
21:14But the drivetrain's in. 6.4 Hemi, eight-speed automatic, our new frame section, our suspension's
21:19ready to go in. After this, we're ready to sling some serious axles underneath it and get this bad boy
21:24sitting on some 42-inch tall tires. But that is what we'll do next time. Having the CX4 under the hood,
21:30all ready to be plugged in with all the wiring, that is a milestone in itself.
21:35If I had a running Jeep, I could go vroom, vroom, but I don't. Vroom.
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