Vehicular Blogicide
Jeep build update:
I bought Roscoe new in 2011. It's a Jeep Wrangler JKU Sport. The "U" stands for Unlimited and means nothing more than the 4-door model.
I negotiated a hard top and a soft top during the original purchase of Roscoe but sold the hard top two years later for lack of storage room at the house. I will soon install a roof rack and roof top tent, but in order to do that you have to either install one of those external racks that look like they are caging the Jeep or get one of two available systems out there that connect internally, to the roll bars, which require a hard top to be in place. I don't mind the cage look but I am skeptical of the rattling they will invariably develop at some point so I re-bought a used hard top a few months ago (exactly the same style and condition as the one I sold in 2013) for $200 more than what I sold it for. The Rhino-Rack backbone system roof rack is what I'll be installing.
Rhino Rack Pioneer rack example:
Now for the beginning of the transformation. Here's a pic of Roscoe as he was with the soft top for many years. A good looking boy:
Here he is with his new-to-us hard top (with removable Freedom Panels up front that create a nifty open area above the driver and passenger!):
He's all man now and ready to drive over anything that gets in the way. Toshi (Lola's Honda Civic) is so much more in love with him now. (This was news to me...Lola told me that they have an exclusive and complicated homosexual relationship in the carport, but now Toshi's passion has been rekindled since Roscoe went to the doctor to get his penis enlarged.)
Sure. Why not. Roscoe--big and dumb as he is--is a man of the new millennium...tolerant of (and, evidently, party to) alternative lifestyles considered taboo in the past for such an outwardly macho beast.
Yes...flex those muscles, Roscoe. Show Toshi who the man of the house is. Wreck that Japanese tail pipe. Do whatever you want (as long as it's consensual). I support both you and Toshi in all your decisions.
#Jeeptoo.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Xmas has come and gone. Mom got Roscoe some nice new parts and I installed them a few days ago. The first items were Wild Board grab handles. They are handy for monkey-like, dramatic swingings-up and -intos now that he's a few inches taller. They will also make find "oh-shit!" handles, which I understand is their primary function.
She also very kindly gifted a 67 Designs phone holder: a bombproof alternative to all the other shaky, poorly designed phone holders I've had in the past. This thing is rock solid and gives me a place to mount a second arm for the GPS when Lola and I get to places where the phone is unable to tell where I yam. I love it!
Finally, I ordered a Rhino-Rack backbone system Pioneer Platform I found on deep sale for Roscoe so I can move forward with the roof top tent. I found a good deal on it for $1,068. Steep, but solid, low-profile and versatile when it comes to accessories that I may want to add in the future.
It's a good match for the RTT I'm most interested in right now, too, which is the iKamper Skycamp 2X.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Another big bit of vehicular news is that John and I are trailering Reservoir Dog to our hometown of Lakeland, FL. The yard where we stored R Dog is up for sale and the lessors made the mistake a few months back of sending a poorly toned letter to everyone who had a boat there that we'd soon have to go and that in the meantime storage rates were going way up. For now, the land is still up for sale and the yard has lost 25% of it's business. I would have handled that much differently.
Fast forward to today, Lola, Milo, Sophie (a neighbor dog), Roscoe and I picked up the boat and is now in the carport waiting to get hooked up to the back of John's Sprinter to make the long cross-country winter journey to the Sunshine State where it will live out the rest of its years under a barn-like structure, protected from the elements.
My plan is that every few years I will rent the cottage on my beloved Anna Maria Island from Michelle (an old family friend) and trailer R Dog there and sail the hell out of him. I've got plans to circumnavigate the island (scooting south along the gulf side, ducking in to the ICW at Long Boat Pass, then heading back north along the ICW to whereever I can keep it for the week.
The other little voyage I want to make is from Anna Maria out to Egmont Key. Always a great day trip. Egmont Key is a lost little place at the mouth of Tampa Bay where the pilot boats captains who guide the freighters in operate from; it's also a bird sanctuary with some fort ruins from the turn of the 20th century. Dad used to take us there all the time in his various boats, from the Pinfish to the Gotcha to Gin Gizmo. I love that place and took John and Lola there when I chartered Business II (36' Beneteau) out of St. Pete in 2014.
I'd like to take R Dog out across Tampa Bay to Egmont with Lola, Matt (my brother) and Mallory, is daughter (Malanna, his other daughter, is too young, I think. At least for now she is) and hike around the island and picnic there and then sail back to Anna Maria. I don't think Matt's girls have ever sailed. Gotta change that.
This morning I found a sticker from the last Texas 200 John and I sailed. It makes for some fine bling on R Dog's stern:
I bought Roscoe new in 2011. It's a Jeep Wrangler JKU Sport. The "U" stands for Unlimited and means nothing more than the 4-door model.
I negotiated a hard top and a soft top during the original purchase of Roscoe but sold the hard top two years later for lack of storage room at the house. I will soon install a roof rack and roof top tent, but in order to do that you have to either install one of those external racks that look like they are caging the Jeep or get one of two available systems out there that connect internally, to the roll bars, which require a hard top to be in place. I don't mind the cage look but I am skeptical of the rattling they will invariably develop at some point so I re-bought a used hard top a few months ago (exactly the same style and condition as the one I sold in 2013) for $200 more than what I sold it for. The Rhino-Rack backbone system roof rack is what I'll be installing.
 | |||
| Example of external rack cage I did not choose |
Rhino Rack Pioneer rack example:
Now for the beginning of the transformation. Here's a pic of Roscoe as he was with the soft top for many years. A good looking boy:
Here he is with his new-to-us hard top (with removable Freedom Panels up front that create a nifty open area above the driver and passenger!):
Next up was suspension and lift, new tires, new wheels and new TPMS sensors.
Originally I was thinking I would just have 33" tires (two inches larger in diameter than the stock tires) put on the original wheels, but they would end up rubbing against the frame on tight turns, so in order to eliminate that you need to install spacers, which are just more parts that might have something go wrong with them at 80 mph on the highway, so I elected to get a 2.5" lift that would remove the need for spacers, since the larger tires would now clear the rim. If you lift it and plan on adding a bunch of weight for long trips--which is what I'll be doing--you might as well get a beefier suspension while you are at it(buy once, cry once, as they say). With the Jeep lifted, new tires on the old rims would have a peculiar look since although they are now bigger wheels, they aren't any wider, so I elected to get new wheels (aka rims) that would allow tires 30 mm wider. All-terrains, so they work great on the road and on the dirt. This would keep proportions from looking strange.
One expensive thing begets another with this stuff.
This part of the build is by far the most expensive and definitely the most important since everything literally rests on it, so you want to do it right if you are going to do it at all.
The total for the new suspension, the lift, the wheels, the tires and the new Tire Pressure Monitoring system sensors came to $4,228, which is an embarrassingly large amount, but I'm glad I did it in the end. It drives so well and I fell invincible driving inside it. On the upside I was able to sell the OEM wheels and tires for $400, so that's a nice, little refund.
Thanks so much to High Country Performance 4 x 4 for the work and especially to John who re-did about seven invoices until we came to an agreement on the final work to be done. He was invaluable in guiding me toward the things I needed to properly outfit Roscoe for overlanding while keeping the budget reasonable. Yeah, even at $4K+, this was not even close to a high-end job. There are lunatics out there who spend $20K on this kind of job. He even gave me a few hundred dollars off the total. A nice guy.
And a big fuck-you to Steve at Built for Fun 4x4 in Aurora, who was the first person I talked to about the build a few months back when I discovered that the internet has competing ideas on these kinds of things. I told Steve I would like a mid-priced overlanding upgrade for Roscoe and he recommended 35" tires and top-of-the-line everything to make a good rock crawler. Not a great one...just a good one, since Roscoe has a crappy engine in it. That turned me off immediately. I like Roscoe's engine well enough. I haven't had any problems with it. I explained that what he proposed was not at all what I wanted and he continued the hard sell. I left and eventually gave him an appropriate review on Yelp.
I was happy to take my money elsewhere.
So here is Roscoe with his new shoes and bionics, looking svelte and hungry for adv:
Sure. Why not. Roscoe--big and dumb as he is--is a man of the new millennium...tolerant of (and, evidently, party to) alternative lifestyles considered taboo in the past for such an outwardly macho beast.
Yes...flex those muscles, Roscoe. Show Toshi who the man of the house is. Wreck that Japanese tail pipe. Do whatever you want (as long as it's consensual). I support both you and Toshi in all your decisions.
#Jeeptoo.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Xmas has come and gone. Mom got Roscoe some nice new parts and I installed them a few days ago. The first items were Wild Board grab handles. They are handy for monkey-like, dramatic swingings-up and -intos now that he's a few inches taller. They will also make find "oh-shit!" handles, which I understand is their primary function.
She also very kindly gifted a 67 Designs phone holder: a bombproof alternative to all the other shaky, poorly designed phone holders I've had in the past. This thing is rock solid and gives me a place to mount a second arm for the GPS when Lola and I get to places where the phone is unable to tell where I yam. I love it!
Finally, I ordered a Rhino-Rack backbone system Pioneer Platform I found on deep sale for Roscoe so I can move forward with the roof top tent. I found a good deal on it for $1,068. Steep, but solid, low-profile and versatile when it comes to accessories that I may want to add in the future.
It's a good match for the RTT I'm most interested in right now, too, which is the iKamper Skycamp 2X.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Another big bit of vehicular news is that John and I are trailering Reservoir Dog to our hometown of Lakeland, FL. The yard where we stored R Dog is up for sale and the lessors made the mistake a few months back of sending a poorly toned letter to everyone who had a boat there that we'd soon have to go and that in the meantime storage rates were going way up. For now, the land is still up for sale and the yard has lost 25% of it's business. I would have handled that much differently.
Fast forward to today, Lola, Milo, Sophie (a neighbor dog), Roscoe and I picked up the boat and is now in the carport waiting to get hooked up to the back of John's Sprinter to make the long cross-country winter journey to the Sunshine State where it will live out the rest of its years under a barn-like structure, protected from the elements.
My plan is that every few years I will rent the cottage on my beloved Anna Maria Island from Michelle (an old family friend) and trailer R Dog there and sail the hell out of him. I've got plans to circumnavigate the island (scooting south along the gulf side, ducking in to the ICW at Long Boat Pass, then heading back north along the ICW to whereever I can keep it for the week.
The other little voyage I want to make is from Anna Maria out to Egmont Key. Always a great day trip. Egmont Key is a lost little place at the mouth of Tampa Bay where the pilot boats captains who guide the freighters in operate from; it's also a bird sanctuary with some fort ruins from the turn of the 20th century. Dad used to take us there all the time in his various boats, from the Pinfish to the Gotcha to Gin Gizmo. I love that place and took John and Lola there when I chartered Business II (36' Beneteau) out of St. Pete in 2014.
I'd like to take R Dog out across Tampa Bay to Egmont with Lola, Matt (my brother) and Mallory, is daughter (Malanna, his other daughter, is too young, I think. At least for now she is) and hike around the island and picnic there and then sail back to Anna Maria. I don't think Matt's girls have ever sailed. Gotta change that.
This morning I found a sticker from the last Texas 200 John and I sailed. It makes for some fine bling on R Dog's stern:
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