Back in Black, er...

2015 First Update

So, I spoke to Justin yesterday and the new bodies should be at Redline in 3 weeks or so. He's having the supplier pre-fab holes based on his specs, so these bodies are specific to Redline and the FJ-UTEs, which is adding a little time.

A few in the queue ahead of us, we were originally chassis #6, are going to wait until hard tops are ready in the coming month(s?) so a few of us doing soft tops for now, are jumping ahead.  So, we may end up with chassis #3 or #4.  The hard top is supposed to fit, even if we buy it later, so that's the plan.  The idea is to add-on at a future date as budget allows but to get the truck going and in our hands as reasonably as possible.  A few other changes:

• Going to sell the double-DIN sized Pioneer head unit, I use my ipad in a Ram mount so much I don't need the large screen of the Pioneer and the idea of an occasional rain storm catching us off guard...
• Moving to a single DIN unit to be installed inside the supplied Tuffy center console.  Not sure of the make/model yet. So this will keep the dash looking very low tech while also adding a little bit of weather proofing and anti-theft-appeal for the head unit, being hidden from sight.
• The Pioneer is a pre/pro needing an external amp (it hooks up to the LC stock amp in the dash right now) but we'll be ditching that and simply going with the 15W (?) or whatever is in the starter head unit to start.  Here are the specs the new head unit will need:
• Some basic amp inside to power initial 2 speakers
• Pre-Outs, to later go with proper amp/subs**
• ipad input with control
• possibly a marine unit
• additional aux in for ham
• ** subs - ha! no really. The rear seat heater in the series 80 is being retained for the UTE but instead of being under the passenger seat it will go in/under the center console.  Justin has confirmed there is room under both front seats for slim subs, cool.  So the 'front face' of our drawer system may be countersunk to fit an amp/crossover.
• Thinking of doing the speakers up here:

I used to do fiberglass speaker boxes, subs, components, and figure a custom molded fiberglass enclosure for some high-passed components would be pretty cool.  

Some mechanical updates:

• Redline confirms 35" or 37" tires tuck fully into the wheel wells.  For 37" and up, they will be using slightly longer rear control arms, moving the rear axle back a bit.  This will keep it from hitting the front of the interior wheel well when fully articulated, and allows for a slightly longer than originally planned rear drive-shaft (recall, the engine/tranny/t-case are all being moved back several inches to fit the engine inside the smaller bonnet).  
• I'm considering doing a new lower low gear.  Now is the time since the truck will be apart...
• He thinks the J springs I have now will be too stiff in the rear.  The truck is > 1000 pounds lighter thanks to the aluminum body vs. the FZJ80.  But since I have a rear bumper, large tire out back, and I'm building drawers, I may want to see how it feels fully equipped before I swap out the springs.  For now the J springs may need to stay.
• I had Rancho adjustable shocks for many years, ruined them when I forgot to turn the dampening down from my highway ride to Rausch and ran the trails with them fully damped. I got some cheap procomp white things, they were worn out within a year, ah waste of money.  So we're going to price/consider the rebuildable RadFlows for the truck.  Radflow are making a set specific to the UTE thanks to the travel ability of the suspension.  Being rebuildable, custom is ok, since these should be the last shocks I buy, short of bending a shaft.

So, tear down begins this weekend.  So far we've sold the roof rack (Tradesman full size steel unit, very sturdy) and we will be posting updates on the available parts.  We are using www.car-part.com to price things out, quite a range and we're pricing at the low end of their range, trying to help the proces along.  All for now.